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Comment by emerongi | Hacker News Reader

Vim has soul. It is that chisel you inherited from your grandpa that you keep using. It fits well in your grip and is comfortable, even though it lacks the soft rubber that the new ones in the store have. It's a tool with its own history.

Reading the comments here, it seems that the hacker's mentality still lives on. The new young billion-dollar company will be replaced in another 10-20 years. Vim lives on. I wish to build a Vim of my own one day.

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A slight difference though. If a newbie picks up grandpa's chisel, it doesn't get glued onto their hand until they google the three magic words they must shout to make the chisel come off.

I understand your metaphor but I think it's probably a stretch.

Maybe it's better to say the tool has sharp edges that if you aren't familiar with it, can bite you. But with a bit of practise and some knowledge you can master it.

It's not a stretch that practically everybody who accidentally ends up in vim (often because it's git's default editor) ends up googling how to exit the program. It's the tool that you can't even drop by any intuitive action.

Closing the terminal app is pretty intuitive to me.

Restart your computer if all else fails

Maybe also set fire to the computer to make double sure.

Its a terminal program, most people don't know how to deal with those when starting out.

The beginning screen of vim tells you how to exit.

If you do C-c, as normally is the case with TUI programs, Vim also tells you how to leave.

The "I don't know how to exit Vim" is a bit overplayed.

This is true of the original vi but not of modern vim, where both the landing page and the message shown on ctrl+c clearly state how to exit. ctrl+c will also exit insert mode, so you don't need to know about modes or the escape key.

Of course it is possible that one might not think of using ctrl+c, but that's lacking general shell knowledge, not vim knowledge.

At least it forces you to find and read the documentation.

Yes, which “grandpa’s chisel” doesn’t require from you.

Maybe it should. Chisels can be dangerous.

It's like the phial of Galadriel: a light for you in dark places when all other lights go out

That’s a great way to put it. Who are you?

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