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  • 51 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: December 9th, 2023
  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyztoProgrammer Humor@programming.dev•Vim is built different
    2·
    5 days ago

    Honestly if there was an award for keybindings for style in terms of the way something like the MLA style guide would describe “good style” in the context of english, Vim would easily win it. It is one of the oldest, most coherent, extendable, fast, joyful and resilient conceptions of how to manipulate text with a keyboard ever created and it is awesome how it is such a compelling idea that it no longer exists as a literal codebase at this point, but rather a style and philosophy of keybindings.

    It is shockingly beautiful even if you find it annoying to use in practice (I get it).

    For example, the Qutebrowser is just awesome, I don’t care if you don’t like vim you can’t argue with the power, ease of use and minimal UI the system requires in exchange for all the control you could want for navigating web pages without needing a mouse.

    The utility of vim keybindings in my opinion extends further into a lot of unexplored accessibility benefits because any vim style input scheme to a program is going to be by definition a nice limited set of inputs someone can custom map to their accessibility hardware or software to have full control over a software and they won’t have to worry about needing a mouse at super annoying parts because they know that is against The Core Commandments Of Vim.

    When making a custom or 3rd party controller to a software, there is always the problem of how many control inputs are you going to need, some softwares go nuts with unnecessary keybindings for silly things that becomes a nightmare to try to map a custom hardware/software controller to. Vim keybindings on the other hand well… it is the keyboard proper and that is it, boom done…

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyztoProgrammer Humor@programming.dev•Vim is built different
    2·
    5 days ago

    I agree with you wholeheartedly but I wanted to elaborate in a complimentary direction to your point, I think the benefits of knowing how to navigate only using a keyboard with Vim (which importantly is much less prone to RSI than something like emacs or mouse centric workflows for most people) gives a programmer are the same as they do for someone writing a book in markdown using vim.

    When you describe the advantage of vim’s modal keybindings and navigation, it sounds like you are describing an advantage in speed but it is really like a decrease in executive function load about the how which frees you up to think farther ahead and consider more interesting questions… kind of like how people describe the mystical power of AI except not bullshit, just a basic benefit to tooling that slots into your body mechanics and mind like a finely tuned instrument… but at the same time nobody NEEDs to learn vim. If you don’t like it, forget it, what we are saying is don’t bash it without understanding the beauty to Vim style keybindings independent of any particular software including vim or vi themselves.

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyztoTechnology@beehaw.org•Google hits back after Apple exec says AI is hurting search
    13·
    1 month ago

    Well AI is destroying search, one of the main points of AI is to design an architecture where ads and Not Bullshit can come together in an organic, inseparable union that regulators can’t figure out how to reasonably demand be artificially severed.

    The cardinal sin for Google with search engines is it is too obvious when something is a manipulated advertisement vs. actual search result and A.I. perfectly “solves” that problem.

    Google needs to be broken up.