this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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I'm trying out Obsidian for taking notes, and this made me laugh.

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[–] [email protected] 173 points 11 months ago (11 children)
[–] [email protected] 132 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

It's hard to hate nano, but IMHO there also isn't anything to like in particular either. It's basically a TUI notepad. It's there, it lets people edit files... and that's pretty much all there is to it.

[–] [email protected] 150 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You can use nano without having to read anything about nano. That might be the only thing that is better about it than vim, but it's a damn important thing.

[–] [email protected] 70 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I have zero patience when trying to make small adjustments to files, which is what my command line text editor should be for. Nano just has everything at the bottom in case you forget (I do, frequently) so the workflow is ridiculously streamlined for me

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Absolutely. It also has whole-line cut/uncut which is a godsend when working with config files

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Ironically, that's like the one thing I've learned to do in Vim.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 11 months ago

it's basically a TUI notepad. It's there, it does one job and that's all there is to it

That's what the people who like it like about it.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago (3 children)

That’s it’s job

What else is there for it to do?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I mean, why compare it with vim at all then. Apples and oranges...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Yeah it literally follows the UNIX philosophy

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Forget KISS, amirite.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago

nano is just... There when you need a text editor for something. Simple and purposeful

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I like nano because it has worked any time I needed it. I don't dislike nano because I'm not good enough at Linux to have ever run into its limitations

[–] [email protected] 37 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I never get the need to use vim and nano exists.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (6 children)

Vim really is an IDE, not a text editor. It's usable as an editor but overkill.

Nano serves a difference purpose. It's like telling someone on a bike that a mustang is better.

[–] kogasa 33 points 11 months ago (13 children)

Vim is absolutely not an IDE. It has no integrations with any language. It's just a powerful text editor. You can add language plugins and configure it to be an IDE.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

That's what most IDEs are. VS Code doesn't have any native integrations. Everything is provided by plugins. The default plugins that ship with VS Code can be disabled, and you'll have just a powerful text editor.

(To do this, go to Extensions tab, click the filter icon, select "Built-in", and go down the list to disable all of them. Or just build a version with no built-in plugins.)

[–] kogasa 15 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Sure, and VSCode without any plugins is a text editor, not an IDE.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (5 children)

No offense intended here - But why is this being upvoted?

vim absolutely is an IDE if that is how you want to use it. Syntax highlighting, linter, language specific autocomplete, integrated sed/regex. And much, much more.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (2 children)

my car is absolutely a boat if you put a boat motor on the back of it and waterproof it

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

"You see here my car has positions for all the parts of a boat so it's easily made into a boat and it's already waterproof but it's just a normal car"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I don't know that's a fair anology. Vim does what a IDE can do without almost any setup with LazyVim and Lunar Vim and a bunch other prebaked setups. Instead of writing your vscode config in JSON or using a GUI, you can use lua. It's more like turning car into a track car or something where you're already a mechanic

[–] kogasa 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Syntax highlighting, linting, and language specific autocomplete are features supported by plugins and scripts. Plain, simple vim is a powerful extensible text editor. The extensibility makes it easy to turn into an IDE.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The things you're describing are still just text editor features. An IDE generally has specific functionality for building, testing, packaging, debugging etc. for one or more programming languages/environments.

(Which vim can do if configured, I don't really have an opinion about that tbh)

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It literally has a built in scripting language.

[–] kogasa 6 points 11 months ago (8 children)

So it's an IDE for vimscript...? No.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

"Vim is an IDE"

https://www.vim.org/ -> Vim is a highly configurable text editor

Press X to doubt

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

In case of a house fire, I'd only escape with two things: my cat and my .vimrc

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I guess it depends on if you're the type of person who sees VSCode as an IDE or just a text editor.

Vim is effectively the same way.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Nano is for those that occasionally edit text files from a terminal.

Vim is for those who make a living out of it.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If you edit files a lot vim is worth its weight in gold. Nano makes me want to kill myself as everything takes so much longer.

Nano is perfectly sufficient for a very rare edit.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Vim absolutely chews through anything you throw at it. Lots of times we need data formated or lots of SQL queries and I'm the go to guy because I understand vim macros.

Especially if you have any form of RSI.

I wonder if it would be possible to make a user accessable way to expose similar power to the common user.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Not really, or that doesn't feel right to my. Word and notepad basically still do the same thing except for that word lets you add style.

Like a manual vs an automatic car, maybe?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Word is a WYSIWYG editor. We don't talk about it much these days because it's just how things are done, but it took a long time for the industry to come up with a way to display text on screen with rich formatting and have it come out the same way in print. There was a lot of buzz around it in the late 80s and early 90s.

Word solves a completely different problem than an IDE. Notepad is a raw, minimal tool that could be built on for either WYSIWYG or an IDE.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (6 children)

It just makes a lot of stuff way easier once you know how to use it. Switching out a word for another: two button-presses, duplicating a line: three presses, deleting 500 consecutive lines: five presses

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What if I want to undo my life's mistakes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Church of Emacs is always there ;)

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (7 children)

I never get the need to use a mechanical pencil and graphite pencils exists

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I’ll level with you: I’m kind of a moron.

If my command line text editor has its own bespoke integrated command line, then science has gone too far and we need to stop lmao

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago (5 children)

nano gang checking in.

However, I’ve been forced over time to remember “:wq” to get unstuck should vim randomly appear.

[–] dukk 14 points 11 months ago

Alternatively, you can save a key and use :x (And :q! to quit without saving)

Yeah, that’s such a Vim user thing to say :P

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

I personally like nano but it's what I used first. So I learned the commands. Vim I still forget Everytime.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

100-com% of the time I'm using nano to edit something in the terminal, and it's usually something really minor. I'm using GUIs for the majority of my computing anyway, so if I need some robust text editing, I've got a bunch of easier-to-learn, easier-to-use options available, and that's totally ignoring things like awk, grep, sed, etc.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Pico gang reporting in.

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