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What’s the deal with vim, that so many are so hyped about it?
Why don’t just use atom or vs code or brackets for example

Comments
  • 24
    It's fast, it can run on lower end machines.
    It runs purely in the terminal, meaning you can use it over SSH.
    It's reasonably light.
    It's like JS, easy to start, hard to master, when you get good you get really fast.
    It comes preinstalled on some OSes.
    It's been around for a while, meaning people who used it in the past will have a hard time switching to another editor.

    That's my two cents anyway 😁
  • 2
    Hey, @teganburns you use vim right?
  • 9
    I've found that while it has a learning curve like running in to a brick wall, once you've gotten in to the head space of how it works, 99% of editing tasks become much faster than most other editors. I have to admit that I started using it because it was what was installed on the servers I worked with at my first job; editing over SSH meant either that or nano. And nano can bite my fat ass.
  • 3
    I love using vim, plugins make it even more powerful. But for me I always use it dependent on what I want to do. Writing a script or editing single files, e.g. configuration files => always vim.
    Coding for bigger projects (in C), an IDE gives many features such as Intellisense etc. which make it often easier to develop with regards to interface definitions etc.
  • 4
    Vim has far better controls than any of the text editors you mentioned. It's also much lighter and insanely flexible.

    As it runs in the terminal you don't even need a graphical desktop in order to use it.

    And all the custom configuration happens in one text file, so you can easily backup all your changes or sync it with other machines.
  • 1
    @SISheogorath what are ctags
  • 1
    @SISheogorath so i.e. intellisense
  • 0
    The console version is better for editing config files.
  • 1
    @teganburns
    Well that was a better explanation than I was expecting 😁🎉
  • 1
    @SISheogorath sure I know that Plugins can enhance the IDE capabilities of vim. You dont even need ctags, vim can autocomplete function/variable names out of the box. But having a big project with multiple modules and files, it is nice the get more information than just the autocompletion, such as function declarations, references etc.
  • 0
    Just curious - any android dev here using vim? I find intellisense of jetbrains products to be the reason I cannot move away from them to learning vim.
  • 2
    @chaddhag I use Vim for almost anything but for Java & Android I use an IDE. And honestly I don't even want to try Java in an editor that can't handle the tons of different imports etc. automatically.
  • 0
    Nobody mentioned Emacs here? I was kinda hoping this would have devolved to "vim vs Emacs" by now..😂
  • 0
    @srp3003 what are emacs and I think the were mentioned
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