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Discussion on: What Alternative Text Editors Does DEV Use? (Not VS Code 🐱‍👓)

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dylanjha profile image
Dylan Jhaveri

I still use vim :) with my own set of plugins managed by vim-plug.

ctrlp and nerdtree are my top two essential plugins.

I think the best way to get started with vim is the hard way, to copy settings and plugins one at a time from example vimrcs and understand each line that is going on. It takes more work, but I actually love being in full control of my editor.

I must admit, though 🙈 every once in a while I open up VSCode, usually it is only if I'm working in a large unfamiliar project. When there are lots of directories and files and I don't know the project structure, VSCode makes it a little easier for me to search and grep around.

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codenutt profile image
Jared

I think the best way to get started with vim is the hard way

agreed.

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geeksesi profile image
Mohammad Javad Ghasemy

it's not harder than emacs

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Jacob Herrington (he/him)

That's probably true, but I like to introduce people to Vim inside of VS Code with the VIM extension. It's a great way to let people get their feet wet without committing a lot of time.

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codenutt profile image
Jared

I like that idea. It didn't work for me, though. I would fall back to what I knew and avoid using Vim motions. To me, it's like learning any language...immersion is key.

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Dawood Feyard M. Kaundama

That's true Jared, I will also give it a try, the hard way.

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John Oerter • Edited

I'm also a Vim user and totally agree that you have to learn it the hard way. I've tried to take shortcuts, but I've found that all the time I've invested reading the help and actually learning the ins and outs of how Vim works has been well worth it.