Re: OT: The so called "steep learning curve" of vim...

On 10/01/2012 12:48 PM, Tim Chase wrote:
> On 10/01/12 14:17, Boyko Bantchev wrote:
>> In my personal opinion, saying that "Vim's learning curve is steep"
>> is nothing but a gross exaggeration. Why should it be? Are Vim's
>> potential users computer illiterates, incapable of adapting to simple
>> albeit new concepts?
>
> I'm pretty sure it stems on how productive one can be when
> confronted with the editor without any previous experience.
>
> A newbie user can approach Nano and see the "these are the things
> you can do" at the bottom, as well as how to obtain help; or Notepad
> and see that it offers the standard File/Edit/Help menu options to
> click on. In both, typing does exactly what is expected: it enters
> text.
>

But the thing is, for the kind of users vim is aimed at, a text editor
isn't the kind of tool that is used so infrequently that the user is
always stuck at the newbie stage.

I think there's a place for "user-friendly" or "intuitively obvious"
applications, but it's for things that you don't use every day and
therefore don't have a chance to develop any "muscle memory" or other
expertise. A disk recovery app, for example, needs that kind of
interface because it's aimed at a problem that hopefully doesn't come up
very often. But when it does we're already frustrated and don't want to
have to learn how to use an arcane piece of software.

A software developer, on the other hand, spends a large portion of his
time in his text editor. It's his "home base." What Alan Cooper once
called a "sovereign app." With apps like that, what's wanted is an
interface that doesn't insist on calling attention to itself, but
instead recedes into the background so the user can focus all of his
attention on the task. Otherwise it's like trying to play the piano
while looking at your hands instead of the sheetmusic (or hearing the
song in your head.)

People who don't work with text all that much or very often can be quite
content with Nano, Notepad, or even simpler interfaces. You don't need
vim to send text messages or tweets!

But other people find those "user-friendly" apps too confining, and
almost as awkward to use as an on-screen keyboard to be pecked at with a
stylus.

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