Nano has already supplanted the great EMacs and Vim as the most popular text editor of all linux distros, for though it has many omissions in functionality it scores over the older, more complete programs in two important respects. First, it is slightly simpler; and secondly it has the text "^ Exit" inscribed in highlighted text on its footer

EDIT : This sees to be going over some people's heads. It's a hitchiker's guide to the galaxy reference.

The Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions . . . it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

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[–] ArsonButCute@programming.dev 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm a vim stan. I love my vim. I still end up installing nano on all my machines. It's honestly not even for me anymore, it's for anyone else who happens to use it. Vim is great but it's got a learning curve.

Often times I'll just use vi, since it's always there.

[–] blarth@thelemmy.club 2 points 1 day ago

Also a die hard vim user. Once you get comfortable with it, it’s a very functional tool that will always be there for you, at least in vi form if nothing else.

[–] perishthethought@piefed.social 4 points 2 days ago (3 children)

OK so... How long did it take you to learn to use vim? I mean, where you didn't have to look anything up?

As a nano user, I've assumed it was in the 1 - 6 months range, but maybe it's not that bad?

[–] queerlilhayseed@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 days ago

I had a job for a while where my main task for about a year was reviewing / editing configs on servers, in which I learned the basic functions of vim (opening, closing, seeking, copy / paste, find / replace, etc.) and used them enough to get them embedded in my memory.

I use vim less now, as I still prefer graphical editors with a visual file tree for most development tasks, but I still have the simple stuff ready at hand when I have to jump on a server and change a config file. I've "learned" new tricks with vim since then, but I have a harder time remembering them when I don't use them every day, and I periodically come across vim functionality that I've encountered before but then forgot.

So, maybe six months isn't so far off, but it's not that I dedicated myself to studying and learning the full length and breadth of vim's capabilities for that whole period. It's more that I picked up the basics pretty quickly, maybe after a few days of getting settled, then repeated the basics in slightly varying contexts until they became rote, which took longer.

[–] rozodru@piefed.world 2 points 2 days ago

if you use something like Neovim/Lazyvim or NVChad it's pretty easy to pick up as you can just hit space and it'll tell you pretty much everything you can do. Neovim also includes a decent tutorial. you can pick up the absolute basics pretty quickly, easily within a day or so.

[–] ArsonButCute@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago

Like two or three weeks for most tasks. I still check the manual sometimes, it's built in :)

Check out vimtutor if you wanna learn it fast

https://vimschool.netlify.app/introduction/vimtutor/

I oft reference the wikibooks page as well https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Vim

[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I use nano just because it's the one that's usually installed. if it was usually Vim, I would use that instead.

[–] hereiamagain@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

Exactly. I use nano because it's always there, and if it's not somehow? It's in a preloaded repo. It's just so simple and easy.

And I've used it to write code before, only several dozen lines at a time. And that's BEFORE I knew about the option to use modern key commands. (Learned that today).

Now nano is unstoppable in my mind.

If I learned vim or whatever, then on top of learning it, I'd have to stop and install it every single time. Bleh. No thanks.

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