[olug] The Joy of Vim (was: Perl Debugger)

[Andrew Holm-Hansen]

> > For instance, the "light
> > bulb" feature in Eclipse/WSAD, which makes correcting code so quick you
> > can't figure out how you ever did with out it.

That lightbulb is a frickin' godsend!

It would be nice if vim was the editor that it used.  It's a bit too
wordpadish for me, but I suppose it's probably difficult to change to a
command-modal editing paradigm this late in the game. I know you can
change the editor behavior through the Window->Preferences dialogues,
and I got some vimish keystrokes in there, but without a command mode,
it's futile.

The CVS integration is sweet and works well.  My favorite feature of
eclipse is the refactoring support.  If your syntax is correct across
your project, it can do wonders.  Also, it can wrap statements with
try/catch blocks automagically (nested or additively) so you don't have
to deal them ever again (timesaver and incredibly convenient).  It also
tracks TODO items for you.

It's also infinitely cheaper than Ideaj (whose feature set it is trying
to swipe wholesale).  Of course, Ideaj has some pretty cool (exclusive)
features that may be worth paying for.

Code folding is one thing I really wish eclipse could do.  I think you
can make vim do it, but not without some tweaking.

Eclipse can also be used with other languages.

Regards,

Andrew Holm-Hansen

On Thu, 2003-06-12 at 15:50, William E. Kempf wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 12, 2003 at 11:04:04AM -0700, CM Miller wrote:
> >> Agreed, VIM is awesome.
> >>
> >> Basically VI with other options that improve on a good
> >> idea.  The colors are great.  I've converted over one
> >> of my co-workers over from pico to vim and he thanks
> >> me everyday.
> >
> > I'd grab vim and a handy script or two from vim.sf.net, and you can run
> > circles around any IDE out there (and use it for all languages!).
> 
> But not Emacs ;).
> 
> And I can name some features in some IDEs that at least currently don't
> exist in either of the "good" editors on *nix.  For instance, the "light
> bulb" feature in Eclipse/WSAD, which makes correcting code so quick you
> can't figure out how you ever did with out it.  I can name other
> features... I'm currently trying to get Emacs up and going with some of my
> favorites, such as header/source toggling in C++ code.