It's called vim.

I think he means that we need editors that are powerful AND easy to use.

Seems like vim isn't really for someone like me (I haven't studied PhD level computer science and I don't write compilers and/or lisp interpreters in my spare time for fun).

I taught Linux Admin courses before I graduated high school, and the first order was learning vim. If you have a mac, 'vimtutor' is available to you.

vim has nothing to do with PhD-level CS or writing compilers and/or lisp interpreters. The Emacs community might fit that stereotype a little more but really not much more.

Vi (vim being 'vi improved') is great because it works on basically any terminal. It works with my iPad's keyboard and with a teletype terminal from the 70s or 80s, as well as a normal PC keyboard. Emacs has similar brags.

The terminal's not going anywhere and if you like keyboard shortcuts, knowing five or ten that will work on any keyboard in existence for an editor that is on most unix systems you'll find has some value.

I was being a smartass, which was uncalled for. Sorry, Angersock!

Also, I do have a mac, so maybe I'll check out vimtutor.

My point is that I'm very new to programming, and it's so much easier for me to load up Sublime Text and start getting work done. At least for now, learning vim would be something that get's in the way of learning/making. It also doesn't seem like the benefits would outweigh the cost.

I started using vim when I had first started to learn to program. I'd say give it a shot if for no other reason than it's an interesting paradigm shift, and can be really effective.

I'd say give Vintage mode on sublime a shot. It does the basic keybindings/motions of vim and will give you an idea of whether or not you might be interested in it. It's also nice because in insert mode it's basically just normal sublime, so you can just switch back to that if you get frustrated.

Are you on linux, osx, windows, or something else?

If you use vim/vintage mode, remap capslock to be escape.

This took me forever to figure out, for whatever reason, but if you're on windows, the easiest thing to do is get autohotkey [1] and write a script with one line:

Capslock::Escape

You can compile that to a portable binary and use it anywhere as well. It's really straight forward.

I also added two keybindings to make Alt+movement to add cursors above and below: { "keys": ["alt+k"], "command": "select_lines", "args": {"forward": false} }, { "keys": ["alt+j"], "command": "select_lines", "args": {"forward": true} },

It doesn't always interact naturally with vintage/vim mode, though, but that was just a personal preference.

[1] http://www.autohotkey.com/

> Vi (vim being 'vi improved') is great because it works on basically any terminal.

Then one day you're riding herd on a flock of zLinux images and troubleshooting boot problems through a 3270 terminal with (s)ed as your only friends.

wow, thanks for the heads up on vimtutor! I've attempted the Emacs tutorial several times and I think this is a lot easier to learn.

We'll see if one of these console editors finally sticks.

Writing a Lisp interpreter isn't that hard and can be fun!

I think you are biased. I've seen countless PhD-less, unixbeard-less people use vim. And emacs...

Not to get on vim tangent but it's very easy to learn vim slowly. If you use a gui like MacVim you can still use cmd+s to save, etc. and use it like a normal editor. The only thing you are really required to know is the difference between normal and insert modes.

Yeah, I understand what you're saying. It's just hard for me to justify (to myself) learning vim (or emacs, or vi, or whatever) when I can just load up Sublime Text and start working on something.

Put another way: working with Sublime Text and Adobe Brackets is a good experience for me... There's nothing that screams out at me "Man, this sucks, I need to go learn vim."

Fair enough, can't blame you for that. If you ever start wanting to administer your own servers, being handy with vim is nice as you can quickly make changes on an ssh server.

Vim is hardly a requirement to manage a server, and the amount of changes required live on a server should be approaching zero - apps should never be written on the server and even config files etc should be handled by some form of config management - chef, puppet, debian config packages, etc

You don't need to do those things to use vim. It just has a kind of steep learning curve -- one that has to do with just getting used to its keybindings (ie, nothing to do with PhD level cs or writing compilers).

I was being a smartass, which wasn't fair to angersocks.

My point is that I can load up Sublime Text or Brackets or this (maybe?) and work in a very efficient way.

Vim is actualy pretty easy to use, the learning process is not hard at all you could just go through the vim tutorial that comes with and you will in good shape in no time.

I'm sure it's not terrible to use, but I'm not sure it's worth it for a caveman like me to put time into learning it. Sublime Text and Brackets already work very efficiently and allow me to focus on getting things done.

Of course, PHP people probably said the same thing when Rails came out. The difference is that current GUI editors are already very advanced. I'm skeptical that I would get any efficiency boost from vim (at least anytime soon).

You would, but i am agree with you is not for everyone.

you misspelled 'emacs'

How did you come to this conclusion?