I started off with Textmate, then Emacs, then Vim, then back to Textmate, then Vim (for real that time), then Emacs (for real, that time).
I am tempted by Sublime Text and Vim, but can't live without a few Emacs features these day. But sometimes I miss the fluidity of Vim.
That said, I found the most important influence on my productivity is fun. I am most productive when I enjoy what I am doing. And this is very directly influenced by the way I do the clickety-clack thing with my keyboard.
In fact, I sincerely think that Vim is the most efficient text editor out there. Nothing else comes close. The thing is, me personally, I am having more fun elsewhere, for reasons that have little to do with text editing performance.
Mind you, this is not critique against Vim. But I would like to discuss text editing productivity in terms of fun instead of keypress efficiency. Whenever anyone argues about the relative merits of EditorX against EditorY in terms of key presses I feel like he is missing the point.
I did and I could not cope with it. My brain can either do Emacs or Vim, but not both. Whenever I used Evil, I would fall back entirely into Vim mode and more or less ignore all the Emacs goodies and miss my favorite Vim plugins. Mixing Emacs and Vim did not go well with me. However, maybe I should try it again now that I am comfortable with Emacs.
I think the point that (judging from the responses) I managed to miss is that I think that text editing productivity is bound by an entirely subjective measure that has next to nothing to do with the objective key-by-key efficiency of the editing commands the text editor provides.
It really does not matter why your text editor of choice is making you feel good, but as long as it does, you will be more productive in it than in any other one.
Have you tried Evil? I've heard good things about it.
I'm actually a die-hard Emacs user. I like the idea of Vim's modes and more efficient keyboard commands, but I can't leave all my Emacs features and plugins and customizability (I've even written some simple major modes). However, I'm really considering learning how to use something like Evil one of these days and (hopefully) have the best of both worlds.
Evil is absolutely awesome. It is hands down the best Vim emulation I have ever seen in any text editor and even manages to not clash with stock Emacs much.
That said, my mind is incapable of handling both Emacs and Vim at the same time. When I used Evil, I would forego all the greatness Emacs provides in favor of Vim.
Still, maybe Evil makes more sense coming from Emacs than coming from Vim (aka maybe I should try it again).
I don't know--as I said, I haven't tried it. In fact, I've never even used Vim beyond :wq. But if it's even half as good as you're describing, I might just try it--all the power of Emacs combined with Vim-style commands sounds like a very good deal.
> In fact, I sincerely think that Vim is the most efficient text editor out there. Nothing else comes close. The thing is, me personally, I am having more fun elsewhere, for reasons that have little to do with text editing performance.
> What do you think about this idea/argument?
Unless you can tell what is the fun part, and what are the reasons you are having more fun elsewhere, I don't know what do you want to discuss.
I am tempted by Sublime Text and Vim, but can't live without a few Emacs features these day. But sometimes I miss the fluidity of Vim.
That said, I found the most important influence on my productivity is fun. I am most productive when I enjoy what I am doing. And this is very directly influenced by the way I do the clickety-clack thing with my keyboard.
In fact, I sincerely think that Vim is the most efficient text editor out there. Nothing else comes close. The thing is, me personally, I am having more fun elsewhere, for reasons that have little to do with text editing performance.
Mind you, this is not critique against Vim. But I would like to discuss text editing productivity in terms of fun instead of keypress efficiency. Whenever anyone argues about the relative merits of EditorX against EditorY in terms of key presses I feel like he is missing the point.
What do you think about this idea/argument?