commit d6ea4e805665d302809aca2880f54732f5130301
parent e00f5af57f3986baac862b02676de16d66bbc2b0
Author: Oscar Benedito <oscar@oscarbenedito.com>
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2020 17:17:06 +0200
New entry: what is this vim talk all about?
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+---
+title: "What is this vim talk all about?"
+slug: "what-is-this-vim-talk-all-about"
+categories: "Technology"
+tags: [
+ "FOSS",
+ "Software"
+]
+date: 2020-08-09T15:16:00+00:00
+---
+
+Oh no! Another [vim][vim] post! Well... yes. I have seen a lot of people
+criticizing vim before even trying it, so I am going to try and explain my
+history with it and what I like about it. If you aren't aware, vim is a text
+editor that is normally used from the command line (and, normally, the mouse
+doesn't work in it or is deactivated).
+
+## Getting into vim
+
+When I first saw people that got around a computer with the keyboard, I realized
+how much faster you can do stuff when you don't use your mouse. By that time, I
+used the copy/cut/paste shortcuts and that was pretty much it, I didn't even use
+`Alt`+`Tab` to change between windows, so I was mindblown when I saw people
+moving around so quickly without touching the mouse. For me, the keyboard was
+simply a tool to write text.
+
+Although I realized that being more familiar with the keyboard would make me
+more efficient, it was hard to get used to it. I had to think before every
+keystroke, and everything was very slow. GNU/Linux helped a lot with getting
+more used to the keyboard, not only did I use a couple more shortcuts, but I
+also found myself using the terminal often.
+
+At some point, a friend introduced me to vim. I remember[^memory] seeing such a
+weird program—and in the terminal!—and thinking: why would anyone use that?! I
+was told that there were a lot of shortcuts, and experienced programmers could
+move through a file very quickly with it, as well as do complex operations with
+the file contents. I believed it, but I didn't want to spend years mastering
+vim, so I kept going with a simpler text editor. A couple of months later, I had
+a programming class where the teacher would sometimes show us his screen while
+writing solutions to exercises. He was fast, very fast. He moved around the file
+very quickly and the craziest part was that he was using Geany. All that speed
+was reached with `Home`, `End`, arrow keys, etc. No *real* shortcuts. I think
+that is the point in time when I understood what a program focused on keyboard
+shortcuts (like vim) had to offer.
+
+[^memory]: This is how I remember it, but it was—I think—three years ago, so it
+ might not be completely accurate.
+
+Since then, I have tried vim many times and, truth be told, it is hard to start
+with. I also didn't code a lot during certain times, and when I had to, I just
+wanted to get stuff done, so finding times to figure out vim wasn't as easy.
+Another friend recommended using vim when editing Latex files because of a
+plugin. I was creating Latex documents for some classes so I used vim for a
+while to edit those files[^tex]. This is how I started to be able to do some
+things in vim. I eventually started managing servers and used it more and
+finally, at the start of the confinement, I decided to use it exclusively. It
+took some time adjusting to it, but I haven't opened any other editor except for
+a couple of occasions.
+
+[^tex]: The plugin is really nice (especially when writing big amounts of text),
+ but I was so uncomfortable with vim that I would write everything in vim and
+ then edit/review it with a different editor.
+
+## What I like about vim
+
+The first thing that I like is that it is a modal editor, meaning it has modes:
+you are always on one mode, and the editor responds differently to keypresses
+depending on the mode. The two most basic modes are normal and insert. Insert
+mode responds to keypresses like you would expect from a text editor: if you
+press `x`, an `x` is appended to the file you are editing, and so on. Normal
+mode, however, will not print the letter you just typed. For instance, if you
+press `x` the letter under the cursor will be deleted, and if you press `w` the
+cursor will move to the first character of the next word. This is great because
+there are a lot of shortcuts on normal mode that are incredibly useful, and let
+you move around the document without the need of leaving the [home row][hr] or
+pressing modifier keys.
+
+Now, normal mode has a ridiculous amount of shortcuts, each key has some
+behavior assigned to it, so it can be hard to learn it all. In the end, it is
+only a matter of practice and it is easier than it looks like. On top of that,
+these shortcuts act like a language, which makes them really powerful. With
+that, I mean that shortcuts can be mixed to create new shortcuts. It is hard to
+explain and there are a lot of explanations online, so I will refer you to two
+sources, and you can keep investigating if you are interested:
+
+- [Your problem with Vim is that you don't grok vi][so]: A very detailed Stack
+ Overflow answer.
+- [Mastering the Vim Language][yt]: A YouTube video of a talk in the Boston Vim
+ Meetup of 2015 by Chris Toomey.
+
+This is it for me. The fact that you can do so many things with the keyboard
+without the need to keep `Ctrl` or `Alt` pressed and do them in such a natural
+"language" is what makes vim the best editor I have tried so far. Of course, you
+can make other editors behave like vim ([vi][vi] really), but vim is the best
+one I've tried. Well... I actually use [neovim][nv], but for my use-case, I
+probably wouldn't be able to tell them apart.
+
+## Final comments
+
+There are still a lot of things left for me to learn about vim, especially when
+dealing with a project with lots of files, but I am now more comfortable with
+vim than with a normal editor where you move around using the mouse.
+
+As you can see from this post, what I appreciate the most of vim is how it
+behaves, so I could easily change to another editor that would copy this
+behavior and add other features. It is useful that it is run on the terminal, as
+it is normally how I move around the computer, but I don't have anything against
+other editors. I also want to try [Emacs][emacs] again at some point (with [Evil
+mode][em], of course), we'll see how that goes!
+
+
+[vim]: <https://www.vim.org/> "Vim"
+[hr]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_row> "Home row — Wikipedia"
+[so]: <https://stackoverflow.com/a/1220118> "What is your most productive shortcut with Vim? — Stack Overflow"
+[yt]: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlR5gYd6um0> "Mastering the Vim Language — Youtube"
+[vi]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi> "Vi — Wikipedia"
+[nv]: <https://neovim.io/> "Neovim"
+[emacs]: <https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/> "Emacs"
+[em]: <https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil> "Evil mode — EmacsWiki"
