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Comment by tokamak-teapot | Hacker News Reader

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tokamak-teapot

The reasons I still use vi-style editing in editors are:

1. Efficiency, so I can be fast

2. Minimal stretching and whole-hand movement, so I don't get painful wrists and so I can be accurate.

Using a keyboard's arrow keys doesn't fit with 2.

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Touch typing essentially. It's such a comfortable way to work. Remapping mode switching to something like jk instead of Esc is vital to stay comfortably in the home row.

I always liked this site to grok some of those vim fundamentals [1] and the touch typing part was going to touch typing exercise webpages and getting pure practice.

- [1] http://learnvimscriptthehardway.stevelosh.com/

I always wonder about the choice of hjkl, because don't people normally rest their hands one row to the left, on jkl;?

It has to do with the codes these keys (used to) emit in combination with Ctrl:

  Ctrl/H - Backspace
  Ctrl/J - Line Feed
  Ctrl/K - Upline
  Ctrl/L - Forward Space

Source - the ADM-3A operator's manual, page 3-5:

https://archive.org/download/lear-siegler-adm-3-a/Lear_Siegl...

That does not really present any argument that we should be teaching your way of working to VIM novices, instead of teaching them the obvious arrow keys first and the hjkl navigation later.

You're right, It presents an argument that we shouldn't teach them 'the obvious' arrow keys at all.

Doesn’t the act of reaching for the mouse actually creates a natural moment of wrist relaxation? A fixed wrist position creates static muscle tension.

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