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this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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If you're serious about sticking to the terminal, it's probably worth learning a terminal text editor like emacs or vim. Once you get the hang of them, you can be much more productive compared to something like nano.
I think it's also worth learning about job control and/or terminal multiplexers, but I've yet to fully understand them myself.
How can you be more productive in vim compared to nano?
Serious question.
vim is more then simple file editing.
:global,%s/, etc. which form text manipulation language (from editor ed, I guess)args&argsdo(multi-file editing)ctrl_Xcompletion modesromainl(awesome community member)vim for one-time tasks at work. When people are proposing to script something, I open buffers, normalize the data and filter the results. I think in vim and I would very, very much recommend it, if you work with data or are a dev.
you guys convinced me. I check vim out for at least the weekend
vim has better default keybindings/commands that allow for less movement of your hands. Nowadays, in reasonably current versions of nano, that's mostly it. The main difference is nano is somewhat usable but extremely inefficient unless you learn it, while vim forces you to learn it to get anything done at all, which also pushes people to spend a bit of time learning it in general.
If you're sure of the numbers you're using, vim's ability to repeat commands is also helpful. In practice I find that it's really hard to make use of them beyond low numbers, where nano can still achieve things in similar amounts of keypresses. Eg something to delete 3 words like
<escape>3dwican be done similar with a sequence likeAlt-A ^→ ^→ ^→ ^Kin nano. Make it 20 words and nano is going to be a lot slower, but that's quite an uncommon action.But the practice is that nano users don't spend time learning any of that and just hold delete until the words are gone, which takes forever. Everyone that can do basics in vim quickly learns that you can
dwwords away and make it3dwto delete 3 of them. The default, easiest to use & access tool for any given situation gets blamed not just for its flaws, but also for the users that don't want to spend time learning any tool.After reading up on vim, I ended up at emacs now and I like the emacs style because it works with ctrl and meta keys which feels familar to me. I may learn emacs now.
Your example makes completely sense, yet I've never felt that the standard way was slow in the first place. I could see my workflow improving, but I guess I just want to have extra special commands. Thank you!
I agree that vim forces you to learn before you can use it, but it is possible to learn the bare minimum of vim.
I get by with a very basic understanding of insert mode and the other mode where :q! quits
VIM for the win. I really enjoy the built in file browser accessed by the command :explore
I also code in go frequently and go-fmt and go-lint etc work flawlessly. You can use whatever LSP you want so you get your code tips and autosuggestion etc.
The tabs and split window functions are nice too. Plus if you learn Vi well it's on almost every system in existence. Nano not so much
I had my first training sessions and edited some prose. I'm excited how it'll be with code.
Easy. Just learn to use it and it is already there.
With nano, you work with that letter where your cursor is at the moment. This is convenient, but limited.
With vim, you can also work with a word, or the whole line, or part of the line, or a section, or the whole file (or many files if you use the shell extension) and it goes all with the same ease.
Vim also allows you to keep your hands in place on the letters on your keyboard all the time. No need to move the hands around, grabbing the mouse and back, or the arrow keys, and thus search for the correct position for your hand every few seconds - which costs time and focus.
If I understand you correctly, I can write more efficiently because I can move to the next paragraph or sentence which I can't with normal keybindings. Or special commands where I delete everything within "". I understand the appeal of special moves but why not simply creating a Ctrl, Meta or alt command for that?
Vim uses these commands like di" (delete everything inside "") instead of chords (holding multiple keys down at once). Both work fine. The reason vim does this is that many regard it as more ergonomic. You don't stretch your hand/fingers out and you can keep your fingers at homerow. You might have heard about people getting an "Emacs Pinky". It's basically down to preference. I don't use emacs but I know people use vim bindings in emacs (emacs is very scriptable after all). That way you can try or integrate vim like bindings without leaving your comfy emacs.
No need to create such things when they are already there
I find Ctrl etc. rather inefficient. So much extra bending of your hand for these special keys. Are you able to type with 10 fingers?
I learned it but I only use 7 or 8 fingers. The speed isn't limiting me.
Try running this:
vimtutorIf you are already aware of hjkl, skip to the part where you learn motions:
/motionThen look up surround (
yswis usually the command to surround a word,ys3wthe next 3 words, etc)It's pretty neat.
That is some very useful commands, thx! But I don't think I'll be using it often and hence I'll lose the skill. I know ctrl+vxs or f etc because I use them very often. Anything that I don't use is forgotten even if I'd use vim
Exactly! If you only have to edit small text files on a server once in a blue moon, nano is much less biomemory-heavy. But if you regularly write docs and code in l vim or neovim, it starts to pay off after a week or two.
I really enjoyed learning to quickly select and change entire words or lines, doing things like:
:%s/replace_this_text/with_that/gEtc. If you enjoy that, you will soon get to a point where you miss the motions in your regular editor and install a vim extension in VS Code and stuff, just before fully switching to neovimThx! I'll check out neovim!
Tbh I think it's just a matter of preference and some people are being elitist about it or overestimate the importance of it.
why use big app when nano does trick?
Julia Evans recently did a thing about job control here. Nothing yet on multiplexers though
The most important thing about terminal multiplexers is that you have to atart them with the terminal command. e.g.
yourterminal --startcommand=tmux.