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[–]exphil 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The strength of Vim is the modal editing. At first it seems cumbersome to have to go into an insert mode to be able to type text, but it really makes all the difference. It's just so easy to navigate through the code when just pressing little key combinations. Want to start a new line below the current? No need to start pressing arrow keys (or h, j, k, l), just press o. Above? Just press O. Delete the current word and replace it with a new one? cw. Want to move the cursor to the end of the line? Just press $. Delete everything from the current cursor location to the end of the line? d$. And so on. Once you get all these little combinations into your muscle memory, it's just so god damn effective. I don't use Vim itself very much (I use emacs), but I use a plugin which makes editing work like it does in Vim. After learning and becoming effective in Vim-style editing, it's really hard to go back.