Hacker News Reader

Comment by sureglymop | Hacker News Reader

That honestly sounds exhausting.. like, just thinking about it, what if they have set their own keyboard shortcuts? I feel like ones "workstation" or "setup" is always too individual (and that's good). Who are you to know that they don't know about a certain editor feature and just don't like to use that in their workflow?

And why does one even need to know vim at this point in time? Don't get me wrong, i know and use vim daily but does it differentiate me in any way from someone who uses nano or micro or whatever editor they have in their workflow? Not at all.

View on HN

I am mentoring Junior Developers, working students, trainees and interns who are at the very beginning of their career, they don't have _their_ setup yet. I watch them do something very tedious, and then I point out that there is a shortcut or IDE function for that. They have always been grateful, so far.

> And why does one even need to know vim at this point in time?

I was thinking about this a lot last night. I have learned drumming, bass guitar, guitar and I am learning piano now, so I may not be an authority on practicing, but I know that practice usually leads to a certain degree of improvement.

And very early in my career, I also practiced coding, more specifically I practiced using the IDE, and later I practiced using vim.

Both of these things give me confidence in the "writing and editing" aspects which let me focus on the other aspects of coding, like the abstract/ideas and the stack.

So I don't think it's important to know about vim, but it is important to at some point have deliberately practiced with the tools one uses daily for years to come.

What does it hurt to tell someone about a feature they could be using, especially if you're mentoring? If they don't want to, they'll tell you and that's fine, but they need to be aware of it in the first place to make that choice, and the assumption that other people know the same things as you is often wrong.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com