Yes, he hasn't yet really learned vim. That's why he didn't like it. You can't make vim do what you want it to do. You need to learn the vim way. Maybe he'll take another look in the future.
Reading further down I also saw that most of his complaints were about Emacs not about Vim. So all we can say is: he didn't bother enough with Vim yet.
As the author, this is the kind of condescension of Sublime users that annoys me. I think I know vim quite well, I've been using vim bindings for 5 years now across varying editors. I know almost all Vim bindings.
How about a test? Suppose my cursor is on line 198 of https://github.com/trishume/syntect/blob/ef3b99b06b72e89b7a0.... I want to copy "match_pat.has_captures && cur_level.captures.is_some()" on line 172. If you give me an efficient sequence of vim bindings for that movement I can tell you if I know what everything does without looking it up.
I think a more apt criticism would be that I think too slowly to use Vim. I can figure out that "26j4wy10e" does what I want, and at my normal english characters/second typing speed that is faster than doing the selection with my mouse. However, when I actually try and do that without figuring it out ahead of time I take longer to read, count and figure out the right numbers and actions, then type the individual characters (which due to muscle memory for english I'm slower at than typing english). I end up being slower than the mouse, and with a higher mental load.
You could say I just need to "git gud" and practice, but if practicing for hours a day for 5 years doesn't get me to the point that I'm better than the mouse, I think it's time to say that maybe it isn't a lack of practice, but perhaps an innate skill difference.
That all presumes that there exists a substantial number of people who are faster in practice at long distance text selection with vim shortcuts than I am with the mouse. I have yet to see someone where I can confidently say that is the case, and I've watched a reasonable number of vim users. I guess everyone I've seen using vim (including many 5+ year users) is a "vim n00b" in your model, that sounds a bit "no true scotsman"-like.
Honestly, if you spend your time learning Sublime instead of vim that's fine for me. I never used it, but I am not against putting Sublime on the same level as vim and emacs. My thinking is you need to learn one powerful editor to a high level if you want to be a programmer. No need to learn all.
But if you use your limited knowledge to judge vim, I have to point out that there is a vast ocean of editing power and you've only put your toes in until now.
The condescending one is really you in that instance, since from what you've written vim can't be in the same class as Spacemacs or Sublime. And this leads to many people ignoring vim, who might have gained a lot of insight into text editing by learning it. So yes, it needs pointing out that you know so little about it that you haven't been able to really assess its power yet. But if you learn it or not is none of my concern. If you want to really learn it, I can give you some good material, though.
E.g., if you want to really see something that vim is great at, maybe better at than any other editor, check this out: https://vimeo.com/15443936
PS: I hope you notice the phrasing here. There is something vim is probably the best at, doesn't mean that there aren't other things other editors aren't better at.
I think I agree with you way more than you think I do. I'm a huge fan of Vim-style-editing. I use it all the time. Every editor I've used since has been with some sort of Vim emulation.
I don't think, or at least I didn't intend, anything I wrote to imply that "vim can't be in the same class as Spacemacs or Sublime". It's definitely a very powerful text editor. My only complaints about it are plugin conflicts, discoverability and mouse hostility. Which are all things that can be worked around.
What I'm trying to do is argue against the thesis that you need to learn Vim/Emacs to get that level of power. Sublime can give you that power just as well and with some benefits.
I watched the entire video you linked, everything in there can be done in plain Sublime just as easily (without Vintageous even, and definitely with), with find+replace, multiple selections and macro saving for the last step of turning it into a script. I do acknowledge however that I learned one new vim thing, which is the g command for finding and then doing something, analogous in purpose to Sublime's "find and select all".
The only thing I think I disagree with you on is this: "But if you use your limited knowledge to judge vim, I have to point out that there is a vast ocean of editing power and you've only put your toes in until now." This seems to imply that there are facts about Vim that I don't know that if I knew them would make me faster at using Vim than I currently am at Sublime Text. I agree that if I had perfect Vim knowledge I would be just as fast as I am at Sublime Text, but not substantially faster.
In terms of a prediction, I believe that there is at most two editing tasks I've done in the past year that given more Vim knowledge I would have done over 1.5x faster than I did it in Sublime. It seems you disagree with me on this point, you can convince me by showing me a new Vim fact I didn't know (I do know quite a bit) and I can tell you if it would have helped.
Notably this does not specify that I magically increase my brain power to be able to instantly apply the Vim knowledge in the best possible way. I'm fully aware that if I could instantly determine the shortest Vim key sequence to accomplish a task and type it as fast as I do english, I would be way way faster in Vim. I contend that I personally could never do anything close to this regardless of how much I learned or practiced. In the same way that despite knowing a programming language and practicing programming a whole lot, I can't come up with the perfect program for a task instantly and type it as fast as I can type English.
Basically I think we agree that Vim is more powerful than Sublime without Vim emulation. We disagree on how much of a Vim n00b I am and how much better I could be by learning more. I'm uncertain of your stance on how much of Vim's power is not accessible through Sublime with Vim emulation. I contend that there is little additional editing power to be gained by stepping from Sublime with Vintageous to real Vim.
