The Enduring Preference for Vim and Emacs Among Coders

Vim and Emacs persist due to nostalgia, speed, and the comfort of familiarity over modern IDEs.

### The Enduring Appeal of Vim and Emacs Amidst Modern IDEs
* 💻 Many coders continue to use Vim and Emacs due to their **speed, low resource usage, and mastery**, leading to a **sense of superiority among users**.
* ⚡ Users appreciate Vim's efficiency, with its **"blazingly fast" performance** and minimal reliance on a mouse, allowing for a **streamlined coding experience**.
* 🗣 The long-standing rivalry between Vim and Emacs users has shifted from a **fierce competition** to a more **habitual preference for familiar tools**, despite the advancements in modern IDEs.
* 🧩 Despite the rise of modern IDEs, Vim and Emacs remain relevant as they offer **ubiquity and familiarity**, allowing users to code on **any Unix-like terminal** without additional setup.
* 📈 Acknowledging the importance of muscle memory, many developers find it challenging to switch from Vim or Emacs to other editors, as they have **ingrained their shortcuts and workflows**.
* 🎨 While modern IDEs boast numerous features, they can also **overwhelm users**, making simpler text editors a more appealing choice for many seasoned developers.
* 🤔 Ultimately, the choice between Vim, Emacs, and modern IDEs boils down to **personal preference and the specific needs of the project**, with **no clear winner in sight**.
* 📜 As noted, "the best advice to anyone struggling with choosing a preferred program is just to **use the tools available to get the job done**."

The Overflow modern IDEs are magic. Why are so many coders still using Vim and Emacs? Okay, okay, okay, I'm uh I'm curious. Why are people using Vim or Emacs right now? 

I mean, not Emacs, Vim, obviously Vim, not Emacs. Nobody, what, no one actually uses Emacs. Why anyone? Give me one good reason. Oh, less bloat, to flex it, it's fun, faster performance, I feel like a God. Speed blazingly fast, convenience, magic is not

real to feel superior, probably the best reason honestly, uh but real real talk guys, no one said the right reason. Well, one of the one of you hinted, less mouse. Oh, I love that. I love that. Buffers, hell yeah. Uh but real talk, you guys are missing one of the most important parts

of the whole thing. It's so that you can tweet about it. Okay, you guys didn't even say that. I use Neovim, by the way. See, like that's all you gotta do, hit that, hit that, hit him with the G, boom. Let's

go, jump back in, give them the old DuckDuckGo, and there we go. Now that we've done that, let's go back over here and let's make it big boys. All right, John Biggs and Ryan Donovan, I hope that you guys wrote something lovely. Let's find

out the endless war between Vim and Emacs users has continued uh over the years. It's less a war at this point than a grumbling, shuffled uh shuffle of ingrained habit and stubborn resistance to change. How do you really feel? How how do you really feel, John Biggs?

and Ryan Donovan, but I'm glad we're starting off on an insult. Nothing makes me want to read an article more than to get it started off on an insult. Okay, here developers are finicky. Bunch of, are we, uh, I think we're no different than anybody else, like a dog

refusing to walk on wet grass. What I don't even get the what there are always seemed to be a bit of resistance to changing up routine. Have you not been on Twitter ever? Oh my goodness, days since a last JavaScript framework, uh, last time I

checked, developers love to change. Okay, I don't what the hell are you even talking about? Anything that's a year old is disgusting, okay, disgusting. All right, we love what we grew up with, uh, be it Star Trek jokes, Vim or Emacs, the origins of this war, this war, uh

hearkened back to the uh, Usenet groups in the 1980s, when a time when VI and Emacs were primary tools for coding. Emacs, as we all know, is a maze of twisty little passages all different. An old programmer's joke that came from the

Colossal Cave Adventure. While Vim and VI before offer an arrow-controlled universe of keyboard shortcuts. Does anyone want to tell them, does anybody want to tell him or tell them, technically there's two dudes on this one, two dudes, one bad take, uh, yeah, I hate to break this to you, um

it's actually antithetical to Vim's idea to use arrow. I don't want to be a jerk or anything, I'm just saying your, your characterization exposes potential ignorance to the situation. Okay, potential, potential, both are used in coding, editing and administering systems, and though we hate

to say it both have reached a point where neither seems to really want to fade off into the sunset. I think this I think they honestly want to fight. They just want to fight me right now. They literally they're they're fist fighting me right now.

