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Many people claim that editing text using the vim editor is faster than using a mouse-based one, for experienced users.

There seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence for this claim, but considering that the typical vim user probably spends a lot of time typing, it seems normal that they will seem faster - in any editor.

Are there any rigorous studies evaluating this?

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loopbackbee
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  • While this question is related, note I'm asking specifically about vim vs other editors, not keyboard vs mouse – loopbackbee Jan 29 '16 at 23:29
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    Why do you think the answer to the other question isn't generalisable to vim in particular? – Oddthinking Jan 30 '16 at 00:11
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    Surely depends on the user. For me a mouse based editor is faster than vi (because vi is modal and a large proportion of time I get beeps) – mmmmmm Jan 30 '16 at 00:15
  • The claim is about source code, not other kinds of editing, e.g. of stuff that requires graphical, pixel level manipulation. – Sklivvz Jan 30 '16 at 02:28
  • @Oddthinking The answer on that question states: "the efficiency answer depends to a large part on the specific task to be done and a specific interface (or rather its design from mouse and keyboard work perspective)". The articles it links to mainly refer keyboard shortcuts in traditional mouse-based programs, not something akin to vim. – loopbackbee Jan 30 '16 at 02:52
  • @Mark Of course! :) I've added "for experienced users" to the question, just in case – loopbackbee Jan 30 '16 at 02:53
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    Personally, I've found that automatic indenting, syntax highlighting, multiple tabs, and a sidebar showing me a list of functions and objects defined in this particular source file are very convenient when I'm writing code. On the other hand, if I'm just bashing together a quick perl script I'll probably hit vim. – Shadur-don't-feed-the-AI Jan 31 '16 at 23:21
  • @Shadur true. And don't forget autocomplete. The indenting rules VIM can do as well, at least in some versions btw. – jwenting Oct 07 '16 at 19:50
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    seems like a false dichotomy, you can use keyboard shortcuts in most modern GUI editors, many even come with predefined "vim keyboard shortcuts". – vartec Oct 08 '16 at 00:43
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    @Shadur When I started reading what you wrote, I thought you were referring to Vim because that's essentially what I have in Vim every day for work. Then you said, "if I'm just...I'll...vim," and I was confused...

    I've used Vim for just a month now and don't really see why everyone thinks it is so challenging to make "nice". Most of the time that I notice something I'd like to improve, I have it the way I want it 5 minutes later. I can't say the same thing about IDE's or other text editors. Also, the configuration is all in one Git repo and can be set up in 10 seconds on a new system.

     – JakeD Jul 10 '18 at 01:16
  • Look up "vim golf" videos. – forest Aug 31 '19 at 07:03
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    As a programmer, I spend most of my time thinking. The mechanics of getting the code typed into the computer is the smallest part of my job. I spent like two days last week finding that the cause of a particular bug was that the check for a particular condition was being made at the wrong point. Total change: move two lines of code from here to there. Total editing time: seconds. Wouldn't matter a bit if I used Vim of Visual Studio for that. The debugging options of VS couldn't help: You can't debug touchscreen interactions live. – JRE Aug 31 '19 at 13:34
  • I think it would be very hard to design a study which would provide a meaningful answer to this question. Firstly, you have to choose your competitors, from the hundreds of editors and IDEs; this question talks about "mouse-based editors", but I've never used an editor without keyboard shortcut support, and have used vim with a mouse. Second, define the task, to be meaningful but unbiased; how do you eliminate thinking time without making the task too artificial? Third, the rules: if the user knows the task in advance, they can configure their editor with macros and plugins to suit. – IMSoP Sep 01 '19 at 12:26
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    For small files, with no or very limited connections to other sources, and no dependencies on 3rd party libraries, etc. etc. this may well be the case for people equally skilled in both tools. In reality though, things are rarely that way. E.g. I'm faster editing a simple shell script in vi than opening a heavy weight IDE, opening the file, editing it, saving it, closing the IDE, etc. etc. But a 500 class Java application depending on 50 libraries? vim is a lot slower. – jwenting Sep 04 '19 at 09:25

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