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Users of Vim and similars, what exactly makes it useful compared to other text editors? How much time do you suppose you save when working with it? (programming.dev)

submitted 4 months ago by ICastFist@programming.dev to c/ask_experienced_devs@programming.dev

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I'd like actual examples instead of "I work faster", something like "I can move straight to the middle of the file with 7mv" or "I can keep 4 different text snippets in memory and paste each with a number+pt, like 2pt", things that you actually use somewhat frequently instead of what you can do, but probably only did once.

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[–] ExperimentalGuy@programming.dev 9 points 4 months ago (9 children)

I use vim bindings in vscode, but I'm trying to switch to neovim.

It's hard to talk about efficiencies without use cases but here's some that I like:

Compared to using mouse, text selection is just much easier in vim. Instead of accidentally highlighting an extra space and clicking somewhere on accident which gets rid of my selection, vim lets me go directly to the end of the word and be precise about where I'm selecting.
I remember before I used vim, I would count the number of times I hit the backspace or delete when I had heavily nested parentheses. With vim I just type the exact number I want, and if I were to undo that operation I also know exactly what was changed, whereas when counting there's always the possibility of miscounting or pressing delete without counting.
I don't have to scroll. I can jump 100 lines in less than a second. Instead of searching through long files to find where I left off, I just generally remember what line number I was at, then I can simply just jump back.
Forces me to type better. Before vim I had really shitty typing form(I don't know what it's actually called) but switching to vim shone a light on exactly how I was typing wrong, and now I type faster.
Using the % operator you can jump between brackets or parentheses. This comes in handy especially when you want to highlight the inside of a function call, or just jump to the end of a pair of brackets

[–] BodaciousMunchkin@links.hackliberty.org 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Instead of remembering what line number you were at, you can use marks (:help mark-motions) to immediately jump back to where you left off.

For example, type mx to mark the current position with x (or anything you want). Say now you are at the top of the file, just type 'x to go back to the line marked with x.

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