They're fist fighting me. Uh, the endless war between Vim and Emacs users has continued ad nauseum over the years. It's less of a war at this point than grumblings. Okay, this is just oh oh this is the highlight. Oh, that's the highlight. That's the takeaway you guys want to see.

a takeaway for the article. This is the takeaway. This is the takeaway. No, this is actually before chat Jeopardy. Look at this. This is a couple years ago. This is before chat Jeopardy. This is long before chat Jeopardy. Anywho, Vim and Emacs users uh, once at

each other's throats seem to have implemented each other's key bindings. A thing they actually do to take on a common enemy, any modern IDE. A uh, quick question. Quick question. Quick question. Uh, I don't remember Vim taking on Emacs's shortcuts. Okay, Emacs bindings

aren't necessarily known for being great. Oh, I know people love them. Don't get me wrong, I get that, but people love a lot of stupid things. Okay, all right. Vim, the highly available idea, it's actually not an IDE. So you're again this is two, we're ha

we have two mischaracterizations of them so far and we're barely into the article. The consensus among many Vim and Emacs users creates a picture. Many tech users from a certain generation, oh no, in other words, not only are they flexing their ability to be

a bit ignorant in topics and typing about it they're also apparently a bit ageist along with everything yeah what's that certain generation again uh well I'm a millennial I love it uh Zoomers love the [ __ ] out of me of him

um and Boomers love neofam Yeah it kind of seems like pretty much every generation how much do you want to bet these are generation xers they look like generation xers okay they look like Generation xers generation x you can always tell your Generation X by

having a serious profile picture okay Boomers it's always like them with their kids right I love my kids um Millennials are always stupid pictures Zoomers are always like cameras over their face pictures right you can just tell you can just tell right away

you can just tell right away um as my father would attest using his Microsoft Zoom long after its support ran out if it ain't broke okay so okay okay so Vim is like a zoom a failed product in which nobody cared about almost immediately before it launched

okay while there are many IDEs on the market there's no reason to use one if you don't have to use one it's the same reason I'm still using notepad to compose and not some fancy text editor or CMS tool it just works

no it doesn't just work notepad is actually demonstrably terrible okay I I can't wait for this quote okay uh here we go the reason I avoided IDEs to begin with was that back when I was getting into Vim like a decade ago it

was an extra license to look into says Vim user John Carter you know I don't want to say anything mean about John but I do love the fact that they just tossed in some some person since then it's become a question of code speed if I start with a new IDE or

even switch to something like Emacs I'll slow down on an emotional and professional level I can't really afford that it takes energy to pivot to a new editor and I don't have that energy I got a job a family and side projects it seems silly but that kind of pivot

takes energy I mean he's absolutely right it does take energy but it takes more than just energy it takes a lot more than just energy I use VS Code for a week on stream and full time at my job just like a couple weeks ago just to try to make sure that

I'm not missing anything I'm not missing anything I know yes dude this is the best part saying people are stubborn and then claims to use his notepad Okay Vim is always available any Linux machine has it Vim has a small footprint low latency fast startups allows for more screen

space customizable and most importantly once the muscle memory has been ingrained it's nearly impossible to switch to something else [Laughter] it's definitely not like there's like say VS or Vim plugins for any other anything you're right you're right

you're absolutely right that's the reason why because this damn muscle memory for Vim motions they got him that's how you get them Carter oh continues Carter our fingers are off in the bottleneck between thinking of code and getting it in the app so that's what folks uh look to

optimize shortcuts yeah great take Carter Carter great take I often I'm often I'm more often constrained not by thought but by uh typing speed take Adam let's see what year was this article written in oh it actually doesn't matter Adam was historically and continues to

be a shot of her uh yeah actually but to be fair Adam did invent tree sitter the greatest uh syntax highlighting thing ever of all time um take Adam one of the more popular IDEs and editors actually no it was never popular okay it fell below VS Code

it fell below IntelliJ and IntelliJ also comes in many flavors and it even probably fell below Eclipse I don't know what the hell you're talking about exceptionally popular editor Adam is a free open source text editor that builds itself as being hackable to the core

