[zdw]

I'm on a similar course - the further I dive into systems, the more I learn to use the ubiquitous software (vi, for example) rather than being picky about my tools and environment.

People with very complex environments make me think they spent far too long developing a theoretical methodology, and too little time actually hacking and using stuff.

[dlsspy]

It took me years to consider using vim over plain vi. After fifteen years or so of vi I ended up switching to emacs.

I've worked with really awesome people who are completely lost without [insert proprietary single-platform editor here].

[efsavage]

> I've worked with really awesome people who are completely lost without [insert proprietary single-platform editor here].

And this is bad why? I'd rather be 100% productive for 10 years and then retool than 80% productive all the time.

[dlsspy]

This is bad because he was 0% productive for many days because he couldn't input text on the computer where the problem was because it didn't have his editor.

[efsavage]

We're 0% productive most of the time. Sleeping, commuting, meetings, lunch. Adding a negligible amount more for tooling is not really an issue.

I'm essentially dependent on Eclipse when doing Java. It takes me < 1 hour to get it set up the way I like it. For the next 2-3000 hours before I need to set it up again, I will outperform and produce better quality code than anyone using vi or emacs, guaranteed. Sounds like a fair tradeoff to me.

Back when I was on a Civil Engineering path, an elderly engineer said "I bet you don't even know how to use a slide rule, what do you do when the power goes out", to which I responded, "I go home, same as you, unless you've got candles in your desk too, and let's not even get into air conditioning".

[crag]

I can't use vim. God, I've tried, and tried. I'm too old. I just can't do it. So I stick with a big IDE (or Sublime 2 which I'm liking more and more).

I had to telnet into a Centos box recently and the only thing I could find was vi. Took me a few minutes but I managed. I was proud. ;)

[dlsspy]

I bet you can. But can likely use emacs as well. I think if I had to pick one piece of software to live with on my desert island, it'd be emacs (assuming I had a reasonable boot loader and a filesystem to sit under it).

[jamii]

Choosing emacs is cheating, it contains every other program you might ever want to use.

[njharman]

> I had to telnet

Knowing/using ssh way more important than vi/vim.

[crag]

I do use ssh. I call it telnet since ssh is just telnet on roids.

[bostonvaulter2]

I'm curious, how long did you spend trying to use Vim?

[crag]

A few days. I must admit, I was resistant from the start.

[crag]

Ok you've shammed me. I'm gonna start learning and using VIM. Even if it kills me.