24 hours with Vim
I finally knuckled down and started playing again with Vim. It has always been a huge turn-off, what with all those weird key combinations to learn and remember. The famous one is the noob cross-posting in a gazillion forums:
HELP! How do I exit Vim?
Yeah! At least I remembered ESC :wq+Enter. I also learned that ESC :x+Enter works the same and is much cooler.
I love Nano and I do prefer it. It is super easy to use and stays out of your way. Configuring Nano is also quick and easy, as there is not much there to configure. Vim, on the other hand is a bugger. Comparing the two, Vim has native spellchecking, which is a good thing. If I could only get it to behave less like Vim and more like Nano…
Permanent Insert mode
Why on earth would I want to open a file just to read it in Vim? Maybe that was all the rage in 1992, getting a document to open in the Terminal to have a cheeky read. Boats floated a bit differently back then, I guess. 99.99% of the time, I open a file in Terminal to edit it, so why not set Vim to do what Nano does by default?
autocmd VimEnter * startinsert
That does the trick in .vimrc.
Spellcheck
I like this a lot in Vim. It is possible to do in Nano (albeit by installing Aspell or Hunspell) but spellchecking in Vim feels more natural to me. Plus, Vim’s spellcheck is built-in. With the cursor on the bad word, ESC z= presents the suggested corrections and those are selected by number. Very 1990s but nice and straightforward. Nano, when I last tried, was a little more convoluted to check and correct bad spelling.
Yes, I believe that this has turned into a comparison of Nano versus Vim.
Hmm, I’m not so sure that I could ever get used to writing in either of these if I’m being totally honest with myself. I think I’m too much of a GUI-man. Should I have a play with EMACS next for another world of pain? Thanks, but no!
I’m going to try to stick with it for a little while — Vim that is — and see how this one develops. So far, it is staying out of my way (after a good deal of configuration in .vimrc) and that makes me feel a bit better for considering using it more.
VS Code
Why am I even looking at Vim? In 2026? I’m perfectly happy in VS Code for all my coding and writing needs. I’ve configured it to my personal workflow and it is purring away like a content kitten.
The AI creep, that’s why. Each and every update is something “agentic” or something AI-related. Yes, I’ve turned off everything “AI” in there, but have I? Have I really?
Sadly, VS Code is going the same way that GitHub and Windows went; they share the same parent company: Microslop. In fact, VS Code is waaay ahead of its competitors when it comes to AI integration.
And it’s starting to get old. I have absolutely nothing against AI. Like I have nothing against good food. But even gourmet cuisine starts to taste bad when you’re force-fed.
So, perhaps another 24 hours with Vim is called for.