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Ask HN: When did Vim become "the cool editor"?

13 points by jff ↗ HN
Remember back in the day, all of about 4 years ago, when men were men and all the cool kids were using Emacs? Seems like over the last few years Vim has climbed to the top of the Ruby-writing, Web 2.0-using pile, and I don't know exactly why. Admittedly, it does have syntax modes for many languages (just like Emacs), it loads fast, and you can run it on most any system (like Emacs). Why has the sysadmin's backup become the hep thing with the Github crowd?

Can anybody enlighten me? Was there a concerted digg-based PR effort for Vim or something? Just wondering how it got from "oh, that other editor" to "Vim! (what the hell is 'vi'?)". I generally use Acme myself so I'm a bit out of the loop.

10 comments

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mbrubeck
Switching to a vi editor is a one-way trip. Once you have the muscle memory for vi's "normal mode", you become incapable of using any other editor. I started using vim back in 1997 because it shipped with BeOS, and my ability to use regular editors has been crippled ever since. :)

I don't think vim's ascendance is as recent as you think. Different communities might have been infected at different times. When I started working at Amazon almost five years ago, every engineer on my team was already a veteran vim user (as was I). And of course, vi has been a popular choice for Unix hackers for over 30 years. Maybe what's happening is that Unix tools in general are enjoying an uptick thanks to steadily growing use of Linux and Mac OS X.

CrystalBlood
Well, 4 years ago, there was not many users in the GNU/Linux escene like now, and all the people that was starting with tutorials and such, may find the recomendation of using the VIM editor, like always figure in this tutorials, i think this could be a valid hypothesis, to the new "wave/generation" of users.
spooneybarger
i use emacs but this really strikes me as an odd question that seems to suppose that emacs is 'better' than vim.
jff
Well, I kind of put it like that because there's surely no reason to switch from emacs to vim on the basis of features/portability. I've switched to vi lately for my quick little editing tasks, in part because it's ideologically a better Unix editor.

I also put it like that because I like to be a dick.

bhousel
I thought TextMate was the cool editor nowadays.
Travis
I'm not commenting on the relative quality of the two products (emacs v. vi), but I second the feeling that I should be using vi. Had a quick start on my desk for the whole year now! Wonder where I've picked up that attitude -- I've been a good little emacs user for years now.
csmeder
My guess is that its due to VIM being easier to learn than emacs? But thats just a guess I've never tried emacs.
pjhyett
I don't think there's any particular switch one way or the other. At GitHub, some of use use Textmate, others use vim or emacs, and I think Scott's been using gedit recently. Use whatever the hell makes you happy.
growt
... vim was cool before you were born my son ;)