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I am actively using a vim-like control scheme for almost any text I write for about 15 months now. I certainly am not the most proficient in it (in fact, I suspect I could do much better if I weren't "confined" to VS and VSVIM at work - I use Spacemacs privately), but I have enough "training" to make the basic moves I need unconciously. If you come from more limited IDEs or text editors this alone is already well worth it. And at the moment when you understand the basic gist of macros on top of that, it basically becomes a superweapon.

I'm sure there's something to get out of being an "expert Vim user", but even if you're starting out, there's already much to be gained from the simple routines. I find the notion of a "Vim Kata" very compelling as a metaphor, since it's really the repetition that teaches those "reflexes" at first.

I don't know how much an avid Emacs user could get out of it though. I guess that comes down to personal preferences. I couldn't get myself to memorize all the weird key combinations for example, but I quite like Spacemacs' mnemonics system.

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