How (And Why) to Quit Vim

A diatribe about a text editor (because it's not like there's anything else going on in the world rn)

Shoutout to micro, a very slick terminal text editor which didn't fit anywhere in the narrative of the video so I couldn't squeeze in a mention in the script. It's not really what I'm asking for from my dream terminal editor but it's the best one I've found. Also strictly my point isn't that good terminal text editors don't exist, it's that they're not widely available enough to be useful — it's all well and good having the slickest editor in the world installed locally but until it comes by default with standard Linux distros I'm still going to end up in Vim when I've SSH'd into some $4 ARM board or my dirt-cheap webserver.

---

---

---

[AndrewTxp]

According to the analytics thing, someone found this video by searching for "farts on command" and I can only hope it did not answer their question.

[parasharkchari]

As a side note, the Microsoft QBasic editor (which itself also existed as the regular old DOS text editor) also had earlier precursors. A more feature-rich terminal IDE with not only conventional text-editing capabilities, but debugger integration that ultimately became the foundational archetype of every graphical IDE ever made since existed in the DOS terminal in the form of Borland Turbo Pascal and likewise with Borland Turbo C/C++. That existed in DOS at least since 1983...

[TheJamesM]

What I like about Vim is that it's essentially a language: there's a grammar and vocabulary and once you learn that you can compose complex commands and integrate new vocab (e.g. plugins) in a predictable way. And I find it less annoying to use the silly arcane commands than to click around with the mouse. But that's my own sickness - people quite rightly don't expect to have learn a programming language when they launch a text editor. And even after using it for quite a few years now, I'm still haunted by the knowledge that there's probably a more efficient way to do what I'm doing if i could remember some obscure feature.

I wonder if any terminal editor has implemented a VS Code style command palette. That seems to be the way to go for modern software - once the featureset exceeds what can be reasonably remembered by the user, just let them search for what they want to do. Seems like it would work perfectly in text mode. Maybe highlight the shortcut to help the user learn jow to quickly access the features they use the most often, but if it's something you only use once in a blue moon, why bother committing that to memory? Just search for it when you need it.

I'd wager that that's essentially how people use the more arcane text editors, except they have to do their searching in a web browser.

[doublespoonco]

I'm lucky nano came up when I googled how to edit text in the terminal

[joshuarose]

Don't forget g+M to go to the middle of a line, that's a lifesaver when editing latex documents

[achimwasp]

The keyboard shortcuts used by vim were there long before, and are used by many other terminal apps (e.g. more, man (less) etc.). So it's quite useful to know the basics (using hjkl to move within a man page, or / to find something, q to quit). Half an hour of going through vimtutor will go a long way. Changing the OS always means to learn new shortcuts (Cmd-q on OSX, Alt-F4 or sometimes Ctrl-q on Windows ...) if you don't want to risk RSI from using the mouse all the time. That being said, OSX has the most uniform set of keyboard shortcuts across apps, and apps not conforming to those will go to the trash bin. Vim has the same shortcuts across OSs, so I'm glad I can rely on that at least, no matter which platform I happen to be on and even if there's only terminal access.

[atxorsatti]

Glad to stumble this video, I wonder, and model text editors worth it? Or they all just a bunch of complicated, and annoying things to work with? Because as for now, vscode is great

[Anthony-cnll]

micro and ne are a couple good options

[yubbo]

great video, i like your fake netflix series edit

[MrMatheus]

This ENTIRE video falls apart if you ask someone if they prefer using CTRL-C or opening the menu and selecting 'copy'.

[weavermarquez]

Oh hey - another beautiful soul who uses Comic Code! <3