Am I the only person who thinks it's absolutely insane how much time people spend learning to use an editor?
Am I really supposed to believe that my time is better spent learning an editor than it is spent getting better at programming?
I honestly feel that learning these editors has more to do with gaining status than it does self-improvement.
Why should I have to spend hours consciously learning an /editor/. It's /just/ an editor, the interface should be good enough that I can just walk in and use it productively from the start.
For the record, I used vim for the first 2 years of my degree, now I use gedit. It certainly lacks some functionality, but it's generally good enough and feels like much less of a burden to carry: I'm free to focus on actual work.
I'm not sure the many hours I spend 10+ years ago learning vim are really worth it, when compared to the amount of time I saved during editing. However:
1. I had a consistent editing experience for those 10+ years, and expect to have it for decades to come - vim is everywhere, and it works the same everywhere (well at least if you stay away from things that may not be time-proof, like plugins that rely on Python support). It gives me peace of mind - it's a stable factor amongst things that tend to change every 6 months, usually for no good reason.
2. I have a comfortable editing experience, one that is so ingrained that it has become transparent (meaning, I don't notice it any more, like a good pair of shoes that are so comfortable you don't notice wearing them). When I use Visual Studio on a machine with no Viemu installed, there is this continuous nagging feeling that the editing is so sub-optimal. Again I don't know if the time I spend learning vim is objectively justified when compared to the annoyances of the editing in 'plain' editors, but it certainly made for a great quality of life improvement.
I got to go everywhere I wanted to go with my old Citroen, and it was (quite a bit) cheaper than the BMW I drive now, but I still very much like the BMW's improved comfort and joy of driving. Is it objectively a net for me to drive a BMW? I suspect not, the objective marginal value I get out of it over the Citroen is low, but it's worth the money (where for the sake of comparison with vim, money = time) to me.
To me, comfort is also the main reason to use vim.
Not having to think about where the buttons are that I have to press to accomplish something, not having to leave the home row... that's comfortable.
While I'm sure I'm faster doing the same tasks with vim than I would be using a regular editor, the comfort of not having to consciously think about what I have to do is clearly the bigger one.
Personally, I have spent a lot of time customizing and mastering Vim. But I agree with you that mastering a powerful editor is not a sufficient condition to be a good programmer. That realization occurred to me after I found that a few programmers that I respect very much have very primitive editing skills (which was very difficult for me to swallow at first).
it's not even a necessary condition. it has, however, made my life a lot more comfortable and pleasant, given the amount of time i spend entering text into a document and then editing it in various ways. there are things that i can do almost without thinking about them in vim that would involve effort, tedium or both if done any other way.
Am I really supposed to believe that my time is better spent learning an editor than it is spent getting better at programming?
I honestly feel that learning these editors has more to do with gaining status than it does self-improvement.
Why should I have to spend hours consciously learning an /editor/. It's /just/ an editor, the interface should be good enough that I can just walk in and use it productively from the start.
For the record, I used vim for the first 2 years of my degree, now I use gedit. It certainly lacks some functionality, but it's generally good enough and feels like much less of a burden to carry: I'm free to focus on actual work.