Why I love vim
Mon 21 July 2025
Disclaimer: I will be using the name/term vim in this blog post, but I actually mean any command-line editor based on or inspired by vi, or "vi-style editors." This includes the original vi, nvi (which IIRC was the basis of the vi that comes with the various BSDs), elVIs, NeoVim, and even newer editors like Helix and Kakoune, but with the small demerit that some of the newer editors break muscle memory by not being completely compatible with the original vi commands. But the point is, when you read
vim, please replace that name with whatever your personal favorite vi-style editor is.
If you scour the ebullient database of opinions that is the Internet, you won't find too many lukewarm opinions of vim. People tend to either love or hate it, adore it or avoid it.
I will admit that when I first started using Linux in 2000, I preferred using GNU nano, and even wondered why Linux didn't have an editor as easy to use as windows notepad (or more accurately, MS-DOS EDIT.EXE). I'm not sure when my opinion changed, but at the very latest, it was 2002 when I was working a job that required securing HP-UX machines, and there was definitely no nano available on those machines, or any other GNU utilities. So I basically had no choice but to learn it, and recall printing off a couple TechRepublic vi cheat sheets and pinning them up at my cubicle for easy reference.
I also had some exposure to UNIX (via SunOS) in the early 90s. I didn't much like vi back then, either. Fortunately, we had pico, the editor that came with the PINE email package, which was the direct inspiration for GNU nano. So even though I'd heard a lot about vi for a solid decade before having to learn to use it, I avoided it, just like a lot of other people who find the interface (or relative lack thereof) confusing.
Before I say too much in praise of vim, I really must say that the learning curve feels relentless. Now, I'm either the laziest man on this green earth (jury's out), or it just doesn't really ever get much easier. I've been a vim user for 25 years, and I'm still a noob. I guess that keeps you humble. ;)
Nevertheless, learning vim, even just the most basic movement and editing keys, is very rewarding. It feels incredible to not have to move your hands off the "home row" (ASDF JKL;), let alone picking up one hand off of the keyboard entirely to grab the mouse to move the cursor.
Sitting there with your hands locked into position, effortlessly moving reams of text around and performing tons of various editing operations without ever having to break the flow of what you're doing to use something as clumsy as a mouse, cursor key, or obtuse E-M-A-C-S modifier-key finger-twister is just amazing to me.
100 Days to Offload 2025 - Day 42
Category: Tech Tagged: 100DaysToOffload BSD Computing FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Linux Non-religious post Productivity UNIX