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December 10, 2020 05:34 pm GMT

Why Vim is the best editor

I've been seeing articles from people claiming that VSCode is the best editor, so I'm here to tell you why they're wrong.

That first line

Since I wrote my first line of code a surprisingly long time has passed, and a lot has changed in the development world, but surprisingly little has changed in the code text editor world.

I've used about every mainstream code text editor.

I started with Notepad++, proceeded to Sublime which was my main editor for years, then Atom, briefly PHPStorm, eventually VSCode and finally Vim.

After all that, I can confidently say that I've never been as happy with any other editor as I've been with Vim.

Why I made the switch

It's easy to ask why anyone would make the switch, after all most people consider editors such as VSCode good enough for their needs and so did I.

But it was already a pretty weird in the code editor space.

Most people I was working with were using one of the modern fancy text editors, but people within the developer communities who I was following were almost all exclusively using Vim.

An odd anomaly I thought, but I never dwelled on it.

It is what it is

Well, one day I was watching George Hotz's live stream, I don't remember what he was working on, but it was interesting enough for me to sit through it.

In this livestream he was using the Vim editor and I was completely blown away by how quickly he managed to make changes.

He had already managed to make multiple changes to the file, saved it, and re-compiled the program before I even understood what he did.

If I could be just half as productive I would already be happy.

Vim Strong

Research before you commit

Before I committed to this change, I had first done some research and I could only find good things people had to say about Vim.

Many people described it as being able to write code at the speed of their thought, or Vim being an "extension of their fingers".

So, I got into it, knowing I'll be dreadfully slow at first, but hoping that some day I'll be amazing at it.

Journey into Vim

It was unlike any other editor I had used before.

Compared to Vim everything I had used before was just a text editor with pretty syntax highlighting.

Facepalm

The productivity is great

Vim can do wonders with just a few keystrokes, which tends to be the main reason people love it.

Only after a week of using Vim I was already at the same speed I was with regular editors, and after that I just got faster.

I now occasionally manage to wow people when using it, which always feels great.

It's also quite addictive to constantly try to find a quicker way to do things, it almost feels like a video game at times.

VSCode ain't got nothing on Vim

I was concerned at first that I'll be missing out on some of the useful plugins I had in VSCode, but those concerns were completely unwarranted.

The Vim community has developed a plugin for every language and its needs, which in many cases works far more seamlessly than the ones for VSCode or other editors.

Should you switch?

I advise you to do your own research, but in general I see no reason not to, however, do keep in mind that you're ultimately learning a programming language, so you need to stick with it to learn it.

If programming is something you take seriously, then learning Vim is invaluable. However, if you just want to do your 8 hours and go home, it's probably not worth it for you.

Do or do not

Community help

I was recently introduced to an MIT lecture talking about Vim's philosophy and some of the basic features, so if you're interested in learning Vim, check it out here.

I've also created a community discord server for Vim, so if you're a Vim user, please feel free to join by going here.

Vim Golf anyone?

Conclusion

I hope you found this article interesting!

Feel free to start editor war v2 in the comments.

Happy Vimming .


Original Link: https://dev.to/tomburgs/why-vim-is-the-best-editor-1kc3

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