Gregory's ServerEvery year I say: "this is a year I finally use VIM". It last about 1 day. It's the model-ness that messes me up. I'm in command mode and I start typing like I'm in insert mode and bad things happen.
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@grumpygamer hey Ron, a bit off-topic but did you see Tim Cain posted a video reading one of your poems? I find it really cool of him    @grumpygamer @grumpygamer why you want to learn vim? I mean, why not emacs for example? Or whatever you are *already using*? (disclaimer: I've been using vim for +20 years, I can't use anything else, but I see that it may not be for everybody) @grumpygamer @reidrac Nah, the cool kids moved from vim to Helix... although it's still modal so you'd have the same problems.  @cmdrSprocket @MadMike77 tablets aren't designed for typing, IMHO. I love a nice mechanical keyboard, not generally fan of laptop keyboards either š¤· @reidrac @cmdrSprocket @MadMike77 oh hi! Iām using blink on iPad + mosh + external keyboard and have a very reliable and light coding platform (paired to virtual private server). Also control+[ is a fine escape. I also have ājkā bound to escape. I'd argue that having your home row nonsense key pair ('jk') be escape is a highly-efficient optimization. @MadMike77 that's true, but also true for general programming. Some layouts are just worse. I'm on ISO UK at the moment despite not being my native layout, and it is much better. Less "chords" for common things you write a lot in most programming languages. I tried US ANSI a couple of times but that enter key... anyway.  @MadMike77 @reidrac Iāve lived in Denmark and France for half my life and learned to type in Denmark. At no point have I ever wanted a non-US layout. 99.9% of everything I type is in english anyway and for the rare exceptions, the macOS handling of accents and international keys is fantastic IMO. Emacs is an absolute power tool and Iām disappointed and frustrated with all the non-emacs editors, every time (VS Code no exception)  @reidrac @grumpygamer I've been using it for 20+ years too. Nowadays I only use it if I'm doing something quick on the command line, not everyday, but often enough  @Sh41 @reidrac @grumpygamer same here, about 20 years of Vim Common obstacle for beginners to learn to overcome. The easiest way to not get into a mess is to always hit ESC to know for sure what your mode is. @SpaceLifeForm @grumpygamer I also found the most beneficial part of statusline plugins (like vim-airline) was the mode display to give a visual cue -- especially if it only shows a mode in the active buffer. It's far more effective than the built-in`set showmode` because it's always there. @grumpygamer Vi seems great for wonky connections but I prefer something sane for anything more than editing a few lines in a config file. @grumpygamer fwiw, that's normally a side effect of slightly too long hanging out in insert; it's a good habit to really get used to "insert is a thing I do as part of an editing operation". But also, I'm a big advocate for using whatever you get on with š @grumpygamer Ha, for me it's the converse: text fields often have gratuitous jjjjjjj or ddp and such or I'm hitting Esc for no reason. š @grumpygamer I used to think this too. Ended up giving it a proper try and eventually came to like it. I've since switched to kakoune however, which is similar to vim, but simpler and just as powerful. @grumpygamer Did you already tried to use stuff like Vim Airline to get a visual feedback of the mode you are in? https://github.com/vim-airline/vim-airline @grumpygamer I look at these things like I'm in lost in space or something, if i find myself stuck in an old school Unix environment and I need to edit a file to save Will Robinson or whatever, then I know i can do. But there are better options out there For the love of $diety i used to use edlin on a regular basis, I can do anything! @grumpygamer Maybe you can resort to opening it once per year with a file and try playing the TECO game  @grumpygamer I was bit by that too early. the trick that worked for me is adopting habit of, if I'm ever not 100% sure which mode I'm in, to hit ESC key. I usually tap it a few times in quick succession in redundancy as a psychological thing to be sure. After that I know I'm in a fixed deterministic predictable "baseline state" and then next I can press whatever keys I want to do commands or to do edits. When in doubt hit ESC. Then there is no doubt. @grumpygamer if your next game is named The Secret of Mode Predictability in Vim on Monkey Island I expect royalties! @grumpygamer The key to getting over this is to understand that you're supposed to be in command mode by default. Edit mode is a specific operation you do when you need to then you come back to command mode right after.  @grumpygamer i just set up freebsd yesterday and the first package I installed when I saw all they pack in the image is basic vi was nano. life is not long enough to edit all the config files in vi. @grumpygamer I recommend it and also sort of don't. it's a great way to edit text, but it also breaks your brain for any other ways of editing text. you develop opinions about other editor's vim emulation. you try to figure out how to get it into your browser. you press escape at inopportune times. I'm like half serious, but I have been using it for 15 years and it's a bit of a curse, and I'll probably never do anything else. @grumpygamer then it's clearly not for you and you should move on š¤·š¾āāļø not everything is meant for everyone. Why feel bad about it?  @grumpygamer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface Raskin was basically correct in most respects but doomed to be ignored because some of his conclusions were too radical and people didn't know how to get there from the current GUI status quo  @jplebreton @grumpygamer one interesting thing about modal interfaces like vim, is that you end up habitually spamming the "default mode" key after / before actions, so it effectively becomes a prefix to your work. I guess it's a bit like Ctrl+S spam. It becomes reflexive and you no longer question it, but that only happens for invested users and for everyone else they're struggling, losing work, or getting into weird modes. @grumpygamer Make your own text editor, then sell it on Steam. It would be a cool experiment! @grumpygamer I tried VIM over many, many years. Try it, give up, rinse, repeat. Then I tried Neovim and it finally stuck. It was nothing specific about Neovim, but I think that part of it was that using Kickstart with Neovim gave me a nice configured VIM environment that was ready to go.  @grumpygamer sometimes I accidentally open something in vim and have to spend the next 6 weeks trying to figure out how to exit š©  @grumpygamer It clicked for me when I installed it as a plug-in in my existing IDE. The transition is much smoother because you can use your old habits and remain productive while exploring and learning new ones.  @grumpygamer Have you given Helix Editor a shot? I never thought Iād end up using a modal editor but here we are :)  @grumpygamer I suppose you've tried turning on the thing that puts "INSERT MODE" on the status line when you are in insert mode? |
@grumpygamer This is always the challenge with vim.
The good news is that it is the biggest challenge. Once you climb that hill, it's all downhill from there. But man, climbing the hill takes work