this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
886 points (94.1% liked)

linuxmemes

20916 readers
2201 users here now

I use Arch btw


Sister communities:

Community rules

  1. Follow the site-wide rules and code of conduct
  2. Be civil
  3. Post Linux-related content
  4. No recent reposts

Please report posts and comments that break these rules!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 135 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Once you try Vim you will never use another text editor. Or any other program for that matter because you won't be able to exit.

[–] davidgro 32 points 5 days ago (6 children)

I also had that experience with emacs, which has a built in help system. I couldn't find a topic on 'exit' or 'quit' and refused to just search online.

Took me half an hour.

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Vim is a puzzle based text editor

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

Funny you should say that, because...

https://vim-adventures.com/

[–] AVengefulAxolotl 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Exactly, it is lovely. Editing text with it is actually enjoyable.

[–] renzev 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The dopamine rush when you nail a complicated %s regex search-and-replace first try is insane

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago

Performing all those whacky movements and operations is nothing short of an arcade gaming experience.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 5 days ago (11 children)

If I wanted to hear about what's good about Vim, should I:

a) ask what's good about vim

-OR-

b) assert blindly that there is nothing good about vim so fanboys will come crawling out of the walls tripping over each other to tell me how I'm wrong?

[–] [email protected] 57 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Doesn't matter we will tell you either way.

  • Instead of simply shortcuts, vim uses "chords". Every new shortcut I learn can be combined intuitively* with all the other shortcuts I know.
  • Because of this there's no faster way to edit files than Vim in the hands of an experienced user.
  • this let's me spend almost no time editing code, freeing up the rest of my time for swearing at piss poor documentation.

* I use "intuitively" here in a way that not merely stretches, but outright abuses the definition of the word.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Thank you for telling me all this neat stuff! :D

I think I get what you are intending to imply by the word "intuitively"; it's that it eventually becomes as reflexive and fluid as touch-typing itself.

Gosh you make it sound almost like you play Vim like an instrument more than use it...!

Honestly that sounds cool ^_^

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 days ago (5 children)

tl;dr: Run vimtutor, learn vim, enjoy life

It's extremely powerful, for mostly the same reason that it's incomprehensible to newbies. It's focused not on directly inputting characters from your keyboard, but on issuing commands to the editor on how to modify the text.

These commands are simple but combine to let you do exactly what you want with just a few keypresses.

For example:

w is a movement command that moves one word forward.

You can put a number in front of any command to repeat it that many times, so 3w moves three words forward.

d is the delete command. You combine it with a movement command that tells it what to delete. So dw deletes one word and d3w deletes the next three words.

f is the find movement command. You press it and then a character to move to the first instance of that character. So f. will move to the end of the current sentence, where the period is.

Now, knowing only this, if you wanted to delete the next two sentences, you could do that by pressing d2f.

Hopefully I gave a taste of how incredibly powerful, flexible, yet simple this system is. You only need to know a handful of commands to use vim more effectively than you ever could most other editors. And there are enough clever features that any time you think "I wish there was a better way to do this" there most certainly is (as well as a nice description of how).

It also comes with a guide to help you get over the initial learning curve, run vimtutor in a console near you to get started on the path to ~~salvation~~ efficient editing.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 days ago (4 children)

You shouldn't talk about vim at all! Just write that vscode is the most flexible code editor.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago

there is no text editor there is only nano

[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Anytime I open Vim I ask the same question.

"how the fuck do I use you?"

then go back to nano

repeat.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 days ago (14 children)

Have you tried micro? Nano but better.

load more comments (14 replies)
[–] [email protected] 51 points 5 days ago (9 children)

nano just works for me man

load more comments (9 replies)
[–] ikidd 31 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (5 children)

I do everything with cat, sed and awk.

Fuck your TUIs.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 36 points 5 days ago (6 children)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

How did these people have "text editor wars" and yet failed to deliver a text editor half as good as microsoft's edit.com ?

I'm sorry nano, you're think you're hot ?

But you put search on CTRL+W !!!

Do you know how stupid that is ?

Just go and try that in your browser ...

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 42 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

alias vim=nvim
alias vi=nvim
alias nano=nvim
alias emacs=nvim
alias code=nvim

export EDITOR=nvim
export VISUAL=nvim
export PAGER=nvim

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] kaffiene 11 points 4 days ago

You're entitled to your wrong opinion

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 days ago

I've no choice coz I haven't been able to quit for last 7 years.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] rain_worl 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

bash: found the mobile user

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago

This incident will be reported!

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

NANO GANG RISE

for everything else, there's sublime.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I tend to work on customer systems where I'm not allowed to install anything. I've yet to encounter one that doesn't have vi installed, but I've seen a few without nano.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago (5 children)

vi is part of the POSIX standard, so it'll be available in some form on almost anything UNIX-flavoured

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] regeya 13 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I'm gonna laugh my ass off if someone finds out there was some obscure Emacs fork or clone designed to run Clojure or something, and it's named Again

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 days ago (2 children)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] 9point6 22 points 6 days ago (4 children)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] Klear 23 points 5 days ago (3 children)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] dezmd 17 points 5 days ago (5 children)

The only Dad advice you nerds need:

mcedit from the Midnight Commander (mc) tool is the superior text editor.

I don't even run arch, btw.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›