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Comment by globular-toast | Hacker News Reader

Just curious, why are people interested in small editors like this? The only reason I ever use vi/vim is because it's everywhere. If I'm going to install an editor, I'll install Emacs. If it's a remote system I'll simply open the file over SSH with tramp (essentially transparently supports remote editing) and retain the full power and speed of my local Emacs. For TUI editing (like for sudoedit, git commit, C-x C-e etc.) I run Emacs as a daemon so new frames, including TUI frames load instantly, look very close to my Emacs GUI (with nerd fonts, colours and everything) and are literally Emacs. You really don't need to have multiple editors for different use cases.

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I have been a Linux nerd for over two decades, but I never managed to grok vi, it just seems unintuitive. I found Emacs more attractive, and when I ssh into a low-powered device like a router running OpenWRT, Emacs isn’t available so I use the editor that is available and seems intuitive: Nano. (Yes, I know I could also use Emacs with TRAMP, but everyone establishes their own personal workflow.)

This comment isn't meant to knock vi. Obviously it has its fans. But the inability of some hackers to feel comfortable with it is a well-known phenomenon.

Have you ever sat down for an hour and tried to learn?

If you’re familiar with Unix tools a lot of the syntax should be familiar (like string substitutions).

Having been a math tutor in the past, I pretty firmly believe anyone is capable of learning the basics of how to use vim.

It’s either a lack of effort or a learning disability, not much in between.

It’s really not hard to memorize a few keyboard shortcuts for most people who are proficient with computers.

Just because you can doesn't mean you want to. There's alternatives.. if OP doesn't like vi's bindings why would you insinuate they're lazy or have a learning disability?

For my 2c, I did invest the time and know my way around vim fairly well. I still prefer micro.

Not everyone is interested in a humongous editor with a steep learning curve. Some people just want to quickly edit a file.

You can use this with the knowledge you have already of windows notepad or mac simpletext and it will work on a busted or server machine with only a unix console.

It also works where you don't have ssh to tunnel files, which is true for many servers in many professional environments.

> Not everyone is interested in a humongous editor with a steep learning

Then why using a TUI editor at all? Each time nano was opened because of some default settings, I saw this whole bottom bar with shortcuts. It sure doesn't seems to be easy to learn either.

I use micro as git commit/rebase editor. It's handy to be able to do multiline commit messages and interactive rebases without leaving the terminal.

> I saw this whole bottom bar with shortcuts. It sure doesn't seems to be easy

Sounds easier than not seeing a bottom bar with shortcuts.

Why not? Usually it’s because you don’t have a GUI available. But also great for a quick edit with sudo. Ctrl+S, Ctrl+Q FTW.

I don’t understand why so many people in these comments are claiming text editors are “hard” to learn.

Software engineers that went to college have taken Calculus, Physics, and other advanced courses that can be very hard for many to learn.

The reality is that memorizing a few keyboard shortcuts is not in fact hard. It’s something that can take time, and you might not like the shortcuts, but it’s not hard.

If you want to use powerful tools, you’re going to have to learn how to use them. There’s no way around this.

You’re in the wrong thread. Normal folks outnumber developers 100 to 1.

Not to mention, some of that dev group prefer that their small editor have the same keybindings as their full dev environment and entire OS for that matter. No mode switching needed.

I don't get this either. You watch a skilled tradesman work and he'll use all manner of tricks he's learnt over the years. His tools will do most of the work, he just gently guides them in the right direction. Then I'll see developers not even using tab completion in a shell. It's almost like tooling has to shout at them (like underlining errors etc) out of the box before they'll interact with it. It's so strange.

It's funny because `emacs -Q -nw` loads instantly on my very modest system and supports pretty much everything `nano` does immediately. You can move around with arrows, you can just start typing etc.

The one thing it's missing is telling you how to save and close the file etc... Makes me wonder if a nano-style help bar with super-simple key bindings would be a useful default bundle for Emacs.

`emacs -Q` seems to load even faster, somehow, and that's the full graphical version if you have a window system.

> interested in small editors like this

Not really interested in small editors like this.

Very interested in small editors like* nano, for this root comment reason:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37173126