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Must have software for programmers

Programming with Shahan on October 04, 2023

If you're a programmer or thinking about becoming one, having the right software tools can make your job a whole lot easier. These tools help you w...
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vlasales profile image
Vlastimil Pospichal

Where Is Vim, Emacs and Unix Utils?

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araaranomi profile image
Ara Ara no Mi

How many people actually use Vim? It has an unnecessary learning curve for a code editor.

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vlasales profile image
Vlastimil Pospichal • Edited

Vim is the editor for all languages and all texts. No other editor or IDE is need. The learning curve is irrelevant.

Vim use 10 % of developers. Is it enought?

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araaranomi profile image
Ara Ara no Mi

The learning curve is relevant, I don't want to spend days trying to understand a code editor when I could just use VSCode or IntelliJ IDEA and start coding pretty much instantly.

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codewithshahan profile image
Programming with Shahan

Exactly! That's what I think.

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vlasales profile image
Vlastimil Pospichal

I don't want to spend days trying to understand VSCode or IntelliJ IDEA.

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araaranomi profile image
Ara Ara no Mi

That's quite the dumb take, you install these code editors and start coding instantly because you barely need to install any plugin or configuration

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vlasales profile image
Vlastimil Pospichal

Vim works immediately after installation even without plugins and configuration.

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wraith profile image
Jake Lundberg

✋ I do 😊

There is definitely a learning curve, but like much in our world, the investment does have significant benefits.

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araaranomi profile image
Ara Ara no Mi

Which benefit?

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wraith profile image
Jake Lundberg

There are many benefits that come with using Vim. Some of the most notable are:

  • It's available on (almost) all Linux distributions, and can be easily installed on Mac as well. And since many servers are running Linux, you can now have an editor available to you, even if you SSH into a server (you can't do this with VSCode)
  • It's community and plugin ecosystem are both massive. For virtually anything you could want it to do, there is most likely a plugin for it. And if you have questions, you are almost guaranteed to be able to get help.
  • You can completely control it without having to take your hands off the keyboard. Once you get the hang of this, you can become exceptionally fast at most things...AND no more wear and tear on your joints with repetitive movements of switching between mouse and keyboard.
  • It's exceptionally fast, even with massive files.
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araaranomi profile image
Ara Ara no Mi

I don't think wear and tear because of switching between keyboard and mouse actually happens. I don't think these benefits can counteract the learning curve and time to learn Vim.

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wraith profile image
Jake Lundberg

That’s completely fine. Choosing an editor is primarily a personal choice…but as someone who has made that time investment, I believe it was well worth it. But let me just leave you with a couple additional things to consider:

  • many editors like VSCode build in Vim controls. so even though they are their own editor, Vim is considered to be valuable enough to many that it’s controls are worth building into other editors.
  • Vim was released in the early 90’s, so it has withstood the test of time. Very few technologies can claim the same. Perhaps there is indeed a reason?
  • performance matters a lot to many people, and Vim is proven to be exceptionally performant. so while this may not be as important to you, don’t forget to consider what is important to other people.
  • virtually everyone uses shortcuts in many programs and applications. Perhaps a perspective shift could be valuable here by considering Vim as just being controlled via a bunch of keyboard shortcuts.
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Jules

I use vim and it is the best editor so far, I wish to learn Emacs as well though

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araaranomi profile image
Ara Ara no Mi

Why do you consider it to be "the best editor"?

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vlasales profile image
Vlastimil Pospichal

Vim has virtually unlimited capabilities, as a developer can customize it to their own needs using macros and keyboard shortcuts. No other editor has "buffers" that allow you to work with a practically unlimited number of files at the same time. Tabs are usually an unnecessary addition, used by beginners, because they are not practical for hundreds of open files. Programs can be compiled, tested, stepped, etc. directly in Vim. Is there a required feature missing?

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codewithshahan profile image
Programming with Shahan

I found the majority of programmers use Windows or macOS. But of course, these are also popular, as you suggest.

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vlasales profile image
Vlastimil Pospichal • Edited

Unix Utils are for Windows. Who use MacOS? Nobody. MacOS-X is the Unix with the utils, Linux OS too.
Vim and Emacs can be use on all OS.

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codewithshahan profile image
Programming with Shahan

Wow. I didn't know it before. Thanks for sharing this.

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jules_irenge profile image
Jules

Where did you find ?

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hardyweb profile image
hardyweb

I develop system using neovim in linux terminal instead, no need VSCode

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Programming with Shahan

That's amazing. I found that VSCode for web development is much better than other code editors.

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Ben Borla • Edited

This statement depends on who you’re talking to. Yes, for some, VSCode is much better for development. But, note that, others would disagree.

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Maximprogramerxx

I agree in 100%

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alexhackney

I'm actually giving up my personal windows laptop for a Mac m2. Pretty much no reason not to now. Work provided a mbp and I'm starting to be more comfortable with it than Windows. Weird transition though.

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Agent1c

I love Emacs, however it is very complicated for me to real understand it,
Or be comfortableusing it, then I looked over VIM, it is one pleasing especially in Ubuntu.

Yes now am using VS Code, it's just makes life more easier and quick to write your code 😀

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Abhishek Keshri

I can get all my dev work done with a terminal and a web browser, everyone has their own way of working.

Most of the over generalized points mentioned here aren't really a "must have"