Ryan is an engineer in the Sacramento Area with a focus in Python, Ruby, and Rust. Bash/Python Exercism mentor. Coding, physics, calculus, music, woodworking. Looking for work!
Personally, I love Vim for the same reason that some people love raising a banzai tree, or building a toothpick castle. If I've got the time, I like to fiddle.
Sometimes, yes, I just want to knock some code out, or navigate around a big project to get a bird's eye view of everything. At that point, I reach for VS Code.
But, if I've got the time, or what I'm working on isn't super important, I like taking the time to tweak my .vimrc to get things just right. And then, in a couple of days or weeks, I do the next bunch of tweaking. It's fun and it's interesting.
It's relaxing to me to do something small and pointless, but to do it very carefully and to do it right. I don't know. Maybe it's a "when you focus on something small, all of the big stuff fades out for a while" thing.
I think that's the reason I'd recommend Vim to somebody. Not because it's "better than your current editor", not because you'll inherently "be more productive", but because you're interested in learning something new, adding another tool to your toolbelt, and fiddling. And I think that's enough reason to pick it up!
Totally agree. It's like knitting or oragami, but you end up with a cooler workflow each time, instead of a bunch of knick knacks laying around the house.
I think it's the same as dvorak and qwerty keyboards. One can type faster on dvorak, but there is a lot of time invested in learning and practicing. If one have time to invest in Vim, I don't see any reason why not.
I personally think that there is to much programming subjects to learn, that investing much time in text editor is pointless.
It's relaxing to me to do something small and pointless, but to do it very carefully and to do it right. I don't know. Maybe it's a "when you focus on something small, all of the big stuff fades out for a while" thing.
THIS. This so hard. I have NEVER been able to put it into words but oh man, this.
Personally, I love Vim for the same reason that some people love raising a banzai tree, or building a toothpick castle. If I've got the time, I like to fiddle.
Sometimes, yes, I just want to knock some code out, or navigate around a big project to get a bird's eye view of everything. At that point, I reach for VS Code.
But, if I've got the time, or what I'm working on isn't super important, I like taking the time to tweak my
.vimrcto get things just right. And then, in a couple of days or weeks, I do the next bunch of tweaking. It's fun and it's interesting.It's relaxing to me to do something small and pointless, but to do it very carefully and to do it right. I don't know. Maybe it's a "when you focus on something small, all of the big stuff fades out for a while" thing.
I think that's the reason I'd recommend Vim to somebody. Not because it's "better than your current editor", not because you'll inherently "be more productive", but because you're interested in learning something new, adding another tool to your toolbelt, and fiddling. And I think that's enough reason to pick it up!
Emacs does also work well for this purpose.
Totally agree. It's like knitting or oragami, but you end up with a cooler workflow each time, instead of a bunch of knick knacks laying around the house.
I think it's the same as dvorak and qwerty keyboards. One can type faster on dvorak, but there is a lot of time invested in learning and practicing. If one have time to invest in Vim, I don't see any reason why not.
I personally think that there is to much programming subjects to learn, that investing much time in text editor is pointless.
THIS. This so hard. I have NEVER been able to put it into words but oh man, this.
I feel the exact same way. The guy nailed it.