Ask HN: Please send nonzealot opinions about (n)Vim and its future

bartq · 2023-06-22T12:40:56.000Z

I've been trying to understand Vim recently. I can see how comfortable it can be to navigate codebases, keep fingers on home row. Of course by not using physical ESC but Ctrl+] or jj/jk and having swappped Ctrl with Caps Lock. And of course with using leader key and not reaching for Shift+: to enter commands. I was playing with AstroVim with many plugins preinstalled and honestly I'm not interested in writing Lua scripts at all. Please don't tell me I'm not "target user of NeoVim", because it's like saying water is wet or stones are solid. Highest possible configurability is already possible in Emacs which I'm more inclined to pursue using lisp language inside live programmable environment.To the point: isn't modal editing overrated and actually universal? Pressing caps lock moves editor into "caps lock mode", shift/ctrl/alt/cmd lifts editor into shortcuts mode, pressing ModKey+F transitions into search mode etc. In Vim in normal mode I actually keep my left pinky on Ctrl (caps lock) key while with my index fingers I create chords with d/u/f/b to navigate. Pinky fatigue was meant to be a selling point of ergonomics of Vim motions, but it's actually not gone. Ergonomics can be even better realised with ergonomic keyboard, thumbs clusters and keyboard level programmable layers. I'm very comfortable in VSCode using Emacs keybingins plus my custom ones which allow me to not leave home row do to anything I need.If it comes to smart selection inside word, paragraph, fn body etc - it's better handled by plugins like treesitter which actually understands AST without different ant algorithms crawling characters in unknown to me ways and trying to find edges.One thing which you can argue is superior in modal editing is commands accumulation where you press 'd' and subsequent keystrokes build up a command waiting to be executed with a final key. This of course is powerful, but not discoverable and with no undo when you make a mistake. All accumulated keystrokes can't be reified (seen as an object) so they can't be further programmed. It's flat abstraction meant to be used in one certain way. Things which would be more interesting is search inside search on arbitrarly deep level with undo, backtracking, taking other branch with keeping previous branch etc. All this is more similar to Smalltalk actually.Can anyone confirm or deny the modal editing had high meaning in early days of teletypes where it was easier to send single keys instead of chords?Anyway, I have impression the (n)vim is great attention sink on which you can spend weeks/months/years and get amazing proficiency and reach some local maximum, but in general it's nothing different from what we had elready long time ago in 1976.Yes, I know popular youtubers (especially THE most popular one) talking about vim and I've seen what they do with their fingers.I'd like also to apologize for unorganized shape of this post, it's brain dump spanning different subjects. I also don't consider myself a power user of (n)vim at all.Please don't try to bite me for criticism, I have intention to understand ideas underlying different editors and how to progress creating the next editor of course taking best features of all already existing ones. (n)vim is an amazing effort and made life of many people just better by not having to use popular editor of the year which can get destroyed by corporate incentives.

bitwize 2 years ago |

As I like to say, Vim is the best of both worlds because it combines vi's legendary ease of use with the small footprint of Emacs. :)

People like vim because they get used to the commands. It will take effort and practice for you to get used to vim's way of working and arcane command set. But that's true of every editor. It's certainly true of Emacs, which I use most often for programming, and it's even true of Visual Studio Code. I find the hill I need to climb to reach a proficiency plateau in VSCode is just too steep, and said plateau is not as high as it would be in Emacs because I can automate and extend Emacs as I use it... so I end up harrumphing back to Emacs every time I try giving VSCode a serious chance.

It's up to you to decide whether the power of vim is worth the effort to learn it. It's probably not going anywhere no matter what you choose. Just use what you feel comfortable with and don't worry about the greener grass in some other editor's yard.

> I have intention to understand ideas underlying different editors and how to progress creating the next editor of course taking best features of all already existing ones.

Master Foo would like a word...

https://www.catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/editor-wars.htm...

kjs3 2 years ago |

I have intention to understand ideas underlying different editors and how to progress creating the next editor of course taking best features of all already existing ones.

Awesome. Another next editor, also amalgamating the "best features" (surely, something trivial to objectively measure /s) of all that have come before. Guaranteed to make all of us troglodytes opine "how could I have wasted my life editing text with stone tools like 'vi'...all is dust now".

I guess it's that time of the week.

