Why I’m stuck with Vim


Every time I try out a new editor or ide a couple of things happen.

First, I get the colors and font all setup the way that I want. Pretty easy configuration on most editors.

After a few minutes of getting it to look the way I want then I start in on the behavior that I want. I’m used to my fingers making certain motions and the text changing the way I expect. I usually give it a good 10 minutes before I say “Ah f*ck it, there has to be a vim mode for this”. Usually there is…sublime…rubymine. So I turn vim mode on. That’s better.

So it looks the way I want it to and it acts mostly the way I want it to. Then something happens at this point and my pragmatism kicks in. If it looks like vim and it kinda acts like vim then what have I really accomplished?

At this point I usually delete it and move back to vim to get some work done. (Actually, I keep rubymine around just for those times I need to debug some ruby. It’s awesome for that)

So the point is learn your tools. Stick with them and think about how much time lost learning a new one compares to the productivity gains you think you’ll get from switching.

Thankfully I <3 vim.