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Title: vi, VIM, and me
Date: 2021-04-23
Tags: vim, vi, learning, unix, text editors, thoughts

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 So, I got my copy of "Learning the vi Editor (6th ed.)" yesterday, and as I
mentioned in my previous phlog post, I kinda finished it before I knew it. Big
kudos to Lamb & Robbins for writing such a to-the-point book, because I didn't
feel overwhelmed or anything while going through it.

 But what I wanted to talk about was /why/ I decided to try VIM again, despite
its modal nature driving me nuts initially. It was actually a few reasons that
got me to look at VIM again, and a couple of them are kinda...stupid, possibly.

1. Unix History

 So, I love reading about and looking into tech history. Apple, Amiga, DEC...
Doesn't matter, I wanna learn about them. But I've been on a huge Unix history
kick since getting a copy of the 1st ed. of "The C Programming Language". That
kinda increased once I ordered some more older books off eBay, and then one of
my partners gave me an older college textbook of theirs: "Harley Hahn's Guide
to Unix and Linux (1st Ed.)". This thing's from 2009, and the first three
chapters cover a surprising amount of historic details for a simple textbook.

 Watching some Computerphile[0] videos helped as well, but you're probably
wondering what this has to do with `vi`. Well, vi is pretty much the OG visual
editor in Unix that actually follows the Unix philosophy of "Do one thing, and
do it well". Emacs came out the same year, but even back then, it was a beast
of a text editor, and it's kept growing since. And given that I've been on such
a Unix kick, I figured I'd look at it again. I mean, I learned `ed` of all
things, and `edlin` for MS-DOS way back when, so I figured I might as well give
it another shot.


2. One of My Partners is a VIM user

 Yeah, one of my lovers is a VIM user, and we regularly throw playful jabs at
each other about Emacs and VIM. Cue /her/ surprise when she watched me working
on her new NUC server (which I'm finishing before she moves out for job thing),
only to be using VIM instead of Emacs. Granted, I wasn't using it /well/, but I
was still using it.

 Thing is, she's part of the reason I started looking at it again. I know she
can use VIM /really/ well on her MacBook Pro, and when she's not using BBEdit,
she's got MacVIM up and running. So, I figure I should be able to be as good at
VIM as she is, if not better, just for bragging rights.


3. The Stallman War

 I really didn't want to bring the political BS up, but I'll admit that the
whole war against RMS thing also caused me to look at VIM again. I got tired of
people from both sides of the stupidity coming in at anyone who didn't say what
side they were on explicitly, and treating neutral parties in an exceptionally
harsh manner. Just being able to say "I'm a VIM user" and proving it was enough
to get some of those people to shut up for a while.


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 Do I enjoy using VIM now? ...Eh. It's a text editor, and the modal interface
still drives me batshit. I'm still more comfortable with Emacs, but I'm going
to continue practicing with VIM for a while, just to try and be comfortable
with it as well. Plus, VIM is a good /editing/ tool, even if it's not the best
/writing/ tool out there. Which I say as I type this out in VIM... Go me!

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[0]: https://www.youtube.com/user/Computerphile

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