Perhaps you want a touchscreen.

I learned basics of vim, I can recommend. But also, it takes time to master. And I'd put other stuff first like fundamentals of git (stashes, staging area, branches and rebase.)

Also, don't underestimate using an IDE that's popular, I had switched over recently and found it convenient when a colleague asks for help. I can't tell them 'oh yeah I know how to do that on my setup' (though is valid..)

Like 3 years ago, I was into emacs, which I used with vi keybindings. Many extensions provided quality of life (tramp, magit, which-key) that others (vscode) only emulated and required hardware I lacked. Anyway...

If this is really about keys, go for gnu readline flavor instead of vi. I didn't, and those are way more ubiquitous. Anyway, research that and make your own decision.

Ps, here's a rabbit hole https://codeberg.org/ashton314/emacs-bedrock#emacs-bedrock

I keep hearing about how modal editing is faster and I would like to switch to a more performant editor.

Honestly I've yet to hear a good argument for this. It feels like such a major investment to switch to vi-like editors, I need a pretty good argument before considering it

Also a good argument for "why does it matter"? Speed of editing is rarely a bottleneck when editing code. If it is, you might want to consider why your code is so verbose and repetitive to make it so

Do you have a minute to talk about my lord and savior VIM? Wanna see my dot files?

I use Jetbrains' products for all my coding needs.

I use Helix

TLDR: Yes I think helix is worth trying out. It has some missing features but it is an amazing piece of software.

Yes I use helix daily. It is very fun to use and you can do many things faster. It is particularly good when navigating a (large) codebase you know fairly well. You are able to jump around and find/edit relevant code very quickly.

Compared to vs code:

• it is much faster and more minimal
• It might be harder to get things up and running than in vs code, e.g. to get auto-completion working in helix you need to have the LSP for that language installed. It can be a bit confusing if you have never done it before but it is easy once you have done it a few times.

Compared to neovim I think it is:

• easier to learn
• slightly faster - especially with large files
• you will have a much smaller/simpler configuration. AFAIK Helix has more features working out of the box than neovim (file picker, lsp support ect) and needs less configuration to get things to a workable state.

The downside of helix compared to both neovim and vscode is that it does not have plugin support yet so you will need to use other tools in combination with it to get an equivalent experience. Here are some tools that are commonly used with helix:

• yazi - terminal file manager
• gitui or lazygit - terminal git user interface
• zellij - terminal pane manager

Helix really shines when:

• performance matters - I have edited files with millions of lines and had no trouble on codebases where my colleagues IDE's become very slow.
• You want to use multiple cursors at times
• You want a simple or no configuration
• It is taking too long to learn the vim keybindings - vim keybindings are more concise but less intuitive and harder to learn

I recommend you use the tutor (hx --tutor) for a few minutes each day to learn the keybidings.

Don't Speculate

Go to Twitch/YouTube. Watch a senior Vim/Jetbrains/Emacs/VS Code/Helix dev churn out code for a hackathon/advent-of-code, and see what you are (or are not!) missing out on.

If you have "how the hell did they just do that" moments, figure out what that feature is, and STEAL IT. If its too hard to steal, then maybe you are being limited by your editor. Base your "fear of missing out" on what you see rather than random people tossing their opinions around. Only you can answer "how much is that feature worth to me and my workflows?"

• If you're going to try modal editors, sooner is exponentially better. Probably start with Vim bindings for VS Code.
• If you're not going to go modal, then make absolutely sure you don't bottom out. To be frank, Ctrl+D is the tip of the iceberg. Half the benefit of modal editors is, mastery is mandatory; they chase you around with a 10k volt taser until you've got 100 instinctual shortcuts. Hardly anyone mentions this but Go beyond/outside your editor: At the OS level, use spacebar as a modifier key, where holding spacebar converts your WASD into arrow keys. Then disable your normal arrow keys. Something like that will get you vim-like benefits, but in every app, and with a learning bump instead of a learning mountain. For VS Code, get cursor jumper extensions like Mario (block jumper), get cursor-alignment extensions, write boatloads of custom code snippets, get a macro record+replay extension, make a jump-to-next quote, jump to next bracket, install sequential number generator extension, a case change (camel case, snake case, etc) extension, sort lines, case-preserving rename. If you can avoid bottoming out, and keep learning, you'll likely never feel that you are missing out on whatever modal editor people are swearing by.

vim with appropriate syntax highlighting, or kate

I hate to be that guy but (neo)vim has served me well for too long. I don't even use any crazy maps or plugins; it's just comfy.

