Comment by iLemming
2 days ago
> you get labeled a noob
No one would call one a noob for not using Vim or Emacs. But they might for a different reason.
If someone blindly rejects even the notion of these tools without attempting to understand the underlying ideas behind them, that certainly suggests the dilettante nature of the person making the argument.
The idea of vim-motions is a beautiful, elegant, pragmatic model. Thinking that it is somehow outdated is a misapprehension. It is timeless just like musical notation - similarly it provides compositional grammar and universal language, and leads to developing muscle memory; and just like it, it can be intimidating but rewarding.
Emacs is grounded on another amazing idea - one of the greatest ideas in computer science, the idea of Lisp. And Lisp is just as everlasting, like math notation or molecular formulas — it has rigid structural rules and uniform syntax, there's compositional clarity, meta-reasoning and universal readability.
These tools remain in use today despite the abundance of "brand new technology" because time and again these concepts have proven to be highly practical. Nothing prevents vim from being integrated into new tools, and the flexibility of Lisp allows for seamless integration of new tools within the old-school engine.
One could try to be poetic with LLMs in order to make their point stronger and still convince absolutely no one who wasn't already convinced.
I'm sure nobody really reject the notion of LLMs but sure as hell do like to moan if the new technology doesn't absolutely perfect fit their own way of working. Does that make them any different than people wanting an editor which is intuitive to use? Nobody will ever know.
> still convince absolutely no one who wasn't already convinced.
I don't know, people change their opinions all the time. I wasn't convinced about many ideas throughout my career, but I'm glad I found convincing arguments for some of them later.
> wanting an editor which is intuitive to use
Are you implying that Vim and Emacs are not?
Intuitive != Familiar. What feels unintuitive is often just unfamiliar. Vim's model actually feels pretty intuitive after the initial introduction. Emacs is pretty intuitive for someone who grokked Lisp basics - structural editing and REPL-driven development. The point is also subjective, for some people "intuitive editor" means "works like MS Word", but that's just one design philosophy, not an objective standard.
Tools that survive 30+ years and maintain passionate user bases must be doing something right, no?
> the new technology doesn't absolutely perfect fit their own way of working.
Emacs is extremely flexible, and thanks to that, I've rarely complained about new things not fitting my ways. I bend tools to fit my workflow if they don't align naturally — that's just the normal approach for a programmer.