Why every software engineer should use vim

Conquer the “quitting vim” fear and give it a goIt might seem like an overstatement at first and you might be furious or laughing depending on the kind of person you are, that a random vim enthusiast from the internet saying that every software enginee…

Conquer the “quitting vim” fear and give it a go

It might seem like an overstatement at first and you might be furious or laughing depending on the kind of person you are, that a random vim enthusiast from the internet saying that every software engineer should use vim. But I hope you will have five minutes of your time to hear my reasoning and make your decision based on that.

I will not beat around the bush and directly get to the point:

  1. Vim kind of has a language of its own. If you master vim you can use it in every text editor and even in browser (yes you heard it right!).
  2. You grow always learning mentality.
  3. You will be really fast!
  4. It’s fun.

Vim kind of has a language of its own. If you master vim you can use it in every text editor
Many people have kind of a misunderstanding that if you use vim you have to use 1980’s UI/UX in terminal with no intellisense, debugger or any 21st-century features and you have to do load tons of customization. It’s totally a myth. You can use vim as a plugin in Intellij, vscode, sublime and almost all the IDE and use the latest and greatest IDE features and with zero customization.

Demo of vim in Intellij and vscode

So what do you achieve from this? Now you have an editing skillset that you can use in every editor, even in the remote linux server (since almost all linux servers has vim!). Otherwise, you would have to learn tips and tricks for getting around a file in every editor or configure everything to your liking. And when you have to edit in the server, there is no intellij or vscode there!

If you are really excited about it (Like it have become!) you can use vim keybinding to move around in terminal and also in browser. So for me personally if learning one thing helps me in so many places it’s a win for me.

You grow always learning mentality

Learning vim is an endless process. First you learn the basics, then you suddenly find out there is a way quicker way to do so. You will be amazed at how many awesome plugins there are and the interesting things you can do with vim. Let me give you some examples to pique your interest.

When you use vim you follow that philosophy to be better and quicker at editing code, text, or markdown. You are always learning new tricks and always evolving and the best thing is you can use this skill almost everywhere. This is the most important skill for software engineers to be evolving continuously. Also this is true for doing good in any field right ?

You will be really fast!

I think most people have heard about mouse-free life. I think it’s a bit extreme. You still need mouse in many places. But in the case of editing a file, you will find that you are way faster just using keyboard than keyboard + mouse combo.

Context switches between keyboard and mouse can take your concentration away from the code.

When you are using vim, you do not move your hand around from keyboard to mouse and vice versa. It’s ways faster and once you are used to it, you don’t think about it. You just do it. It comes with great satisfaction and people around you will be looking at you like you are some coding evangelist.

Vim is fun!

Finally, coding and editing using vim is an absolute pleasure if you can get past the initial horror and have an open mind about trying. In the end, people saying you are way quicker using vim than using mouse does not mean that you are saving 1 hour every day by switching to vim. I think nobody has a benchmark for it.

If you are saving five minutes every day by switching to vim is it worth it? You waste more time just sitting around and thinking nothing. But I will tell you why it’s worth a try, vim helps you setup always learning mentality, you are always finding a better way of doing things and there is a great satisfaction that comes with it, you can use the same skill and keybinding in almost every editor you can imagine, on your cousins mac, directly in servers to quickly test an issue on development env, in any terminal if you are using tmux, and even to navigate in goddamn browser !!!

After all this blabbering I hope that I have convinced you to give vim a try. If not, then it’s ok too. Because I believe everyone should do and try things that they find interesting and useful, not because some guy on the internet said so. Also do follow me because I plan to write how to rock with vim next!


Why every software engineer should use vim was originally published in Level Up Coding on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


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» Why every software engineer should use vim | Rajob Raihan | Sciencx | https://www.scien.cx/2022/01/31/why-every-software-engineer-should-use-vim/ | 2024-03-29T15:25:40+00:00
https://github.com/addpipe/simple-recorderjs-demo