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Users of Vim and similars, what exactly makes it useful compared to other text editors? How much time do you suppose you save when working with it? (programming.dev)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'd like actual examples instead of "I work faster", something like "I can move straight to the middle of the file with 7mv" or "I can keep 4 different text snippets in memory and paste each with a number+pt, like 2pt", things that you actually use somewhat frequently instead of what you can do, but probably only did once.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Where editors usually have editing shortcuts, vim has an editing grammar.

So you can copy (or select, or replace, or delete, or any other editing verb) N arguments or blocks or lines or functions or any entity for which vim has an editing noun, or around or inside either of these, and you only need to remember a few such editing verbs and nouns and adjectives in order to immediately become much more effective.

It's so effective that switching back to a regular editor feels annoyingly clunky. (I guess that's why many offer vim plugins these days.)

Better: you can record entire editing sentences and replay them. Ever had to make the same change on dozens of lines? Now you can do it in seconds.

Now of course, replaying a sentence, or several sentences, is also a sentence of its own that you can replay in another file if you want.

It's neat. :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

This is the comment that best explains it for me. I started with vim for comfort (less movement to mouse, and less reliance on modifier keys). The editing grammar is something I didn't really understand until I started gradually using it, but now it's the thing I most appreciate. I don't know if I'm necessarily faster in vim, but my work is more fluid. The editing doesn't interrupt my thinking as much.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Honestly the best bit is just not feeling the need to take my hand off the keyboard and use the mouse. I don't think I can quantify the time saved, but I can tell you I really notice when I'm using software that makes me have to switch.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Yeah when my hand goes to the mouse it feels like I've broken a combo or streak. Like I've switched from an active to a passive mode. The mouse is for clicking and scrolling, like reading email and webpages

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Its not so much about the time saved its about being allowed to stay in a mental state of flow since all actions in Vim and similars are built from foundational navigation language chunks. It feels less like editing and more like communicating. All these random little "I can do this command" is just people trying to show examples of how the language of editing to do weird and interesting things. So the answer isn't so much "I work faster" in Vim as it is "I work with less mental overhead in Vim"