Open eyes Working brain

It’s becoming clear to me that a programmer is probably closer to a craftsman than a scientist. The craftsman greatest strength is mastership of his tools. So just as the carpenter masters the plane to shape wood, the programmer must master a text editor to shape programs. I’ve spent enough time wandering aimlessly around a lot of editors and IDE’s. It’s time for me to settle down, make a competent choice and take the years needed to become proficient in it. I wanted something possibly simpler, light and which would leave me in control. That means an editor over an IDE, but which one? I did some deep research and after an endless stream of positive reviews backed by Gabriele “warm” suggestion, i bought “Learning the Vi and Vim Editors 7th edition”. Vim is 1991 software based on a 1970s one, and it’s great. Btw my second best was emacs, another 1970s software. This must say something about advances in text editing software industry. Anyway, now that i’ve finished the book and daily using Vim, i realize its very existance is relevant to the “simplicity in software” debate.

Is Vim amazing software? Yes. Is Vim simple? No. This could imply that simplicity is a highly overrated software value, but i think it’s not. It just implies that, as any other thing under the sun, simplicity is a relative value. Relative to what? I guess to user’s knowledge of the domain. Let me explain.

Simple software is one that provides a few objects and a few rules to compose those objects coherently into newer more complex abstractions. This makes an optimal hotbed to learn. Few objects are easy to understand and remember. Few corner case free rules give confidence while exploring the unknown. It’s important that the learner is not exposed to further possibly useful complexity which is not ready for yet. Only some to ignite inspiration, but greater power cannot come a priori, but as a consequence of greater understanding of the domain. This way user and software evolve together.

“Good” Complex software, which still tries to minimize basic objects and rules and completely avoid corner cases, may ship equipped with many levels of abstraction relevant to the domain. That’s for the sake of efficiency, so that the skilled user will be able to manage complex scenarios by quickly referring those abstractions. Give something too simple to the master and he will end up bored and unproductive. Give something too complex to the apprentice and he will run away confused.

Vim is extremely good and complex software which comes with a plethora of short keyboard commands to make any conceivable manoeuvre on text at top speed. Optimized for being efficient with keyboard, which already happens to be the most efficient input device, usually much better than mouse. That’s heaven for touch typists as i am. The nice thing about efficiency is that it can be easily quantified by time. Same goal, the faster the better.

Let’s close with a fulgid example of vim capabilities with a common editing pattern: swapping two words.
An usual hybrid keyboard/mouse approach on windows:

• Select the first word (click/drag the mouse or double click)
• Cut (ctrl+x or right click and use menu)
• Move the cursor after the next word (move the mouse and click)
• Paste (ctrl+v or right click and use menu)

I guess it takes 3-4 seconds to complete correctly

Vim keyboard based approach:

• type dwwP

An average good typist can do 50 wpm which means it takes about 1 second to type 4 characters. That’s efficient.