[vertex-four]

The issue, really, is that vim is stuck in terminal land. It can't have easily navigable GUI menus, it can't really have overlays, it can't have a minimap, it can't have differently sized text, it can't have all sorts of things as a result of its dependence on the terminal. It doesn't even have autocomplete for its commands, at least out of the box, which would make it significantly more usable without disappearing into help files every time I want to do something I don't do often.

Add on to that its awful configuration language and the fact that it's not really usable out of the box unlike Sublime Text, it's easy to see why some people consider it unmodern and, for them, inferior.

[hedwall]

I you are interested in a fork, have a look at neovim[0]. Many of the issues you describe are being addressed.

[0] http://www.neovim.org

[johncoltrane]

The issue, really, is that most Vimmers, including its core devs, don't care about all the gimmicky features you list.

[vertex-four]

They're not gimmicky. I depend on them every day, either for learning or for regular use, just like vimmers depend on the weird ability to build up ridiculously complex commands. You may as well call user interfaces aside from the shell prompt a gimmick altogether.

[johncoltrane]

You depend on them everyday but most people don't and nobody cares about that because nobody is trying to force you to use Vim or even change your perspective about it. Some retarded bloggers, on the other hand, like to use their lack of patience/knowledge/willingness to learn as a proof that Vim sucks. Well… they don't really serve their goal, do they?

> vim is stuck in terminal land

For people who use a terminal it's not a problem at all.

> It can't have easily navigable GUI menus

I suppose MacVim and GVim don't count. Vimmers usually don't use menus, though.

> it can't really have overlays

And we don't want that gimmick.

> it can't have a minimap

And we don't want that one either.

> it can't have differently sized text

Same.

> It doesn't even have autocomplete for its commands, at least out of the box, which would make it significantly more usable without disappearing into help files every time I want to do something I don't do often.

It has tab-completion, though.

> Add on to that its awful configuration language

    set showmode

is awful? Oh yes, JSON… the answer to every damn problem on earth.

> and the fact that it's not really usable out of the box unlike Sublime Text, it's easy to see why some people consider it unmodern and, for them, inferior.

To be honest, if Sublime Text had been available for Mac OS X and Linux when I was looking for a cross-platform TextMate alternative I would have switched to it in a heartbeat. But I chose vim out of a very large pool of editors/IDEs and, frankly, using anything else is now a PITA.

I'm actually quite comfortable with Vim's perceived learning curve: it keeps the most superficial users out of our ecosystem.

[sergiotapia]

>I'm actually quite comfortable with Vim's perceived learning curve: it keeps the most superficial users out of our ecosystem.

Literally the dumbest thing I've read on HackerNews. https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says material.

Why would you even care who uses what or belongs to your 'ecosystem'? What?!