word processor users when they try vim (me):
this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2026
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When $EDITOR is vim, but I expected anything else:
opens file, with small text on the top; text begins changing; text duplicates in size, then triples; text returns to original size; text increases in size to fit several screens...
Then my great reflexes kick on and I notice something wrong :)
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I will legitimately go esc, :w, i on Google Docs to try and save the document...
Escape in some email clients cancels a new email. I had to retype many emails before email clients began auto-saving drafts.
The paiiiin! How many hours I lost because of this?
Spoiler
Probably less than I used to configure my neovim...
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Explain pls for us vimless noobs
Direction navigation in vim is hjkl.
I know I'm just a vim-less heathen, but using letters for navigation in a text editor seems kind stupid when arrows exist.
No, you're 100% right. The only reason it's this way is this: https://pikuma.com/blog/origins-of-vim-text-editor
These literally were the arrow keys on the machine that vim was originally developed on.
Why the hell didn't they go with JIKL or something instead then, so the pattern at least resembles the direction it navigates?
Wasd was revolutionary at the time
This really just shows how fundamentally terrible product developers engineers are.
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so your finges dont have to leave the home row. Its acually peak when you used hjkl for some time
You should boycott vim. That'll teach 'em.
The reason it's so popular is because it provides directional navigation on the home row, with the direction that's by far the most common (down) under your strongest, dominant finger (the index finger).
It's much better for both efficiency and ergonomics than arrow keys.
Why would you move your hand to arrow keys when the letter are already under your fingers?
ESC, use-letter-to-navigate, i, type, ESC, navigate, i, type
Really simple. On my keyboard I re-mapped ESC to TAB so I don't even have to move my hand to switch between navigate and insert modes.
So you've transferred the required hand move from the right hand to the left, and added extra required keystrokes to accomplish the same task. I don't see how that isn't worse.
No, it's a key stroke, not hand move. I don't have to reposition my hand to hit ESC. You do have to reposition your hand to use arrow keys.
Also, you usually move the cursor by more than just one character. It's one extra keystroke to reposition the cursor, not to move it by one char. You have shortcuts to jump to end of file, specific line, end of line or even create and jump to bookmarks. All this with just standard keys, without repositioning your hands to use the mouse or arrow keys.
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Moving hands is an extremely time-consuming task when you're typing 60+ words per minute. Couple of keystrokes are much much faster than relocating your hand twice.
I use layers so esc is actually almost directly under my pinky.
I have it instead of CapsLock, tab is too useful to forego.
But yes, arrow keys are too far, and I avoid them everytime I can, including in Shell
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moving my hand this much SUCKS
Instead of using the arrow keys most vi & him users navigate the cursor around the doc by using letter keys. I do it so subcociously now I am not sure which direction is the j when I use my phone.
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This is a problem for me on systems that only have nano installed. Gets me every time
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20Gwwbcwkurva:wq
I cannot begin to describe how many times I’ve had to re-type the same info in some input form because I hit esc when I had first finished it!
It's been so long since I worked on a machine where I couldn't use the cursor keys in vi, I don't think I'd even be able to anymore.
I only understand this reference because I worked for a company at one point that had a large number of NeXT and Solaris hosts that only had vi installed with letter key navigation, so my muscle memory does not use arrow keys.
Coders use word docs?
I'm not a programmer but I still open up notepad and write in markdown.
It's just faster.
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ITT: People who don't use vim and insist we have arrow keys now so don't need hjkl anymore.
Here's what my terminal usually looks like
@>vim srv/txt.txt Writes a bunch of lines of code/words/docker containers. [ESC] :sq Can't edit file without sudo :q! @>sudo vim srv/txt.txt 🥹
Erm. This would be vi? vim has arrow key support.
Implying that vim users use arrows instead of hjkl? Blasphemy!
I do :p and I use vim a lot.
When I start a new roguelike:
Activate [j]ump ability, view [l]og, no item underfoot to mark for [k]eeping, [h]ide.
<ESC><ESC><ESC><ESC>ujj<ESC>u<ESC>v0wsffs<C-z><C-s><A-F4><A-enter>vim pres.typ...
I use eMacs btw
And they lived happier ever after.
THE END :wq!
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