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Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 21, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Oh, there's no general consensus; to non-nerds the original perpetual internet flame war may have been Kirk-vs-Picard, but to nerds it was vi-vs-emacs.

I'm a happy vim user, but I would recommend it if and only if you expect to spend a significant portion of your life editing text; it's great to use but time consuming to learn.

I have a lot of coworkers, including the ones who wouldn't touch Windows with a 10 foot pole, who are big fans of Visual Studio for C/C++ development, but I don't know how well it works for Python.

While I also love Vim, I want to push back on the claim that it's time consuming to learn. I think you can expect to lose ten or twenty hours of productivity to getting used to it, after which it's a net positive (but a continuing learning curve).

Even more practical is to just use a Vim plugin for a worse more normal editor. This is also a good gateway drug to Vim.

Oh, there's no general consensus; to non-nerds the original perpetual internet flame war may have been Kirk-vs-Picard, but to nerds it was vi-vs-emacs.

I mean... you say that like anyone except nerds was participating in Kirk-vs-Picard flame wars during the early days of the Internet (or ever, for that matter).

Once there were enough non-nerds there, it wasn't the early days of the Internet anymore.