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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 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (6 children)

Ctrl-left/right jump to the beginning/end of words
No exactly sure what you mean here.
Page up/down let you scroll up/down quickly. Ctrl-P :123 lets you jump to a specific line, but I generally use editing history (alt-left) instead.
I can type perfectly well...
Ctrl-{ or } does this I think.

Do you have any more compelling examples?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Ooh fun, these all take 2-3 key presses

Delete the contents inside a function delimiter by {
Delete the next nine words
Delete the contents inside long text quotes

And these more/less key presses

Start a regex search with a single button
Perform the same edit 100 times in a jagged files (good luck not f'ing up your multi cursor)

But it misses the point, of course every editor can do just about anything, but there is a lot more mouse involved and learning it is more difficult because the keybinds aren't combinatorial

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Ctrl-shift-}
How often do you want to delete exactly 9 words? It's much easier if this is interactive.
Not a common task IMO.
Ctrl-F and click a button. This is rare enough that a button click is fine.
Not sure what you mean by "jagger files" but I find multiple cursors are a lot easier to get right than e.g. regex replace because they give you instant feedback. Vim sequences are more like "oh you got it wrong, better start from scratch".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

1 is just going to highlight right?

2, how about 6 words, 10 words, 100 words

3, 4 I use all the time

5 if your edit locations don't line up so that you can alt drag a single column, this is what I mean by jagged. I would use a combination of find and repeat action.

Start from scratch - skill issue :p

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

how about 6 words, 10 words, 100 words

Yes exactly my point. How often do you need to delete exactly 100 words? Do you count them? Obviously not - you probably guess and delete 50, and then 25 and then 20 etc.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

10dw . . .

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