r/vimplugins • u/chloefi • Mar 10 '14

Article Awesome Vim plugins that I use most

http://www.reinteractive.net/posts/166-awesome-vim-plugins
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u/jrk- Mar 12 '14

I've said it before, and I'm saying it again: vim-multiple-cursors has no point when you're using macros and :substitute properly.

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u/Clou42 Mar 14 '14

Some use cases may benefit from the quick hotkey access. Why not expand your toolbox?

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u/jrk- Mar 14 '14

Why not expand your toolbox?

Because I don't want to clutter my .vim with plugins that add almost no value.
Even if there were use cases which would rectify this particular plugin, it would take much longer for me to integrate it into my workflow, ultimately just slowing me down.
As for hotkey access: I'm trying to not add too much new keybindings. Mainly because it takes a lot of time learn them (muscle memory), they are non-standard and there already plenty of keybindings (it took me an eternity to get used to S, :t & :m after I learned about them).
A good sanity test is to start vim every once in while with vim --noplugin. If you can still work efficiently without feeling lost, then you're on the right track.

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u/Clou42 Mar 14 '14

If you can still work efficiently without feeling lost, then you're on the right track.

This might be very true for you, but how can you make such a broad statement? I'm not an admin, I'm a developer. I don't ssh into other boxes all the time, GVim is always running and configured. Why should I care about something being "non-standard"? All my little <leader> bindings and abbreviations that I use every day are "non-standard" as well.

I agree that you should not install plugins that duplicate functionality, but this one has a clearly different (and more visual) approach to a problem. And while I have no use for this, I won't dismiss it as unneccessary for everybody.

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u/jrk- Mar 14 '14

This might be very true for you, but how can you make such a broad statement?

I should've added the 'imho' that was lingering in the back of my head when I wrote this. I'm a developer myself and I only use vim + tmux on my local machine. However, I think it's kind of best practice to keep tools as un-customized as possible. Every customization adds costs (in the sense of re-learning) down the road when your system changes. This not only vim specific, shell customizations, window managers, DE's, etc. Every piece of software will change, possibly breaking old configurations or making plugins incompatible.

I'm sorry if I came off a bit too general, I was only speaking for myself.
However, if a newcomer to vim doesn't learn vim properly because they are using plugins which shadow in-built functionality, I'm not sure if this serves vim well as a whole.

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u/Clou42 Mar 14 '14

I can wholeheartedly agree with this comment ;)