Why terminal editors like Vim and Helix?

[cbrake]

I was recently telling a young engineer about Vim and Helix (he is a VS Code user, like 99% of programmers).

We’ve discussed this before:

Vim As Your Editor - Introduction

This is a really good intro to VIM: [Vim As Your Editor - Introduction]

This is the first video I usually share with people about Vim (a bit of satire):

Two Simple Steps to go from IDE to Vim

But, the answer to why we use Vim/Helix is not just about speed, but about flow. It feels better to program in Vim/Helix. Everything happens instantly. It is efficient. It feels good. It is easier to stay in flow. When something is natural, we can do it longer. It is less of a barrier between us and the code.

VIM isn't about speed

VIM is not about speed

DHH does not even use a LSP. Here is a example of him demo’ing Rails 8. Note, he uses Zellij.

Rails 8: The Demo