[robomartin]

> That would at least help you avoid looking like a fool by ranting about things you clearly don't understand.

Let's talk about being a fool and talking about things I don't understand.

I have started (and self-funded) at more than three technology businesses in my life. I am in the process of starting two more.

In all cases these businesses started in my garage (one actually in my closet, before I had a garage) and managed to grow to the point where I got them out of the garage and actually hired many people.

Some of these businesses shipped product internationally, all over the world.

All of these businesses were hardware and software businesses.

Some succeeded and others failed.

And, in every single case, different technologies and tools came into the fold.

In no case whatsoever --not one-- across THIRTY YEARS of entrepreneurship did a fucking text editor have anything whatsoever to do with the success or failure of the enterprise or project.

Across a wide range of languages and technologies: machine language (actually typed-in code with a hex keypad), assembler (various processors), Forth, C, APL, C++, Fortran, Visual Basic, Lisp, Python, PHP, JavaScript, Objective-C, Verilog, 8080, 8085, 80x86, PDP1104, 6502, MC68K, PowerPC, Xilinx FPGA's, PC, Mac, Linux, embedded, workstation and server software and a few other things I probably don't remember doing.

Not once. Not ONE TIME. Have I experienced a situation where using something like vim would provide any advantage whatsoever.

And, yes, I use vim on my Linux servers because it's there. I don't have to think about it. It's the tool that comes with the box and I use it. From there to actually CHOOSE to use vim everywhere for coding our projects and to go past that and evangelize vim? That would be insane. There far more moving parts and issues in a business or in any piece of software for a text editor to make any real difference whatsoever. You can go on believing it does. And that's fine. That's not going to make it any real than believing in the tooth fairy.

Show me a real project and a real business that came in on-time, bug-free, profitably and ahead of schedule BECAUSE OF vim and I'll gladly eat my words. Because I actually happen to know what I am talking about I can say with absolute confidence that the whole thing is a big smelly pile of bullshit. If the authors had the tools, keyboards and peripherals we have today vim would have been completely and utterly different. Do you honestly believe that these guys CHOSE to have modes because of some divine revelation? No, they didn't have the friggin keys and needed to come-up with a solution. The same reason Wordstar had shit like Ctrl-K-X.

[ramblerman]

What a vicious and sad rant.

you've boiled the whole argument down into whether a text editor is the pillar upon which a successful product is built. Well of course not! Nobody is even claiming that. Some people are merely expressing it allows them to put thought onto paper a little quicker, or that they just enjoy it. Others just enjoy being able to tweak their editor, it's a fun meta activity for any programmer.

It's fine that it might not be the most optimal way to spend your time, or that you don't get it. but relax already

"machine language (actually typed-in code with a hex keypad), assembler (various processors), Forth, C, APL, C++, Fortran, Visual Basic, Lisp, Python, PHP, JavaScript, Objective-C, Verilog, 8080, 8085, 80x86, PDP1104, 6502, MC68K, PowerPC, Xilinx FPGA's, PC, Mac, Linux, embedded, workstation and server software and a few other things I probably don't remember doing."

For all that name dropping of the vast and expansive techs you've worked with, you seem to be extremely close minded on this issue.

[debt]

I think he's encouraging people to focus on more pressing problems. I think he's angry because there is a silly and opinionated subculture surrounding a text editor. He exploded likely because this article - while innocent as it may be - broke the camel's back. For a site so focused on the hacker mantra of getting things done, one might think he's right in his anger, as a text editor usually is just about the lowest barrier of entry to a software development problem. HEY GOOD DISCUSSION THOUGH.

[robomartin]

BINGO! Thanks for understanding.

I went to a startup pitch event the other day. VC's on the panel were asking the entrepreneurs the usual cadre of tough financial questions. Questions like: "How are you going to spend the time and money once you get funded?".

What do you think would happen if someone said something like this?

"I am going to take a month or two to learn and get really good at vim because I keep reading on HN that it takes too long to reach for the cursor keys. Then I'll start building the product you will be investing money on."

I don't know about that panel. If I was on the panel the lightest kick would land the would-be entrepreneur on the moon without a rocket.

Not important. Not significant. A complete and utter waste of time, focus and mental resources.

[ken_railey]

Awesome strawman you have there, and the same non-argument could apply to any technology: "I am going to take a month to learn Ruby...". In any case, you can relax - no one is trying to take Notepad away from you.

[robomartin]

Ridiculous. Taking a month to learn Ruby is so vastly different than taking a month to learn vim that it defies comparison. One actually has the potential to give you an order of magnitude productivity gain while the other will do so little for you that you might as well call it nothing.

Let's exaggerate in order to enhance the effect.

Both you and I launch new startups to produce exactly the same web software product.

We both get programmers who have zero experience with vim and Ruby. Let's say they only know PHP and only know how to use Notepad++. No frameworks.

I have my programmers go to Ruby class and learn Ruby on Rails for a month.

You have them learn vim for a month. They get to stay with PHP.