Comments
Yes, he hasn't yet really learned vim. That's why he didn't like it. You can't make vim do what you want it to do. You need to learn the vim way. Maybe he'll take another look in the future.
Reading further down I also saw that most of his complaints were about Emacs not about Vim. So all we can say is: he didn't bother enough with Vim yet.
As the author, this is the kind of condescension of Sublime users that annoys me. I think I know vim quite well, I've been using vim bindings for 5 years now across varying editors. I know almost all Vim bindings.
How about a test? Suppose my cursor is on line 198 of https://github.com/trishume/syntect/blob/ef3b99b06b72e89b7a0.... I want to copy "match_pat.has_captures && cur_level.captures.is_some()" on line 172. If you give me an efficient sequence of vim bindings for that movement I can tell you if I know what everything does without looking it up.
I think a more apt criticism would be that I think too slowly to use Vim. I can figure out that "26j4wy10e" does what I want, and at my normal english characters/second typing speed that is faster than doing the selection with my mouse. However, when I actually try and do that without figuring it out ahead of time I take longer to read, count and figure out the right numbers and actions, then type the individual characters (which due to muscle memory for english I'm slower at than typing english). I end up being slower than the mouse, and with a higher mental load.
You could say I just need to "git gud" and practice, but if practicing for hours a day for 5 years doesn't get me to the point that I'm better than the mouse, I think it's time to say that maybe it isn't a lack of practice, but perhaps an innate skill difference.
That all presumes that there exists a substantial number of people who are faster in practice at long distance text selection with vim shortcuts than I am with the mouse. I have yet to see someone where I can confidently say that is the case, and I've watched a reasonable number of vim users. I guess everyone I've seen using vim (including many 5+ year users) is a "vim n00b" in your model, that sounds a bit "no true scotsman"-like.
Honestly, if you spend your time learning Sublime instead of vim that's fine for me. I never used it, but I am not against putting Sublime on the same level as vim and emacs. My thinking is you need to learn one powerful editor to a high level if you want to be a programmer. No need to learn all.
But if you use your limited knowledge to judge vim, I have to point out that there is a vast ocean of editing power and you've only put your toes in until now.
The condescending one is really you in that instance, since from what you've written vim can't be in the same class as Spacemacs or Sublime. And this leads to many people ignoring vim, who might have gained a lot of insight into text editing by learning it. So yes, it needs pointing out that you know so little about it that you haven't been able to really assess its power yet. But if you learn it or not is none of my concern. If you want to really learn it, I can give you some good material, though.
E.g., if you want to really see something that vim is great at, maybe better at than any other editor, check this out: https://vimeo.com/15443936
PS: I hope you notice the phrasing here. There is something vim is probably the best at, doesn't mean that there aren't other things other editors aren't better at.
I think I agree with you way more than you think I do. I'm a huge fan of Vim-style-editing. I use it all the time. Every editor I've used since has been with some sort of Vim emulation.
I don't think, or at least I didn't intend, anything I wrote to imply that "vim can't be in the same class as Spacemacs or Sublime". It's definitely a very powerful text editor. My only complaints about it are plugin conflicts, discoverability and mouse hostility. Which are all things that can be worked around.
What I'm trying to do is argue against the thesis that you need to learn Vim/Emacs to get that level of power. Sublime can give you that power just as well and with some benefits.
I watched the entire video you linked, everything in there can be done in plain Sublime just as easily (without Vintageous even, and definitely with), with find+replace, multiple selections and macro saving for the last step of turning it into a script. I do acknowledge however that I learned one new vim thing, which is the g command for finding and then doing something, analogous in purpose to Sublime's "find and select all".
The only thing I think I disagree with you on is this: "But if you use your limited knowledge to judge vim, I have to point out that there is a vast ocean of editing power and you've only put your toes in until now." This seems to imply that there are facts about Vim that I don't know that if I knew them would make me faster at using Vim than I currently am at Sublime Text. I agree that if I had perfect Vim knowledge I would be just as fast as I am at Sublime Text, but not substantially faster.
In terms of a prediction, I believe that there is at most two editing tasks I've done in the past year that given more Vim knowledge I would have done over 1.5x faster than I did it in Sublime. It seems you disagree with me on this point, you can convince me by showing me a new Vim fact I didn't know (I do know quite a bit) and I can tell you if it would have helped.
Notably this does not specify that I magically increase my brain power to be able to instantly apply the Vim knowledge in the best possible way. I'm fully aware that if I could instantly determine the shortest Vim key sequence to accomplish a task and type it as fast as I do english, I would be way way faster in Vim. I contend that I personally could never do anything close to this regardless of how much I learned or practiced. In the same way that despite knowing a programming language and practicing programming a whole lot, I can't come up with the perfect program for a task instantly and type it as fast as I can type English.
Basically I think we agree that Vim is more powerful than Sublime without Vim emulation. We disagree on how much of a Vim n00b I am and how much better I could be by learning more. I'm uncertain of your stance on how much of Vim's power is not accessible through Sublime with Vim emulation. I contend that there is little additional editing power to be gained by stepping from Sublime with Vintageous to real Vim.