I started with neovim because I hate my laptop's mousepad, and that's often pushed as a benefit of modal editors, not needing the mouse. After I used it for a while I found that not only could you do stuff easily that would be difficult in, say vs code, but it was also pretty fun. It's honestly a bit of a power trip sometimes, makes me feel like a 90s tv hacker. Also plugins. So many neat plugins.

NeoVim plus tmux.

Great multi dimensional way of operating. You have access to the terminal and your ide.

It's beautiful

I keep hearing about how modal editing is faster

Please, do yourself a favor and ignore that noise. It is more a question of like/dislike and training. Personal sidenote: I daily alternate between PhpStorm and Neovim. Can't say doing things in either is faster/slower to any significant degree (PhpStorm is mostly there for the things I have not yet configered properly in Neovim, like looking through git history)

and I would like to switch to a more performant editor

This should be looked at and tested objectively: is it working with big files that is the problem? Or navigating the code base? Or something else? Maybe it is better to tweak vscode instead?

The main reason I like vi/vim is that if you're having to use multiple different computers (such as if one is a sysadmin, or in my case, does scientific computing), because if you're running on Linux, you can be confident that vi/vim will be on it.

For personal use, I've been using emacs, but I can't recommend that without feeling like I'm suggesting you try some heroin. I enjoy emacs because of it's complexity and how much power it gives me to modify it. It's very easy to fall into feature creep and over complexity though. That's why I can't recommend it — it's good for me because I am a chronic tinkerer, and having something to fuck around with is an outlet for that.

I would recommend learning the basics of vim though. As you highlight, getting back to your current level of productivity would take a while, even if you loved vim and committed to it wholeheartedly. It is possible to try it out with little commitment though, for the perspective. If you're on a machine that has vim installed already, try the vimtutor command, which will start the ~30 min long inbuilt tutorial for vim. I liked it for giving me perspective on what on earth vim even was.

I know you don't use it anymore, but I just want to fistbump you re: sublime text. I really loved that as a basic text editor that was, for me, just a slightly nicer notepad.

I use Neovim. It feels like a second nature after using it for years. I love how effortless the interaction with the editor is after you have spent hundreds of hours learning it. I have no reasonable arguments to convince anyone to do that though. I just do it because I enjoy the hell out of it 🤷‍♂️

Helix is absolutely wonderful.

Used to use Vim/Neovim, but the hassle of setting it up and maintaining huge configuration files was a pain (for me).

Also I never really got it working the way I wanted and never had LSP working for all the languages I needed.

Helix on the other hand. My config file is under 20 lines, LSP works super for all my needs. Well thought out keybindings (mostly) and overall a joy to use.

Nice features and fast.

Still a bunch of things missing, it is a rather young piece of software, but I have been using it as my only editor for the last 1 1/2 years.

Vscodium. Anything else (ESPECIALLY VIM, SO DON'T TELL ME TO USE VIM) makes my brain want to eject itself into the 37th dimension to look for Nirvana and the true purpose of life.

Neovim genuinely makes me happy. I love it to bits.

I swapped to neovim 10 months ago. Haven't looked back. Actually, I've looked back a LOT for the first few weeks because I couldn't figure out how to do certain things. But the more you learn the better it becomes. Not needing your mouse is SO good.

On windows i use vscodium, on linux neovim.

As others say i think helix is cool, but the limited customization is kind of meh for me. I love the keybinds for it though.

I use neovim but i think helix is honestly better ootb.

Fresh from university I found a job with terrible keyboards. After about 4 months I started to feel constant pain in my wrists. I then switched to vim.

And it solved my wrists issue. But also, I discovered a way to edit text that was so much optimized fat beyond my expectations.

I wrote this article for people that would like to familiarize with vi keybindings.

https://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/Learn-Vim-Progressively/

I use Emacs and love it. It's an amazingly frustrating (and just plain amazing) piece of software, but it's hard to move away from it because it's the only thing like it. Maybe if Lem every gets mature enough I might switch.

I probably wouldn't recommend it though as it doesn't sound like what you're looking for.

Neovim, Emacs, Helix and VSCode.

Zed has been fun.

VsCode and Pycharm are just too slow for me. You need a very fast machine with a lot of RAM.

