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by picardythird 1343 days ago
Maybe I’m just bad at Vim (though I use Vim keys anywhere possible), bit I’m starting to wonder if Vim combos crowd mental space that would be better used for programming. It does take a certain amount of mental energy to constantly be computing effecient key combos. And the half seconds of moving the hand to the mouse are mindless, allowing for the brain to remain focused on next steps.

On another note, the productivity I’ve gained from using an actual IDE, particularly for things like moving files, renaming symbols, and other refactoring tasks, has probably saved me far more time and headache than avoiding to use the mouse.
2 comments
doix 1343 days ago
> It does take a certain amount of mental energy to constantly be computing effecient key combos.

I disagree, the only time I'm actually thinking about key combos is if I'm vim-golfing something or trying to create a macro to reformat a large amount of text.

In day-to-day coding I just think about what I want the result to be and it just happens.

> On another note, the productivity I’ve gained from using an actual IDE

Yeah, IDEs with semantic understanding of the underlying language are great. The stuff JetBrains releases is top notch in that regard. I used IntelliJ whilst working on a Kotlin project despite constantly getting pissed off that it didn't work like I wanted it too.

Knowing how to manipulate text for languages that don't have great IDE support is still worth it if you're ever forced to work in such languages. At my previous gig I had to maintain scripts/programs written in csh/bash/TCL/perl/SKILL/python/ruby, knowing vim well made refactoring significantly quicker/easier.

Now days I just write typescript all day so I do get the IDE to do most of the work.

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WastingMyTime89 1343 days ago
> It does take a certain amount of mental energy to constantly be computing efficient key combos.

Yes but no one is actually computing efficient key combos. Most people just use the movement they are used to (w, e, f, t) and the most common text objects (s, p, ‘, “, ), ], }) when doing operation. That plus repeat will do 95% of what you want. Add markings used with ed ranges and the occasional macro replayed line by line on a visual selection and you can do everything without ever having to think.

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