it's just a less hackable version than Vim that's all it is allowing for multiple customizations it has cross-platform editing for UIs eight syntax themes and integrates with HTML JavaScript CSS and Node.js you can always tell people's experience in what they're writing by the languages

they cite my guess so now okay I'm getting a little too judgy maybe I'm getting a little too judgy at this point but it feels like this person hasn't explored the space of programming languages okay most importantly for users who didn't

start coding in the last five years there's a Vim mode package all right quick question chat type one in the chat if you started in the last five years and you do Vim shortcuts start in the last five years and you use Vim shortcuts that's where there's a lot of uh there's

a lot of ones there what do you mean guys you shouldn't you shouldn't have done that what do you what are you guys doing why would you guys ever do that you shouldn't have done that why would you ever do that Zoomers

viewers I know what are all these Zoomers in the chat uh this is let's see this has led users to literally turn Adam into Vim unable to let go of the past unwilling to fully embrace the future of code editing yeah yes nothing is greater nothing is

greater than time okay nothing is better than time can we all agree that sometimes all nature is Art uh but on to the is it how does that quote go all nature is but art unknown to thee all something chance which thou cannot see there we go all the nature is but

art unknown to the all chance Direction which thou cannot see this is this quote is being fulfilled as we speak hey everybody what happened to Adam between when this article was written and now oh yeah it's God what happened to Neil Vim oh yeah it's

grown exponentially I forgot how'd that happen all these damn Boomers oh damn Boomers out there keep using them Vim's dude this is hilarious time is the greatest time is sometimes the most hilarious maker of irony uh most Ides create an entire world where developers

can create but creating requires configuration it takes time to adjust to that world to play God okay we're just coding man we're literally just coding bro uh to create shortcuts and hotkeys to you to get used in different command structures in UI while a coder could sit

down at any terminal and begin working in them that isn't true for any IDE further Ides are often too much tool for the job but getting programmers are better served by simple text editors versus massive programming behemoths this guy was on an all-time Ritalin high

he might be there's actually two of them so my guess is they are co-snorting Ritalin in some sort of co-snorting Ritalin Ritalin all-time high state uh as coder's careers evolve less through their expertise then who is signing

their paychecks there is always a constant code editor available to them regardless of which IDE the company prefers it could be seen as an act of willful defiance or just personal preference but text editors are always there okay primarily it's about ubiquity says

BSD Runner Tim Chase what's a BSD Runner oh is it somebody that actually specializes in BSD or is this just somebody who happens to have this as is this like the IU's Arch by the way or is this somebody who actually uses this BSDs

nuts I can sit down in any Unix-like terminal Linux BSD Solaris whatever and type VI or Ed okay that's a little ridiculous and have a powerful editor that works even if my terminal isn't configured quite right and sending certain keys or key combos without

needing to stall anything yeah this is actually really important if you ever have to do server work oh yeah I'm just going to launch up my server and install VS code uh familiarity and comfortable okay oh I don't like this song we're

gonna we're gonna we're gonna fast forward I like this song right here though wait no I don't like this oh I do like the song I gotta turn it back there we go uh this is let's see this type of comfort that has kept uh

whatever perceives war between those still using Vim or Emacs and the prospect of using IDEs go for as long as it has it's mental mom spaghetti or insert whatever comfort food here so whenever I hear Mom's spaghetti I don't think comfort food you know what I mean

okay mom's spaghetti say about a decade ago lost the idea of comfort food actually about two decades ago I think vomit yeah I think Eminem ruined it in his exceptionally popular movie in what 2005. meme misuse I know this is just like

full this is full flagrant meme misuse Vim and Emacs are always there for you cozy calm vomiting and willing uh I you know I never like the something about this phrase irks me a little bit I don't like calling things willing there's just some weird error about that

word that just seems a little weird like I don't like using that word okay oh yeah it's willing it's just like dude stop it you're using an eye you're using you're using a text editor stop it stop saying it like that that's gross

stop it oh baby this is the most willing editor I've ever used oh yeah you're sweating stop it while an IDE is some weird new food with all kinds of exotic ingredients that require tenacious and irrational picking with the fork to get it just the way you want

