[icc97]

I find using Vim more natural when I'm spending time in the command line. I'm an entrenched Windows user but I love the power of the linux command tools.

Now thanks to the GNU Tools packaged with Git, you get Vim and OpenSSH as lovely extras. It's really nice to be able to switch back and forth between editing on Linux via SSH in Vim and then back in Windows.

If you're searching around and moving files via the DOS prompt, getting your daily Docker/Vagrant fix it becomes much more natural just to open Vim edit the file and close it.

Plus you can add the solarized colours to the DOS prompt and you get lovely syntax highlighting too.

[orev]

You know Cygwin has been around for ages and has done this forever. You didn't need to wait for some big bundle of git to arrive on Windows for this.

[Cpoll]

I don't think you need to wait for anything; I think he's describing MinGW that comes with a Windows install of Git. It's been around for a long time.

Cygwin vs MinGW is a whole other argument, of course.

[icc97]

Yeah the MinGW - it's just that Git packaged them all up nicely, previously I always found there was a few missing tools. I find it much nicer to be able to use those inside DOS.

[icc97]

Yes, I was using Cygwin a decade ago - it was the most painful experience.

It's got nothing to do with Git - just that Git bundles the most up to date versions of GNU tools compiled for Windows. There were pre-cursors to Git, but Git packages them all nicely.

Just for sentimental reasons I love using DOS, same as any Linux user loves their shell. So having the tools natively in DOS is a much nicer experience.