Reply to post: Re: Key collisions - forced decisions

VS Code acknowledges its elders: Makefile projects get an official extension – and VIM mode is on the backlog

John Riddoch

Re: Key collisions - forced decisions

I don't think Vi (well, originally ex) was designed to specialize for coding. It was written in a time of scarce, expensive compute resources and dumb terminals wired by RS-232 cables. Minimising keypresses reduced the amount of data being transferred over the wire and being managed by the operating system so it became efficient as a by product. Mice weren't available much, if at all.

It's a steep learning curve and frankly I only got good at it because it was the only editor guaranteed to be available on Solaris, AIX and HP-UX on a base install. I still use it as my default editor on Linux despite other options being available out of familiarity and the fact I can do a bunch of common tasks on config files quickly with it (quicker than I could with e.g. notepad). Also, it's quicker for me to not have to switch between mouse & keyboard, just keeping my hands over the keyboard.

If you prefer another editor, great. For folks like myself who can be efficient with vi(m) and are familiar with it, it could well be faster than using a GUI based editor.

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