[mdlug] Linux Text Editors -- Try Cooledit

[Steve Litt]

LAP said on Fri, 6 Jan 2023 07:39:48 -0500

>Everyone raves about VIM.  It's nearly unanimous.  VIM is the best.
>
>Based on this, I tried VIM.  Immediately I was dead in the water.
>
>Why?  Because VIM uses "modes."
>
>IMO, modes in a text editor is the most inane thing imaginable.  I want
>to concentrate on creating and editing and not on shifting between
>various modes.  To me, modes are the silliest idea for an editor but
>I suppose for VIM, being essentially a console program, they are
>necessary.

Almost everything you (LAP) say in the preceding paragraphs is true,
but this doesn't change the fact that Vim is probably the fastest
editor to use because of its friendliness to the touch-typist. And
modes are the way it achieves this friendliness.

I completely understand your being dead in the water and not liking it.
When first introduced to vi, on a mainframe, I hated it so much that
(I'm not kidding) I made a batch file to download the mainframe file,
work on it in Notepad, and send it back to the mainframe.

As time went on and more Vim keystrokes became muscle memory, no
concentration was needed to operate the editor, so I could concentrate
on creating and editing rather than modes. In fact, because I didn't
have to reach for a mouse, there was less time to forget my ideas for
the file, adding further concentration on the file.

Vim isn't for everyone. If you can't touch-type at least 35 WPM, it's
not the editor you want. And it takes a week of practice to go from
minimum productivity to barely adequate productivity, and 1 to 6 months
to go to super-productivity. This is an up front investment not
everyone wants to make, especially in this age of Zen-coding editors
like VScode. But for those who really learn to use it, Vim is a
productivity fountain.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Autumn 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm