[eupharis]

  Why in the world would any body spend hours(days?) hunting all these basic
  plugins which are must have for today's software development needs?

These plugins are "must haves" if you are used to using an IDE. But they are not prerequisities of creating good software. Proof: plenty of good software has been and is being created without such plugins.

You are used to the file browser on the left, the minimap on the right, the search function bound just so. So you want that. But not all vim users are used to that.

The simplicity of vim is what drew me. There aren't a hundred and one "project files" (whatever those are) added to any bit of code I want to work on. There aren't a hundred and one buttons everywhere. There is the code on the screen. Nothing else.

Adding lots of extra file-trees and variable-lists and computer-guessing-what-you-want-to-do in the default vim install seems like it would scare away more users from vim than it would draw. For the modern GUI kid (like me and I assume you), getting used to modes and the vim keybindings was hard enough. Let the user add windows and features at her own pace, as she gets comfortable.

One other thing before you write off the "arcane 80's style" editors:

The second fact that drew me to vim is that it was esteemed by men who I respected.

Look at the powerful minds that have built such beautiful things with vim and emacs. There are two explanations for their devotion to their editors:

1) They are used to vim/emacs. They like them because they are used to them.

2) They are technologists. They have an innate fascination with the novel, the bold, the capacity for an innovative idea to change everything. Yet even with this prejudice, they love truth enough not to sacrifice the old superior tool for the new, fashionable one.

After the first few frustrated sessions with vim, where I cursed at it for not behaving like a text editor "should" behave, I believed very strongly that explanation 1 must be true.

But the power (sorry, that's the right word) I feel when I fire up vim grows everyday. It grew today after reading this excellent blog post and discovering some new, wonderful plugins. And everyday I grow more convinced that explanation 2 drives the loyalty to vim.

[kamaal]

You can live your life without phones, internet, buses, cars or any kind of modern technology.

And yes you will need them only if you have used them. Because people around a century back didn't need them.

You can still live in a jungle. But the question is, should you?

[Derbasti]

You can give yourself up to the Google ecosystem and live happily inside GMail, GCal, GDocs etc. You can do the same thing with Apple or Microsoft, but you can't easily mix and match between them.

You can pledge yourself to a single programming language. You can live and breathe Java all day and become a master of it and its tools and world views.

But the question is, should you? Should you give up the richness and flexibility of all that is out there and hedge your bets in ONE technology stack and ONE IDE?

Vim and Emacs and ST2 are language agnostic. The Unix command line is language agnostic. In fact, it is text editor agnostic, too. You can mix and match the tools and languages you like.

IDEs with all their richness are fairly confined to a very narrow set of languages and methodologies and ways of thinking about problems.

Both choices offer different benefits and different downsides. Make your choice wisely.

[haridas]

I got your point. I explained the same thing on my summary portion of my blog. I left eclipse for Vim was after seeing its advantage of basic mode based editing. All others are just additions, you can add them when ever required. Check this out also about my detailed explanation of how did that happen to me - http://haridas.in/how-i-came-in-to-vim.html

[skue]

If you're coming from Eclipse, did you check out IntelliJ's VIM plugin?

I'm a decades-old Vim user, but I still fire up IntelliJ for Java Android development. Java is less painful in an IDE that was designed for it, and with the IntelliJ plugin it's like having one's cake and eating it too.

[haridas]

Cool. Right now I'm not in the java world, but it will be helpful to my friends.

[eupharis]

Hah. Very nice :) But yeah, it's hard to talk about vim without coming across as some kind of religious fanatic joining a new cult.

Your link maybe does the best job I've ever seen. This is day 1:

  *monday*
  “eclipse sure is neat.”
  “but that weird guy with the neckbeard at work looks really fast with vim,
  I should try it!”
  “alright! I got gvim. this doesn’t look bad. there are even menus!!!”
  “wait what? where’d my text go? wait. undo. no.”
  “:help”
  “:q!!!!!”
  .
  .
  revels in the opiatic relief of autocompleting boilerplate
  in eclipse for the rest of the day