It's not that, that's literally them. This is literally him. This is literally them. What is this guy smoking? Goodness gracious, the disconnect is apparent and at this point understandable. It's the opposite. You get an IDE because you don't want to know how [ __ ] works. You don't

right, it just works. You just press go, you press download analyzer rust analyze me Daddy and then it goes and it makes it happen. And you don't know how LSPs work or what the hell LSP is. That's why every single time you hear someone talk about VS Code

they're like, oh yeah, well VS Code autocompletes and then you have to like, this whoa actually hold on hold on there fellow, okay okay, hey take a seat baby, just take a seat for a second and then you have to explain to them actually

it's not Ellis, your your VS Code instance that is doing the autocomplete. It's actually, it has a client on it that does a JSON communication to something called the LSP or an uh LS, a language server and it uses the LSP language server protocol to connect to

communicate betwixt the two and that's how it actually understands what it should be autocompleting with. Okay, and thank you. Right, like you don't even know what you're using. The disconnect is apparent, absolutely, and at this point understandable. I agree with this

statement, uh and there is some shiver of recognition among developers though that perhaps switching to a full IDE is not as unbearable as it sounds. There is a resignation and finally realizing that in order to do the job you use the tools available to do the job, no matter what.

the tools may be okay, what I also think it's a sliver of recognition, a shiver of recognition, I'm not not really sure what that means, all right Tom Hanks, uh I say whatever helps you get the job done, use that, says Tom Hanks sometimes.

the more modern IDEs can get in the way and other times they're indispensable. Visual Studio, for example, has massive uh performance issues when there's too many files associated with the project, the entire application becomes very sluggish. A few years ago when I used PyCharm

for Python development it would sometimes become confused and give bad feedback on its syntax analysis. Basically, it was making you think you had more mistakes than in fact it was fine. What is the point you're trying to make here? Okay, let's let's get to the point.

Let's get to the point that said if you're new to programming, a modern IDE could be helpful with code completion, get control and even automated automatic development systems. What the hell's an automatic development system? Can someone tell me what an ADS is? I need to know what an ADS is, okay.

because okay, so help me with this. Okay, so code completion. What the hell's code completion is? Uh, by any chance is code completion this thing where if I go up here and I type the word init and it shows me all this? Is this code completion or is the auto is the

co-pilot, is co-pilot uh code completion? I don't know, sorry, I just use Neovim. I don't know what these features are. And obviously if I had Git integration right, like if I was able to say see the different changes in what's going on

with Git maybe I'd understand what the hell a Git integration is but I don't hold on one second I gotta I'm just gonna commit this really quickly committing uh my code there we go just in case okay actually I want to push that up to the origin really quickly I

don't want to lose any work you know while in Vim or anything like that let me just do that okay anyways if I could have those things automatic deployment systems oh okay I thought I said development okay maybe I'm stupid okay maybe I'm stupid whatever I don't again

I don't know what an IDE is can someone explain can someone mansplain to me what the hell an IDE is can someone man explain this immediately to me finally got to the streams yeah thank you push it to Git it auto deploys yeah who deploys from there can someone

raise their hand who deploys from uh from their their IDE a aim down sights oh that makes sense I know how to aim down sights does anybody deploy from your IDE press one in the chat if you deploy from your IDE press one in the chat if you do

from your IDE you deploy from your IDE okay I see a couple ones in there can you please give me your boss's phone number I'm going to call him and get you fired deploying from your IDE said that [ __ ] through CI/CD people

get the hell out of here okay don't trust your system to run tests don't trust your system to do the right thing okay you always distrust yourself in every other every oh you're the boss okay well that's reasonable now can I give you a call baby maybe we can go out

to dinner now we can discuss the finer points of Stop that's the line from here Modern IDs are Swiss Army knives of features yeah uh and like most Swiss Army knives you don't have to use all the features to find them useful especially if you're just starting out

many of us won't use say the hole punch or the toothpick but it's nice to know that it's there whatever war might be raging behind the scenes of coders between Vim Emacs and IDEs it doesn't really matter Vim and Emacs aren't going

anywhere anytime soon no matter their antiquated status in modern development environments really really which part is antiquated may I ask which part was it my co-pilot or was it my uh was it my LSPs I couldn't remember I could not remember which one was

antiquated IDEs keep improving keep launching it okay yeah launching is not really that great and served an ever-growing segment of young developers oh there's that there's that ageism coming in again it's a certain generation and young developers uh who were never

forced to thrive in a Vim or Emacs environment neither was I when I went to school I thought people who used Vim were stupid I still remember Randall my co my like classmate we did all of our homework together because he was smart and I was smart and it was great to have

someone that wanted to try but he did everything in Vim and I thought he was stupid I'm over there literally being this guy in NetBeans being like Oh what kind of jackass develops in Vim oh my goodness look at this jackass I'm using

