I think there’s more to it than that. Yes, it can be very satisfying to tinker with one’s tools rather than getting work done. But that doesn’t explain someone like me who took the time to learn vi (not vim) rather than using a basic text editor like nano or Notepad or TextEdit.
So why would I take the time to learn vi? I don’t tinker with it (beyond adjusting a few basic settings like autoindent, line numbers, incremental search, etc). It certainly took me a long time to get very proficient with vi. It’s also the case that any editing task I can do with vi can be done in any other text editor (they’re all “text equivalent”).
The answer is that vi, more than any other editing method, removes friction from the editing process. Having used it for a long time, I’ve built up muscle memory that allows me to rapidly jump around files and make precise edits. It also lets me easily automate repetitive editing tasks with its ex commands, macros, and of course the humble ‘.’ command. In the case of more elaborate tasks such as paragraph formatting, table formatting, or inserting line numbers into the text, vi lets me easily pipe motions, ranges, or buffers through shell commands.
So why doesn’t everyone use vi? Well that’s specific to personal taste. Some people don’t get as frustrated by friction in the editing process as I do. Maybe John Carmack doesn’t mind reaching over to grab the mouse in order to move the editing cursor somewhere else, or to select text for copy and paste. I don’t know what his editing environment and workflow look like. Perhaps he uses some other editor like vi but with the default configuration.
I guess there’s one more piece to clear up and that’s the question of whether or not I qualify as a “power editor user”. I think I do. I don’t tinker with my editor to the incredible extent that some others do, for sure. I used to tinker and found it a deep rabbit hole of distraction which inevitably led me to a slow and complicated environment (highly customized vim) that really didn’t do anything fundamentally faster/better than I could already do in plain vi. Having said that, I think my experience with vi (including having purchased and read O’Reilly’s book on the topic [1]) has helped me to master its commands far more thoroughly than a typical vim user. So I think that qualifies me as a power editor user. Others may disagree.
I think there’s more to it than that. Yes, it can be very satisfying to tinker with one’s tools rather than getting work done. But that doesn’t explain someone like me who took the time to learn vi (not vim) rather than using a basic text editor like nano or Notepad or TextEdit.
So why would I take the time to learn vi? I don’t tinker with it (beyond adjusting a few basic settings like autoindent, line numbers, incremental search, etc). It certainly took me a long time to get very proficient with vi. It’s also the case that any editing task I can do with vi can be done in any other text editor (they’re all “text equivalent”).
The answer is that vi, more than any other editing method, removes friction from the editing process. Having used it for a long time, I’ve built up muscle memory that allows me to rapidly jump around files and make precise edits. It also lets me easily automate repetitive editing tasks with its ex commands, macros, and of course the humble ‘.’ command. In the case of more elaborate tasks such as paragraph formatting, table formatting, or inserting line numbers into the text, vi lets me easily pipe motions, ranges, or buffers through shell commands.
So why doesn’t everyone use vi? Well that’s specific to personal taste. Some people don’t get as frustrated by friction in the editing process as I do. Maybe John Carmack doesn’t mind reaching over to grab the mouse in order to move the editing cursor somewhere else, or to select text for copy and paste. I don’t know what his editing environment and workflow look like. Perhaps he uses some other editor like vi but with the default configuration.
I guess there’s one more piece to clear up and that’s the question of whether or not I qualify as a “power editor user”. I think I do. I don’t tinker with my editor to the incredible extent that some others do, for sure. I used to tinker and found it a deep rabbit hole of distraction which inevitably led me to a slow and complicated environment (highly customized vim) that really didn’t do anything fundamentally faster/better than I could already do in plain vi. Having said that, I think my experience with vi (including having purchased and read O’Reilly’s book on the topic [1]) has helped me to master its commands far more thoroughly than a typical vim user. So I think that qualifies me as a power editor user. Others may disagree.
[1] https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/learning-the-vi/1565924...