How I use my terminal

I love this, I've been iterating on workflows like this for something like a decade now. Over time I've tried to peel back as many of my custom layers as possible, because all of those layers have a maintenance cost.

Stock Vim (without `tmux`) can actually do most of what's shared in this post with `rg --vimgrep restore_tool | vim -c cb -` (`vim -c cb -` is my favorite feature in Vim; I find it strange that it's so rarely used or talked about).

(Since re-running the `rg` search can be undesirable, and I often like to analyze results in a terminal before opening them in Vim. I use a custom `tmux` command to copy the output of the last command [using this trick that involves adding a Unicode character to your prompt https://ianthehenry.com/posts/tmux-copy-last-command/], then I send that into Vim with e.g., `tmux saveb - | vim -c cb -`.)

Can someone sell vim to me?

I can't help but see it as the tiling window manager of text editors.

Even with plugins it's less featureful than Kate or Jetbrains IDEs. And the last time I really gave it a go, it was slow, which is surprising for a terminal text editor.

If I need to edit text via the terminal, micro has mouse support and keybindings that match what you'd expect in any OS.

I don't like the idea of thinking people who use vim are insane, it obviously has value and people who use it have good reasons for using it, but I can't see it as more than a niche nerd thing a la tiling window managers.

I think the sort of person who likes it values the "test of time" aspect of it and trust that vim will still be there in the next three decades, just as it was there for the last three. It's super easy to install, and is indeed preinstalled on almost every Linux installation. So people can learn its ins and outs and do extremely fine-grained customization to their desire. People who get annoyed by tiny details and don't want to put up with it. The downside is that you need to carry around your config files and if you sit at a colleague's computer you don't get the same standard experience. And the fragmentation.

There's of course also the "hacker street cred" aspect of it, to feel like a real serious developer. Or simply being fed up with churn and saying "I'm too old for this shit". JetBrains IDEs might change next year due to some new design fad. Or they may go bankrupt.

In my opinion, valuing boring old tech is good, but you shouldn't make a crusade of it. I choose to put up with some churn and inevitable tool changes for practicality. Yeah, some things have to be relearned this way, some changes seem pointless, but the overall effort may be less if you just learn to be flexible and say "ok if JetBrains goes bankrupt, I'll just learn the next popular IDE like everyone else and be done with it" instead of prepping in my bunker with my vim config files.