Comment by terhechte | Hacker News Reader

Comment by terhechte | Hacker News Reader

I've tried Sublime Text several times, but each time I went back to Vim. The Vintage plugin just does not cut it for me; there're too many things that Vim does, that Sublime cannot do. I couldn't live with EasyMotion, RelativeNumber, the fantastic split window support, Gundo (Undo Tree), and much more.

Regarding the plugins he mentions, I see nothing special, all of that is also available as Vim plugins:

5. Vim Compatibility (Obviously in there)

4. Keybindings in JSON are indeed nice, though imap / and friends in Vimrc are ok, too. Using Vim+Python, one can also write Vim plugins in Python (import vim).

3. Vundle (https://github.com/gmarik/vundle) is a fantastic package manager and reads GitHub repositories likehttps://github.com/vim-scripts. Adding a new package is as simple as doing :Bundle 'vim-scripts/YankRing.vim' :BundleInstall or :BundleSearch foo to find what's available.

The listed plugins: Git -> try Fugitive.vim it is awesome Emmett -> Also available for Vim SublimeLinter -> Syntastic SublimeCodeIntel -> Clang Complete

2. Vim has built-in support for sessions via the :mksession command. Or, just use the session.vim (https://github.com/xolox/vim-session) plugin, because it makes it even easier.

1. There's CommandT (https://github.com/wincent/Command-T), CtrlP (https://github.com/kien/ctrlp.vim), Waldo (https://github.com/jtaby/Waldo), FuzzyFinder (https://github.com/vim-scripts/FuzzyFinder). And most offer much more functionality than just file, directory, or buffer search.

I recently made the switch from Xcode to Vim (I mostly do Objective-C these days) by getting Clang Complete running (http://appventure.me/2013/01/use-vim-as-xcode-alternative-io...) so that I can use Vim full time and not only for web and python stuff. I couldn't be happier.

Just installed this new EasyMotion plugin. Works well!

https://github.com/tednaleid/sublime-EasyMotion

Cool, didn't know about that

Thanks, glad you like it!

I'm curious, but what's your workflow re: Obj-C development? I only dabble, and for me the vim-xcode bindings are enough but mainly because I don't find myself on the command line much during an XCode session. The built-in shortcuts are all easy enough so that I don't have to use the mouse much either except to use interface builder.

Second, can you share a little on your #4? Aside from the aforementioned Obj-C dabbling, I use vim for almost everything. There are so many awesome plugins that do just about everything I could ask for and therefore I have yet to do any plugin writing myself. Having seen the usual complaints around VimL, what's the deal with external scripting support? I compiled with +python and +ruby since that's what I'm familiar with for plugins, scripts, etc. and a few plugins I have did require one or the other but are there any downsides? Most of t-pope's plugins appear to be straight VimL which makes me wonder.

Apologies for being an idiot, but I'd certainly appreciate some enlightenment.

It is less about the command line, and more about being able to use all of Vim's shortcuts and commands. I am magnitudes faster moving through a big code base in Vim than in Xcode. Even the split window support in Xcode sucks. Apart from that I find Xcode bloated and slow. Back in the Xcode 3 days, the speed was reasonable, but with 4 it became slow. Even worse, if you're on battery, Xcode's constant indexing and whatnot will drain the battery really fast. I've just made the switch to 100% vim a week ago, so far everything feels way better, and coding is so much more fun, but I guess I need more time to really assess it.

For plugins, I think it is simply a case for familiarity. If you already know Python and its packages or Ruby and its library inside out, learning another new language, which has no use outside of Vim might seem like not worth it.

Sublime does have a really strong plugin ecosystem, and I reason that this is because it is so much easier to write a new plugin for something that irks you if you don't have to learn a completely new language first. Also, the plugin quality should be better because obviously when you use python every day, the quality of your code is higher than when you just learned VimL and only learned it for this one plugin.

ST also has split window support. http://d2wwfe3odivqm9.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012... or

http://d2wwfe3odivqm9.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012...

etc. You can even define custom layouts.

I've tried them and I found them too constraining. In Vim I can split any window vertically or horizontally just with a command, without ever having to reach for a menu. Also, with the Zoom plugin I can fullscreen any of these, and then go back to the split. I'm pretty sure that Sublime has really good split support, I guess I'm just spoiled by the plethora of options that Vim offers.

You can split with a command in Sublime: cmd+alt+[1,2,3,4,5...]

Also there are plenty of plugins that add shortcuts for arranging/organizing/moving within them.

Don't forget peepopen for the file finder -- thats about the closest thing to sublime texts command+t (it's a separate app that opens up. I love it way more than fuzzyfinder or any of the text based finders)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com