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by cageface 4895 days ago
Is switching tools really so catastrophic? I have emacs keybindings burned into my muscle memory but just about every tool I use supports them.

But if I'd insisted on sticking with Emacs instead of moving in the mainstream (Xcode & IntelliJ for mobile) I would have ultimately been much less productive than I've been after spending a week getting my head around more specialized tools.

3 comments

This is exactly how I approach new tools.

My brain-stem knows what to type when I want to go to the end of the line. If the tool doesn't do what I expect when I hit that keystroke, I update the keymapping. In about 1 hour of coding/retraining, the keymap works quite well.

This is the approach I've taken, I use Vim keybindings in IntelliJ and use Vim for lightweight stuff/text editing when required

Best of both worlds

Switching tools isn't a problem if you can massage tools to be a similar as possible.

I install a vi plugin anywhere I can. Most of the time this bridges my mental gap. There is nothing worse than a half working vi plugin though.