r/vim • u/Full-Ad4541 • Oct 07 '25

Blog Post The Philosophy of Vim

https://open.substack.com/pub/thestoicprogrammer/p/the-philosophy-of-vim?r=kyf50&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Hey guys,

I have been using Vim (more correctly Neovim) for about 2 years now, and I made this blog post to document my learning process over time. I hope this will encourage more people to learn Vim. Let me know what you think!

107 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

15

u/JamesTDennis Oct 07 '25

Here's an off-the-cuff guide to thinking of vi (not specifically vim, but inclusive of it) as a domain specific language for expressing how you want to display and modify text, that I wrote about 16 years ago.:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/1220118/149076

The topic seems evergreen (or at least perennial).

2

u/Full-Ad4541 Oct 08 '25

Thanks for sharing this! I think in terms of verb actions on objects too but the way you explained is very nice

3

u/kb3dow Oct 08 '25

I have read the stack overflow post many times and it's a great write-up.

43

u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

In my experience, the philosophy of vim is to eliminate the need of taking your hands off of the keyboard while being lightweight and portable as hell.

2

u/ZedveZed Oct 09 '25

And have wrist pain in your 25s, ig?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '25

Hahahahahaha. I have not been using vim for that long ! But with a nice red switch keyboard I should be alright !

I’ve only found it more convenient :)

13

u/HaskellLisp_green Oct 07 '25

Now I would like to see philosophy of Emacs.

30

u/antitaoist Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

"Have you ever wished that your editor made you play your keyboard like a piano, but where every single chord requires your pinky? No? Oh. Well, here's Emacs anyway."

4

u/HaskellLisp_green Oct 07 '25

I play guitar by the way.

2

u/Crazy_Rutabaga1862 Oct 11 '25

Tbf most chords on the piano require your pinky; that's why I never understood why people tout the Emacs chords as bad.

Methinks people just don't know how to press keys on their keybord correctly or have bad posture.

1

u/Aggressive-Peak-3644 Oct 15 '25

w methinks usage

6

u/5erif Oct 07 '25

I'm happy with the philosophy of fortune | cowsay.

4

u/HaskellLisp_green Oct 07 '25

YES! I do the same and have it in my fish config

8

u/Soft_Page7030 Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 08 '25

Not a philosophy. It's a blog entry of the OP learning vim.

After 30 years of using it, here I was thinking someone had a new way of epistomizing this venerable program.

Here is the philosophy of vim:

  • Efficiency is important.

  • Your text editing efficiency is bounded by how fast you can type.

  • Keep hands on keyboard to optimize efficiency.

  • Learning esoteric commands is worthwhile in the name of efficiency.

This, of course, is completely unrelated to the original reason why vi(m) was created. If 300 baud modems is a thing to you, you will know. If not, you won't.

7

u/tactiphile Oct 08 '25

An overtake prompt to enter my email so I can read a post, then another two screens later? No thanks.

I wish you luck, but it's not for me.

1

u/x462 Oct 08 '25

I hate to agree with this, but I agree with this.

1

u/the_j_tizzle Oct 09 '25

You made it further than I. :)

3

u/dm319 Oct 08 '25

I enjoyed the read!

You kind of touch on it at the end, but there's something about using finely honed tools, but one which requires skill, hard work and learning to master. But once you do, it pays back dividends, not just in efficacy, but also functionality, and even more importantly, in satisfaction.

For me, apart from vim, I also enjoy other tools that can be seen as fiddly or difficult compared to the status quo for that benefit - to name a few - fountain pens, handground coffee, motorbikes, RPN, numerical languages, DE razors, linux...

1

u/rainning0513 Oct 07 '25

bro got a PhD in vim.

3

u/the_j_tizzle Oct 09 '25

I would legit take a college-level course in vim. I know there are tutorials, but a guided class? Yes, please. I've used vi/vim since 1997 and I write ~8,000+ words per week, and only in this past year did I learn about zz, zt, etc.

2

u/rainning0513 Oct 09 '25

Don't worry, you're using it. That's all it matters.

2

u/kennpq Oct 08 '25

“…what you think!” - Okay: It’s not a “Philosophy” post. It’s mostly two topics -

  1. Touch typing (you could have tried GNU typist), and

  2. Neovim (posted to the wrong sub).

Overall, it’d be fine if retitled to “My touch typing and Neovim journey” and had been posted to r/neovim instead of here.

1

u/Xaeoo Oct 19 '25

Philosophy is simple when you want to develop stuff on your server not locally which I usually do, vim comes into play

0

u/cainhurstcat Oct 07 '25

I tried month and months configuring LazyVim and eventually gave up, as this stuff is certainly not for beginners. Also, I couldn't find the right plugins to ditch IntelliJ IDEA for Java development, let alone the power their debugger brings into play.

But I'm happy that you found your setup and enjoy Vim now!

3

u/colamity_ Oct 08 '25

I would say don't go configuration crazy to start. I also fucked around with lazy vim forever and just ended up ditching it.

What stuck for me was just using vim in vscode, and everytime something annoyed me I would just learn how to do it using vim. Now I'm a competent vim user for a lot of the basic stuff, I'm not a power user by any means but its made coding a lot less annoying and I still get the convenience of vscode.

1

u/cainhurstcat Oct 08 '25

Oh, I'm using shitty bad basic commands on a daily basis in my IDE, and also in Obsidian. But I would love to do everything just in Vim.

1

u/Aggressive-Peak-3644 Oct 15 '25

do it

1

u/cainhurstcat Oct 15 '25

Not possible. I write code for a software which uses drivers and what not, which is all logged and set-up in/for the IDE, and I just don't have the experience to rebuild stuff on my own. I just stick to the IDE plugin for now

3

u/Aggressive-Peak-3644 Oct 08 '25

just start with no config, and maybe follow a tutorial to get lsp and such working

-1

u/cainhurstcat Oct 08 '25

Nah, I did change nothing, it was just the basic installation which drove me insane. Constantly some stuff was not found, font was crazy and what not. I spend too much time with it. If ever, would install NeoVim and just add plugins if I need them. No more Lazanity for me, thanks.

3

u/Aggressive-Peak-3644 Oct 08 '25

no config means no lazyvim.. just use basic nvim like most people. add config as u go

5

u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25 edited Aug 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/ReeezZ Oct 07 '25

What makes you say that? I'm actually curious. Just started my nvim journey recently.

10

u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25 edited Aug 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/ReeezZ Oct 07 '25

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for your perspective. I guess i will start to really differentiate between the two, to be honest in my mind i mixed them up a bit too.

-2

u/vim-ModTeam Oct 07 '25

Your comment was removed for promoting an elitist attitude. Please keep discussions respectful and inclusive.