I've noticed that HN is particularly good among online forums about not squashing comments that go against tribal beliefs. Your first few comments, unlike this one, don't contain any justification whatsoever for your assertions. I don't downvote because somebody hates vim and it hurts my feelings. I downvote because somebody hates vim but doesn't feel like they need to justify why, they just want to say it.
Often people who have been downvoted assume that it's just because they've voiced a contrarian opinion, when in reality it's because they've made strong statements with no justification. Then they pretend like they don't care by accusing everyone else of hivemind mentality and proclaiming how much they don't care.
Now onto your argument. You say "programming is not factory work" and go on to say in many words that editing text is not the most important bottleneck in the way of programming efficiency. What surprises me here is that you think that this would somehow invalidate the use of an efficient text editor.
Nobody here is going to disagree with you that the thinking and the designing take more time than the actual typing of those ideas and designs into code. That's not the point. We're not suggesting that vim is solving your thinking problems, and just because vim makes text-editing faster doesn't mean that vim users naturally gravitate towards hacking out solutions without thinking. Nobody is counting keystrokes to measure their entire programming efficiency.
Vim is used for text-editing. Text-editing speed is not the core bottleneck for programming efficiency. You've stated this, but this fact does not at all justify your assertions that vim is a bad tool. Your response above is an attempt to minimize the act of text-editing, as if text-editing itself, rather than vim, is passé and unsophisticated. That is ridiculous. Programmers edit text files all the time, regardless of how smart and awesome their code generation tools are. Those tools don't reduce or obviate the need to edit text, they just provide better leverage; they increase the ratio of work done to the amount of text-editing.
My very first comment gave some (superficial) explanations. I didn't think that I needed to write a small term paper to voice an opinion.
As for down-voting on HN. There's plenty of evidence that it is badly broken. It's funny to watch the Apple fan-boys down-vote on emotion when you even peripherally chafe their idols. The emotion is evident from the fact that substantive posts are down-voted when nothing is materially wrong or offensive about them.
Most of it is also what I call chicken-shit down-voting. No explanation and no reason given. You are accusing me for voicing a contrarian opinion without sufficient explanation. What about down-voting without any explanation whatsoever? I have only down-voted a post once and I went out of my way to explain why I did so. I believe I owe this much to someone if I am going to exercise that right. And so, that is my policy: If I down-vote I have to take the time to explain why. Otherwise I don't do it.
It is clear that the HN culture --at least the one exhibited on this thread-- is that vi/vim are fantastic. So be it. I don't have time to screw around with this topic any more and fend off fan-boy attacks. I suspect the same is true of your case.
I have used a myriad of tools over the years. The only use I have for vi/vim is when I have no choice but to use them. I remember when keyboards didn't even have function keys. In those days these kinds of tools made sense. Today? No. Not any more. You don't have to see it my way. And that's OK.
> they increase the ratio of work done to the amount of text-editing
I would challenge you to quantify that in the context of a real project, concept to completion. I would be willing to wager that vi/vim don't contribute one iota towards the completion of the project.
I have yet to do a project where anyone even remotely said: Wow, that text editor saved us hours of work.
That aspect of the adoration of vi/vim is what I see as ridiculous. I simply don't think that any of it is materially significant to the timeline of any non-trivial project.
Then again, I really don't care to continue on this thread because it truly is a waste of time for all involved. So we are done.
Conclusions:
1- No contrarian opinion of vi/vim will be tolerated by HN vi/vim users.
2- vi/vim are fantastic.
3- Anyone even remotely thinking of suggesting otherwise just doesn't get it.
Trollish nonsense. You haven't even really read my comment, or you'd know that the leverage ratio I mentioned, which you're challenging me to justify, was actually about the efficiency of the tools you yourself were touting, not vim. Your "conclusions" are obviously trolling.
Trolling. Really?
This guy is expressing an equally valid argument. And one that I suspect a fair portion of HN readers agree with.
Personally, I thought it was April 1st when I saw a foot pedal for a text editor!?
Accusing him of trolling is really lowest-common-denominator fanboi bullshit. He makes valid arguments, agree to disagree and move on.
Yes, trolling. Really. In every sense of the word. He didn't even respond to my argument. It's whining about downvotes, about how he doesn't have time for this argument, more repetition of the same irrelevant text-editing-is-unimportant argument that I already responded to, followed by deliberately trolling conclusions. This is not a back-and-forth with points and counterpoints. This is me responding to his points, and him throwing the same shit back like a parrot. I call that trolling.
You think he has a valid argument, cwills? Maybe you can point out to me where he has actually responded to my points.
It should be obvious that it is intended to be useful and educational. No flaming. No trolling. No personal attacks. Just reproducible facts.
I am hoping that you will be one of the first people to post a recipe to that thread so that those of us who don't know enough about vi will, hopefully, see the light.
You've written hundreds, if not thousands, of words in response to this article (about a neat hardware hack lets remember. You've been on a tangent since square one...) accusing vi users of "being tribal" and "drinking cool aid", pounding your own chest, attacking the HN voting system, and in general just doing your damnedest to start yet another editor flamewar.
Then somebody suggests that you are acting trollish, and to you that is simply uncalled for.
Often people who have been downvoted assume that it's just because they've voiced a contrarian opinion, when in reality it's because they've made strong statements with no justification. Then they pretend like they don't care by accusing everyone else of hivemind mentality and proclaiming how much they don't care.
Now onto your argument. You say "programming is not factory work" and go on to say in many words that editing text is not the most important bottleneck in the way of programming efficiency. What surprises me here is that you think that this would somehow invalidate the use of an efficient text editor.
Nobody here is going to disagree with you that the thinking and the designing take more time than the actual typing of those ideas and designs into code. That's not the point. We're not suggesting that vim is solving your thinking problems, and just because vim makes text-editing faster doesn't mean that vim users naturally gravitate towards hacking out solutions without thinking. Nobody is counting keystrokes to measure their entire programming efficiency.
Vim is used for text-editing. Text-editing speed is not the core bottleneck for programming efficiency. You've stated this, but this fact does not at all justify your assertions that vim is a bad tool. Your response above is an attempt to minimize the act of text-editing, as if text-editing itself, rather than vim, is passé and unsophisticated. That is ridiculous. Programmers edit text files all the time, regardless of how smart and awesome their code generation tools are. Those tools don't reduce or obviate the need to edit text, they just provide better leverage; they increase the ratio of work done to the amount of text-editing.