My editors

• Professionally I use Jetbrains stuff (intellij, pycharm, etc).
• At home I use Neovim because I like to have lsp support, I'm too cheap to pay for IDE's and I dislike VSCode for personal reasons. For quick edits I use default text editor e.g. kate/gedit.

My opinions on learning new editors

• If you need to go fast now, use what you know best.
• If you have time to learn just try whatever looks cool. Learning a new editor/way to edit text will broaden your horizons even if you don't end up using it.

Throughout my career, I have used (in no particular order)

• Eclipse (as Android Studio)
• IntelliJ (as Android Studio)
• SublimeText
• VS Code
• IntelliJ (as IntelliJ)
• various CLI editors when sshing into servers (vim, nano, a few others)

Switching your muscle memory takes a long time, which is why you have things like spacemacs, or different keybind presets for almost all of these editors.

There is more value in understanding how to extend and customize your editor than in searching for a new one. Use whatever your workplace provides the best support for, and then customize it from there.

I've been using Vim for over 10 years. The first few years I used it badly. Later I took time to really learn it. Now I can use it fairly decently, but I still learn new things every now and then.

It feels like a really good investment. It's been around forever, it's gonna be around forever, it's installed on almost all computers, and you're going to be forced to use it at some point or another.

I really enjoy being able to go to any computer and starting up a familiar editor, without installing or configuring stuff. I also use a very vanilla Vim. If a coworker's laptop or some server has a different Vim config than mine, I can usually do vim -u NONE to get back to a familiar place.

I left a comment before but I thought I'd address the concerns around modal editing. It's not as hard as it seems, once you wrap your head around hjkl you'll be fine.

Use Lazyvim to get started and install the vim plugin in vscode. Try it qutebrowser too you won't look back honestly.

Consider helix too, it works out of the box but the keys are slightly different to Vim which makes it challenging for me.

I'm still learning to code, but I tried out a bunch and I've liked using Vim, VScodium and Pycharm.

+1 for Helix. Selection then action always made more sense to me than action then selection.

cat << EOF > file.txt
# [[content here]]
EOF

On a more serious note: Neovim for quick file-edits, doom-emacs as my IDE.

Doom-emacs does most of the stuff you are already using out of the box, is highly configurable and it lets you use vim-keybindings. It's also free (as in freedom) software!

Not dev but I'm in IT/Cybersec mostly as it's much easier to find jobs there and I use vim just about everywhere, usually with tmux and i3 with custom vim-like keybinds (super+j move focus right etc), I use vim even on my phone in termux, with gboard.

I don't use LSPs cause CBA but I only use Python and C and maybe occasionally bash for homelab stuff and I don't have large projects (😭).

If I'm doing any ML stuff from scratch (not refining or writing API for local llm model or integrating it with another API but just building classifiers etc) for fun I use Jupyter. Such a wildly different way of coding honestly ngl it's wild, but great when you need to document what you're doing.

At uni I used to use fucking Visual Studio with C# and Netbeans with Java, but I learned it pretty well. I don't think they ever even taught us how to run code outside those 😂

At work I use gedit and gnome terminal for navigation cuz it's company time unless I'm personally interested in what I'm doing.

I use emacs when on my personal machines. VS Code at work.

The fastest tool is the one you are best at using. I find that my tool doesn't make me fast, my ability to solve issues makes me fast. I very rarely learn a new tool unless it accomplishes something for me my other tools do not.

For example, at work I use windows and regularly ssh to servers. My entire job is spent ssh'd into other servers. Emacs terminal emulator is spotty at best when using ssh on windows. There are ways to make it work, but some modifications get flagged by our SEIMs. So in that case I use vs code, and the ssh remote connection options and split terminal interface.

At home I use emacs. I have all Linux machines so my terminal plays nicely. I also am working on reducing my RSI from years of tech work. The less mousing I have to do, the better. Emacs allows me to keep my hands on my keyboard.

I just use Vim out of habit. I've been using it as my main text editor since I was like 13 or so, maybe more like 10 I don't really remember. It works perfectly well for the vast majority of my use cases. I use Jetbrains IDEs if I feel I need the power of a full IDE. Jetbrains has an IdeaVim plugin if you want it to be a modal editor, or if your fingers are accustomed to Vim keybindings.

I use the godot integrated code editor, but i am debating switching to writing the code in google slides and copying the text into notepad in a virtual machine

vscode + whatever connection plugin you need + vim plugin