I'm using NetBeans because I'm a [ __ ] God. I'm just out here playing God among my creators. That's how I imagine this person talks in real life. Okay, he talks like Brian Regan getting angry. Uh, the best advice to anyone struggling with

choosing a preferred program is just to use the tools available to get the job done. Uh, or as the popular 20th-century poets TLC so definitely declared, "Don't go chasing waterfalls." Please stick to the VIMs and Emacs you're used to.

I think my favorite part about this article is that it's by Stack Overflow, a website in which every developer hates unless if you're the person going on there answering questions, getting gold medals. I don't know, I don't know, seems a little strange. Not wrong, not wrong. Hey,

guess what? I appreciate you listening to this, so hit the like and subscribe button. The name is The Private Job.

QUIT VIM Because Modern IDES are magic

This is a place for all the things that are awesome on stream. 

ThePrimeTime

Initial question about Vim and Emacs usage.

The speaker questions why many coders still use Vim and Emacs despite the existence of modern IDEs.

Reasons given for using Vim/Emacs include less bloat, speed, and feeling superior.

The speaker points out that a key reason is less mouse usage and the use of buffers.

The speaker humorously adds that another reason is to tweet about it.

Discussion on the 'war' between Vim and Emacs users.

The 'war' is described as ingrained habit and resistance to change.

Developers' resistance to change is compared to a dog refusing to walk on wet grass.

The origins of the 'war' are traced back to Usenet groups in the 1980s.

Emacs is described as complex, while Vim offers keyboard shortcuts.

Both Vim and Emacs are still widely used.

Analysis of Vim and Emacs users' behavior.

Vim and Emacs users are noted to have implemented each other's keybindings.

The speaker questions the claim that Vim adopted Emacs shortcuts, noting potential issues with Emacs's bindings.

The speaker discusses the ageism present among users, relating it to generational preferences.

Vim is compared to a failed product that unexpectedly persists.

A Vim user explains that they avoid IDEs due to licensing and code speed concerns.

Switching editors is described as requiring significant energy and effort.

Vim's advantages are listed: always available, small footprint, fast startup, customizable, and ingrained muscle memory.

The bottleneck in coding is identified as typing speed, highlighting the importance of shortcuts.

Atom is discussed as a less hackable version of Vim.

Atom's features are listed: hackable, cross-platform, multiple customizations, syntax themes, and integrations.

The speaker notes that many newer programmers use Vim shortcuts.

The speaker reflects on the persistence of Vim and Emacs despite the availability of modern IDEs.

Comparison of IDEs and simple text editors.

IDEs are described as creating a world requiring configuration and time adjustment.

The speaker argues that simple text editors are often better than massive IDEs.

The speaker discusses the ubiquity of text editors and their availability regardless of company preferences.

The ubiquity of Vim/Emacs is highlighted, emphasizing their use in any Unix-like terminal.

The speaker discusses the comfort and familiarity associated with Vim and Emacs.

Concluding thoughts on IDEs vs. Vim/Emacs.

IDEs are compared to complex dishes requiring effort, contrasting with the simplicity of Vim/Emacs.

The speaker emphasizes the lack of understanding of IDE inner workings by many users.

The speaker explains the concept of Language Server Protocol (LSP) in autocompletion.

The speaker acknowledges that switching to an IDE might not be as bad as perceived.

The speaker discusses the potential drawbacks of modern IDEs, such as performance issues.

Discussion on IDE features and deployment.

The speaker discusses code completion, Git integration, and automatic deployment systems.

The speaker asks viewers whether they deploy from their IDEs.

The speaker criticizes deploying directly from IDEs, recommending CI/CD.

IDEs are compared to Swiss Army knives, highlighting the usability of only some features.

Final thoughts on the future of Vim, Emacs, and IDEs.

The speaker reiterates that Vim and Emacs are not going anywhere soon.

The speaker discusses the generational aspect of IDE preference.

The speaker advises using the tools that get the job done.

The speaker concludes by mentioning the video is from Stack Overflow.