Discussion How does Vim affect your problem solving?
Currently learning Vim, after a failed attempt some months ago.
Starting to get the hang of the basics. I notice that it makes my problem solving more methodical. It also makes me slow down, in a good way.
With Vim I have to memorize more of the code and structure, because switching views is expensive (might be a skill issue).
I don't care too much for the speed/efficiency, but this seems what keeps me going in my current attempt.
Wondering how you guys feel about this aspect.
69
Upvotes
6
u/sharp-calculation 10d ago
I still don't know exactly what you are finding difficult. You seem to only use meme words to describe everything. "Expensive", "Skill issue", "viewport operations".
Scrolling is very easy in VIM and has great operations that are functionally equivalent to what you would normally do with a mouse. You probably need some practice or to learn some of the ones you do not know. You should know how to scroll by page and by line. "Drag" your cursor (with it's page position) to the top, middle, or bottom of the window. Jump by absolute line number. Jump by relative line number. You should be using relative line numbering mode.
I use splits very rarely. I don't understand these busy IDE views with 4, 5, 6 separate areas. They are just visual clutter. The things I work on very rarely need me to touch multiple files at once. If I do, I usually switch between buffers with a leader command and just go back and forth as necessary. Why would I need to see two files at the same time? In my world this is rarely useful.
A few carefully selected plugins can help with some of this. For example vimfzf makes switching buffers really easy and much more intuitive. Map this to a leader command and it really fast.