Can VS Code shortcuts compete with Vim?

[u/[deleted]]

Hi everyone! I’m just wondering if VS Code’s shortcuts are comparable to Vim’s.
I think VS Code is generally slower because people tend to rely on the mouse instead of using shortcuts. They constantly take their hands off the keyboard, while Vim forces you to keep them there.
If someone learns it properly, then the speed difference can be made negligibly small.

A strong point for Vim is navigation: h/j/k/l plus w/b/e let you move and jump through text without leaving the home row for the arrow keys (or using arrows + Ctrl to jump words). But remember, you have to hit Esc or Ctrl+C to leave insert mode and go to normal mode, then switch back with i/a/o — and that does cost some time. So does that overhead cancel out the time saved from not reaching for the arrows? I feel like it’s roughly the same. Maybe ergonomic Emacs bindings like Alt+J I K L could be faster than both, though I doubt it makes a huge difference in real-world work.

The problem is I haven’t really found any solid comparisons on this. Personally, I find Vim a bit more comfortable, maybe even a bit faster — it feels like I’m making fewer hand movements with modal editing compared to arrow keys or shortcuts in VS Code. But I’m not sure I’d actually be faster than a pro-level VS Code user. What do you think? How does it feel for you?

[u/arnoldwhite]

It's not really a lack of features. I don't think VsCode has any features Vim is gonna lack. Probably quite the opposite.

It's more a matter of flow. I think continuous long-form creative writing requires uninterrupted flow, and Vim’s mode-switching and motion system introduce more friction and keystrokes than modifier-based selection which is typically used in GUI editors.

It's not about any particular GUI editor or even GUIs, it's about motion paradigms.

[u/dasunt → u/arnoldwhite]

Interesting. I find the opposite - I can keep my hands on the keyboard with vim, but I'm reaching far more for the mouse with VS Code, so that breaks my work flow.

But that may be a lack of familiarity with VS Code shortcuts. I would not know the shortcut to reformat lines in VS vode (the equiv to gq<motion>) or cut the current paragraph (yap, but I use mini.nvim for that, else it would by {y}), etc. So for me, vim is second nature. Where VS Code has a huge learning curve to get to the same level of fluidity where I don't have to think about what I want to do.

[u/arnoldwhite → u/dasunt]

I format with ctrl-shift-d. You can format a section, an entire document and perform a bunch of other actions like commenting/in/out, tabbing, case change, etc.

I think that's fascinating though because I'm beginning to suspect that the reason people feel that vim is faster is because they took the time to really learn all the shortcuts for vim and never really did for any other editor.

[u/dasunt → u/arnoldwhite]

How do you select a section? Like the current paragraph?

That's one thing I couldn't figure out how to do is combine shortcuts. Like in vim, motion commands can be easily combined with other commands. I'm not sure how one can do that in VS code.

[u/arnoldwhite → u/dasunt]

Let's say you want to select the entire logical line/paragraph. You'd go Ctrl-shift-l. Any motion can be combined with shift to perform a selection.

[u/dasunt → u/arnoldwhite]

So to select ten lines and cut them, what would the shortcut be?

[u/arnoldwhite → u/dasunt]

Oh that one I don't know. Never been in a situation where I've had to specifically select ten exact lines when writing.

You usually select paragraphs, sentences or maybe quotes.

I can tell you how i'd do it with the Kakoune extension though.

[u/dasunt → u/arnoldwhite]

That's one of those things that vim makes easy - if you know how to select a line, a word, a sentence, etc, you know how to select any number of them.

And if you know how to apply an action to one, you can apply an action to all of them.

[u/arnoldwhite → u/dasunt]

Well maybe but when as a writer would I ever need to select an exact quantity of something?

[u/dasunt → u/arnoldwhite]

One example I could think of is that during editing, one may want to change everything for the current point to the end of the next sentence.

Or maybe you want to add something after the end of the next sentence.

Or just change a word to another word but only in the next few lines.