Fast Typing: Text Editors

This post is not some fluff piece asking a dumb question like “is NucleusSuperEditor better than editing bytes with a chisel” and then rattling off a bunch of irrelevant information like “editing bytes with a chisel uses less ram but NucleusSuperEditor supports gifs”.

No, in this post, we’ll think deeply about text editing so we know not only which text editor to use, but when we’re forced to use a text editor, how to use it effectively. This is essential for fast typing because you’ll spend more time talking to your editor than your wife.

What is "vi"?

A lot of people say they use vi. But they use "vim" or "elvis" or "neovim". So when they say "vi", they clearly don’t mean the original vi program written in 1976 by Bill Joy. They mean they use the vi text editing convention. When using "vi" (and in normal mode), they mean that they quit with :q!, not that Bill Joy wrote the code.

So what vi is a convention.

If we think of text editing as defined by a piece of software, and we want to use…