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Comment by speed_spread | Hacker News Reader

Let's make one thing clear. I am not avoiding learning vi, I _refuse_ learning vi.

There is no reason in 2021 for to have such terrible discoverability. If it's such a great tool, why did no one see fit making it progressively learnable from within the tool itself?

I see people talking about using vim like some other talk about going to the gym. Great abs, fast editing, but... do you even code, bro?

Unless I'm working on trivial stuff, my crafting speed is rarely limited by my editing capabilities. When it is, it's usually because the code is repetitive and it's time to change it.

High-level language tooling like refactoring and static analysis are way, way more important for medium+ size projects productivity.These are much better served by an actual IDE than some one-off integration with an obtuse editor deriving macho pride from it's 1970's TTY-limited semantics.

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> There is no reason in 2021 for to have such terrible discoverability. If it's such a great tool, why did no one see fit making it progressively learnable from within the tool itself?

vim comes with a tutorial that teaches all the basics from inside vim... It's installed pretty much everywhere, you just have to run vimtutor.

> I see people talking about using vim like some other talk about going to the gym. Great abs, fast editing, but... do you even code, bro?

Why the condescending tone?

Yes I do code, everyday and full time, and vim absolutely increased my focus and productivity.

There is way too much to talk about in a single post, but stuff like macros, showing multiple files at once, (tabs is not the natural way of doing things in vim), viewing multiple parts of the same file at once the native integration with the terminal (just ctrl-x to go back to the terminal and fg back to vim, or execute any command with :! ) are great for productivity when you have to deal with multiple tools.

> High-level language tooling like refactoring and static analysis are way, way more important for medium+ size projects productivity.

I agree, and that's why I use vim. I can do all of that more efficiently in vim because the refactoring tools are way more powerful, and everything is macro-able.

> These are much better served by an actual IDE than some one-off integration with an obtuse editor deriving macho pride from it's 1970's TTY-limited semantics.

Condescending and even insulting tone again... great.

FYI, vim has all the features of any modern IDE. The opposite is not true however.

So I was a flippant because I was answering to this:

> The things people build to avoid learning vi...

As if learning vi was the obvious thing everybody just needs to do. Which is a common attitude within certain circles. "It was hard for me, but I made it through and so should you, with just as much pain, haha".

I was brought into the world of computers with the promise that they would help build a better world, one where the edges of technology get softer as years pass.

vi insisting on menu-less text mode and rote memorization of arcane key combinations negates any progress that was made in the last forty years in software usability. I refuse vi because I believe there _has_ to be a better way of doing things.

Nice trolling. You almost got me there. You have my respect! ;-)

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