Not fair? One is a framework designed to speed time to market while the other is just a text editor? Exactly!

Who do you think will see the greatest productivity gains in a month?

In six months?

Who will ship product first?

Who will ship product with more features?

Who will ship product with less bugs?

Who will go out of business?

Who will get fired by the board?

Right.

Or, let's take a different route:

Our investors just gave us a million dollars each for these startups.

I go to mine and propose that I want to have the entire team take a month to learn RoR due to the productivity and code quality gains we are going to be able to derive by taking this approach.

You go to yours and tell them that you want your team to spend a month learning vim because it takes too long to go from home row to the arrow keys and you can shave seconds while editing.

Sign-up for YC and tell PG that you are going to have your entire team go learn vim for a month instead of something that delivers real productivity gains that are orders of magnitude greater.

Who gets fired?

Again. Right.

When you measure what really matters just about any argument for vim is as hollow as can be.

[ken_railey]

> Let's exaggerate in order to enhance the effect.

Let's not, they are entirely irrelevant.

Noone is claiming that any specific tool will make your startup succeed, or fix your bugs, or add features to your software for you - I thought we were discussing text editors.

[robomartin]

> For all that name dropping of the vast and expansive techs you've worked with, you seem to be extremely close minded on this issue.

It's exactly the opposite. All of that has given me perspective that seems lacking on some entering into these religious conversations. I don't even know how many code editors I have used over the years. I probably couldn't list them. I've even had to write some of my own. The point is that across all of those technologies, platforms and years, this has never mattered. The text editor has never --ever-- played a significant role in the factors leading up to the quality, schedule, success or failure of a project.

If you like using vim and messing with it. That's OK. I use it too when I work on Linux. No issues there. Now, to go to the extreme to say that one is not a professional programmer if one does not use vim (I claim I have seen many times) is, well, nonsense.

In addition to that someone chose to call me a fool who does not know what he is talking about. I felt the incomplete list might be a reasonable superficial qualifier. Not enough? My email is in my HN profile. Shoot me a note and I'll provide you with my Linkedin profile.

My primary objection to the "vim religion" is that newbie programmers are almost intimidated into wasting their time with such an utterly insignificant aspect of the job. This is particularly true of someone who wants to be an entrepreneur as opposed to a data entry clerk. There far more important and useful places to spend your learning hours than learning to use a shit editor with a shit UI that originated at a time keyboards had half the keys they have today, GUI's did not exist, monitors were terminals that displayed 80 x 25 characters and mice were nowhere to be found.

In the context of starting, launching, growing, evolving and maintaining a tech business spending any time to get into something like vim is an absolutely irresponsible waste of time and effort.

[ken_railey]

> In the context of starting, launching, growing, evolving and maintaining a tech business

Possibly, but some people are not starting, launching, growing, or evolving anything but software - and a text editor is where 99% of that work happens.

[robomartin]

That's interesting. I would say that somewhere between 50% to 75% of my time when creating a software product is devoted to documenting requirements, analyzing the problem, studying candidate solutions, working out such things as state diagrams with, yes, paper and pencil and, in general, thinking and planning.

I haven't measured it but I'd venture to say that actual time typing code is probably somewhere in the order of 15% to 30% of a project, if that high. In fact, I really doubt that initial code entry goes much past 20% of my time.

Then there's testing, debugging and source control/management. If the project requires media a substantial amount of time might also be devoted to the creation and management of image, video and sound assets.

One interesting thing is that as the years went by and I became more experienced I quickly spent less and less time debugging. My code is largely bug-free due to the fact that I devote a lot of time and effort to initial planning before I even think about firing-up a text editor at all.

So, yes, your claim that 99% of the work in creating a software product happens in the editor is something that can only be true for an absolute rank newbie. I don't know many experienced programmers that, for a non-trivial project, just launch into an editor and spend 99% of their time there.

Don't take my word for it:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/09/when-understanding-...

http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/93302/spendin...

[LinXitoW]

Its nice for you that you're advanced in your carrier that coding is such a small part of what you do, but its obvious that theres enough people that arent quite as godlike as you. Good for you.

Personally, the one thing vim(and Linux) have taught me is that mastering your tools is hard in the short but entirely worth it in the long run. Do really never learn shortcuts or concepts or the tools you use? A language is just as much a tool as a text editor.

How much of your time did you waste here, religiously debating religious vim users? At least from here(the internet can distort things) it seems you're just as religiously anti as they are pro.

[robomartin]

There's a big difference. Now I have the luxury of time. That was not the case ten years ago.

[WildUtah]

I have started (and self-funded) at more than three technology businesses in my life. I am in the process of starting two more.

Wow, it's sad that parent never learned how to use a real text editor. Can you imagine how much more he could have contributed to the world if only he hadn't been held back by bugs, delays, and quality problems inflicted by bad tools? If only some stubborn people would invest a little time in learning vi or EMACS, the world could have so much more productivity from people like that.

[robomartin]

Comedian?