Comment by hatmatrix
12 hours ago
I've tried Vi/Vim key bindings on several occasions, but just couldn't be efficient in it. It's often touted as the "superior" form that confers benefit to those who invest time to learn it, but discussions with other coders have led me to believe this is just confirmation bias by people who prefer these key bindings.
There are people like myself who edit frequently while writing (even with in a single sentence or word), so this switching between normal and insert modes to do chunks of each operation at a time incurs a heavy cost. Yes, there is Ctrl+[ for single commands, but this is still an additional step compared to the key chord model of Emacs for instance.
I use both Vim and Emacs, extensively, so I'd just like to share my experience with mode switching in Vim. Personally, I don't find Vim mode switching to be much of a problem while editing text. It has become muscle memory to stay in normal mode by default. After any insert-mode operation, I instinctively return to normal mode. It's just a habit at this point.
Take, for example, writing a for loop. I might type:
Then, say, I pause briefly to think about the variable name. If you happened to look over my shoulder at that moment, you would find me in normal mode. Even if I only pause for a second, I reflexively return to normal mode the moment I stop typing.
Because of that, I don't really treat insert mode as a separate "place" in my mind. Let's say I want to insert the text "abc". I don't think, enter insert mode, type "abc", then return to normal mode. I just see it as a single action in normal mode that includes the key sequence "i a b c ESC".
Or say, I want to open a new line above and insert "xyz". Again, I think of it as a single operation in normal mode that includes the key sequence "shift+o x y z ESC".
This applies to all insert-mode operations for me. Normal mode feels like "home" and insert mode is just an editing phase I dip into when I need and exit. That's why it doesn't feel like I am constantly switching modes (even though I am).
I think one (often forgotten) good advice to get used to the mode-switching is to move the ESC key to Capslock on the keyboard. It's tedious to learn to always go to the ESC key, upper left of the keyboard. Capslock is available from home row, and you should probably not use CAPSLOCK anyway, it's a bad practice.
Put ESC key there instead and vim becomes wayyyyyyyy more ergonomic.
For a win, replace Caps Lock with Esc when tapped and with Control when held.
Indeed! Sometime between 2010 and 2015, I used to often work with Windows computers, so I wrote a tool for myself back then to remap Caps Lock to Esc on Windows machines:
https://github.com/susam/uncap
While it was certainly possible to do that by editing Windows registry (and I have noted those techniques too in the README), registry changes couldn't be enabled or disabled without a reboot. That's what motivated me to write the above tool. And indeed, having the Caps Lock work like Esc made using Vim a much better experience!
I map 'jk' in Insert mode to <Esc>. In Insert mode, it takes me out to Normal mode. If I'm already in Normal mode, it simply moves down a line and right back up. This habit is so burned into my muscle memory that I often end up typing 'jk' into non-Vim input areas (like this HN comment box).jk
I’d recommend taking it even further and mapping capslock to escape when pressed by itself and CTRL when held in sequence with another key.
at most one y in way since Capslock is an unergonomic key in itself - it requires an unergonomic lateral movement of your weakest finger of your weaker hand
I used Vim for 5-ish years and I kinda got into that mindset, but on occasion I would fail to switch to insert mode (I think by not hitting the i or a key properly, but when in the flow I don't really pay attention to what my hands are doing) and stuff would go haywire. After 5 years of that happening intermittently I got really fed up with it and I started trying various alternatives.
I have been using Emacs for about 6 years now and when I fail to engage a modifier key properly all that happens is that I type some text in the active buffer. If I really manage to do a silly mistype, I can just hit C-h l to show my recent keystrokes to find out what I did.
> Take, for example, writing a for loop. I might type:
> for (int
> Then, say, I pause briefly to think about the variable name. If you happened to look over my shoulder at that moment, you would find me in normal mode.
I personally wouldn't but that's only because even in the case above I think in the same way as you mentioned next:
> I just see it as a single action in normal mode that includes the key sequence "i a b c ESC".
in the sense that I will ESC only after I have instered a "semantic-ish unit", which would include the variable name.
So I'd probably enter:
and think there (and finalise with ESC N . N .)
It never made any sense to me that people claim Emacs has no modes. What do you think you're doing when you hold down a modifier key? What else would it be except entering a mode in which other keys have a different meaning? Is that really different from vim's mode switching? They're just different ways of expressing modifiers.
I don’t know I edit a lot but I also really like vim motion. It gets really natural at some point. The mix of b and e to move around, using cw or ce to remove and start editing then getting back to moving around. Plus a lot of edit actually happens straight from normal mode (case correction, one character changes, short deletion).
You don’t really think about the modes because things flow naturally. It might also be due to the fact that I nearly never actually switch conscientiously into a mode. I always do actions which send me in insert (like c and o, very rarely I or A) and revert back to normal when done.
Plus vim has the advantage of making things like just remove everything between these symbols and set me in edit there very easy which is something I miss when I don’t have vim bindings.
I don't think it's the keybindings in particular that people love about vim, you can rebind everything after all. I'm attached to vim keybindings in the same way I'm attached to qwerty keyboards - something had to be the default, it's fairly arbitrary, and there's very marginal benefits in switching to a different set of bindings.
It really is the modal editing style that's the main draw. Someone who edits frequently should find vim more convenient, not less, but it does require a lot of time to learn all the available commands and burn them into your muscle memory.
Yes, the default. That's why, although I am french speaking, I switched a few years ago from azerty to qwerty keyboard just to be using the keyboard used by the people who programmed the default in editors like vim and emacs. Otherwise it is just a PITA. Should have done that from the very beginning I was programming. With Karabiner and Goku I have been able to configure some key combinations to get accented letters like righr alt+e for é, right shift+right alt+e for è, ...
> who prefer these key bindings
Which ones? Do you mean the unergonomic defaults where one of the most popular action (quitting to normal mode) is bound to one of the most inconvenient keys (Esc)? Also for editing within a word you actually don't need to switch between modes, but instead could use something like a home row cursor with a modifier to move in insert mode.
> There are people like myself who edit frequently while writing (even with in a single sentence or word), so this switching between normal and insert modes to do chunks of each operation at a time incurs a heavy cost.
I edit this way too and there's no heavy cost here. Well, maybe when you're first learning and switching hasn't become second nature, but when you do it's not something you even notice.