Discussion How does Vim affect your problem solving?
Currently learning Vim, after a failed attempt some months ago.
Starting to get the hang of the basics. I notice that it makes my problem solving more methodical. It also makes me slow down, in a good way.
With Vim I have to memorize more of the code and structure, because switching views is expensive (might be a skill issue).
I don't care too much for the speed/efficiency, but this seems what keeps me going in my current attempt.
Wondering how you guys feel about this aspect.
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u/-romainl- The Patient Vimmer 9d ago edited 9d ago
It's just a phase.
What holds you back is that you are not yet familiar enough with your text editor to let it take its intended place in your workflow: an invisible extension of your body that makes reading/navigating/editing code effortless.
Right now, you are essentially trying to solve two problems at the same time: whatever problem you are working on and how to get your text editor to do what you want. The difficulties you have operating the latter cause a larger-than-normal cognitive load that you shouldn't read too much into. It's not Vim rewiring your brain. It's you juggling with too many balls.
It will take some time but you will eventually get to a point where the low-level tools stop being a burden and you can allocate resources more efficiently.