New to python, do I need an IDE or is vim still good enough?

[Mitya Sirenef]

On 12/29/2012 12:44 PM, Monte Milanuk wrote:
> Maybe its because I'm still  just a hobbyist when it comes to coding, but I spend far more time 
'thinking' about what I'm doing than typing things in... so shaving a 
few seconds here and there are less important to me.


I think the general idea is that with editors like Vim you don't get
distracted by having to do some kind of an editor task, letting you keep
your full attention on the code logic. For instance, if I need to change
a block inside parens, I type ci) (stands for change inside parens),
while with a regular editor I'd have to do it manually and by the time
I'm done, I'd forget the bigger picture of what I'm doing with the code.
Another example: >ap stands for "indent a paragraph (separated by blank
lines)". And there are many dozens if not hundreds such commands that
let you stay focused on the logic of your code.

The trade-off, of course, is that you have to remember all (or most) of
the commands, but I figured if I spend the next 20-30+ years programming
in some version of Vim, it's well worth the initial investment.

By the way, to help me remember the commands, I wrote a small script
that lets me type in a few characters of a command or its description
and filters out the list of matching commands. It really helps,
especially when I change a lot of my mappings.

  - mitya


-- 
Lark's Tongue Guide to Python: http://lightbird.net/larks/