Comment by tracker1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tracker1 | Hacker News Reader

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I have to agree with TFA here... I just don't see the point, and never have. When I'm in an editor, I mainly want to type, and have what I type go in where I type it... I like pico/nano over vi/vim/emacs. I like sublime, but a lot of functionality is only keyboard accessible, and I haven't take n the time to learn hot keys... why I would really love is having my editor, and a couple command/console prompts in the same UI. I find that I tend to reach for sublime, as my former fav (Crimson Editor) was windows only, though I could get it working in WINE, wasn't as friendly, and doesn't work with the windows security model since Vista (I use Win7 at work).

I also appreciate what an actual IDE offers in those environments. I use VS (C#) and WebStorm (NodeJS) more than anything lately.. and wouldn't give them up. I'm impressed when I see people get work done in VIM... I just don't think that way, and don't manage to memorize a bunch of hotkeys I don't use at least 10 times a day. Hard enough keeping the step keys for debugging in different IDEs straight, let alone, more esoteric things.

I don't mean to disregard what you said or insult your approach just because it is different than mine, but I can't tell you how much vim/emacs have boosted my productivity. Not only am I at least 30%+ faster while coding, but in general the process is so well oiled that I have near-0 resistance to just jumping in and getting something done. I jump around in code like crazy, can jump to different files instantly no matter where they are (find-file-in-project), do git stuff (magit), have REPL right there in the editor, replace REPL with some code buffer instantly, set up 4-way split panes and kill them in a split-second, etc. etc.

In my opinion, tooling is very important. You want something that makes you a wizard - something that's smooth and FAST.

I once worked with a very experienced gentleman who preferred Notepad to write 3-page-long SQL queries. He knew his craft very well, got the job done, but boy did he take his time :-)

"near-0 resistance" nails it.

As a Vim user, I consider the whole productivity thing about it quite over-rated. Yes it's efficient, yes it's faster, but in the end, anyone with a decent editor is going to go faster after a while.

The point is comfort. Once vim's mechanics are assimilated, you starts to memorize meaningful sequence of letters, like ci". And those sequences are just words you're typing, so typing code or entering commands is exactly the same thing.

And none of this require going too far frome the home row with your hands. This in my opinion is why Vim is so good :)

I have tried Zen Coding (now called some forgettable name) in several editors, vim, notepad++ and sublime text.

It is much more productive to use it in ST, just because I get immediate feedback. I get the full result in the editor in realtime, just as I'm writing the Zen Coding mantra.

The jump around all folder files in ST? Ctrl-P. It has fast and beautiful fuzzy matching. Do I need to open a file called Module/SuperCalliFractillicious.something? Ctrl-P, mscf, enter. File is opened and the cursor placed wherever it was the last time I edited it. Which could have been months ago.

Git integration? covered in several fronts. Git gutter was first seen in ST.

I do agree that tooling is very important. ST is a serious tool. Do not compare it to notepad.

> I would really love is having my editor, and a couple command/console prompts in the same UI.

OFMs like Far Manager, Midnight Commander or similar might fill that niche. Far does for me, at least and I tend to spend my time editing code either there, in VS or Eclipse, depending on the language and project. But it's more a file manager with an editor (which needs a few plugins to be used for coding) than an editor with a command line.

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