IMO...people don't choose an editor because it has the most checkboxes in the 'cool feature' column; most people use the editor they got used to (for many reasons) and invested in learning. Outside of navel-gazing, things like modal v non-modal aren't something to be proven 'best' or 'worse', they're 'what you are used to'. For a lot of us, we're used to vi. For others (the heretical ones), it's emacs. I hear there are others. Changing editors, relearning all those habits, is hard, or at least time consuming. I guess there are people who switch editors like socks (or fad programming languages), but I can't imagine taking that kind of downtime from real work.

For me, I've been using a vi-ish editor since the mid-80s. It's second nature, muscle memory for 90% of my text-slinging needs, most efficient for me at getting text out of my head and into the computer, and mostly just out of my way. I'm not going to switch to another editor because it has shiny new 'abstractions', because it has a cooler scripting language, and gawd knows not because of what anyone on youtube thinks. If you create a better 'vi', which works exactly like my brain/fingers expect 'vi' to work, but somehow rocks my world better than the incumbent, then maybe I'll take a peek. Otherwise, don't be surprised if the reaction is something like "oh...new buzzword packed editor that doesn't work like the one I use every day. Quaint. Have fun with that.".

asciimov 2 years ago |

Are you a chatbot? This is so disjointed and not ~write~ right.

In good faith, I'll assume your a real person asking questions.

> I was playing with AstroVim with many plugins preinstalled and honestly I'm not interested in writing Lua scripts at all.

First, I am not a fan of text editor distros. Sure its nice to see what is possible, but they get in the way of helping you discover the text editor and how it can work for you. Also, for many in the vim space, that distro wont be available on many of the machines you touch.

If you don't like Lua you get to learn vimscript. And if you really feel Lua gets in the way, go back to standard vim.

> isn't modal editing overrated and actually universal? [...]

Modal editing isn't for everybody. It provides a different way to think about text editing. There are different reasons to prefer modal editing, from expanded access to commands, to task focus, to just knowing that your not gonna accidentally put in some text while not in insert mode.

The rest of what you describe isn't modes in the vim sense. Those are just chords and short-cut keys.

Don't leave your pinky on the caps lock key that stretches your hand out unnaturally. The whole home row thing is about keeping your hands in a comfortable neutral position. If that doesn't work for you find a position that does.

> I'm very comfortable in VSCode using Emacs keybingins plus my custom ones which allow me to not leave home row do to anything I need.

Then by all means, stick with VSCode and/or emacs. Nobody is forcing you to learn vim are they?

> [...] not discoverable and with no undo when you make a mistake.

Yes it is well known that vim's command keys are hard to learn. It is best to learn what you need and not worry about the rest. I've forgotten tons of vim over the years because I just don't use it often enough. Fortunately looking stuff up is easy these days.

Not sure why you claim vim has no undo, it built in undo/redo and it works nicely. (u and ctrl-r in command mode) Maybe you mean you can undo mid command sequence? In that case it would be better served to bail out and try again.

> It's flat abstraction meant to be used in one certain way. [...]

Vim is already difficult enough with it's "flat abstraction" of commands. It would be infinitely more complex introducing any sort of command backtracking and branching.

> Can anyone confirm or deny the modal editing had high meaning in early days of teletypes where it was easier to send single keys instead of chords?

It comes from the days of the teletype and 300 baud modems (that's 300 bits a second). Minimizing commands was important because the bandwidth wasn't available to be fast and verbose. Throwing up a chord was an extra text character to be sent and interpreted.

If you want to play with this kind of experience go try out the program ed.

> Anyway, I have impression the (n)vim is great attention sink on which you can spend weeks/months/years and get amazing proficiency and reach some local maximum

Yes, the maximum is what commands you regularly use. People tend to forget the things they don't need to know. The secret to learning vim is just learn what you need and be aware of what it can do, so its easier to search for it later.

> but in general it's nothing different from what we had elready long time ago in 1976.

Isn't it funny that they had text editing figured out in the 70's? But why wouldn't they, it was what those systems were designed to do.

> Yes, I know popular youtubers (especially THE most popular one)

This is vague, who do you mean? Lots of youtubers out there and I'm not sure MrBeast ever uses Vim.... doesn't seem on brand for him.

It's best to not worry about other people. Lots of people like to show off and that can be quite discouraging for people trying to learn a new skill.