Efficiency Once learned, Vim can significantly speed up text editing with its modal editing, keyboard shortcuts, and commands that allow for quick navigation and manipulation of text.
Lightweight Vim is a very lightweight editor, consuming minimal system resources, making it highly performant even on systems with lower specifications.
Customizability Vim is highly configurable and extensible through plugins and user-defined settings, allowing users to tailor the editor to their specific needs.
Ubiquity Vim is available on almost every Unix-like system and even on Windows, making it a ubiquitous tool that you can rely on being available in most environments.
Support for Multiple Programming Languages Vim supports a wide range of programming languages out of the box and offers syntax highlighting, which can be enhanced through plugins.
Powerful Search and Replace Vim offers robust searching and replacing functionalities, including support for regular expressions, which can be a powerful tool for developers.
Possible disadvantages
Steep Learning Curve Vim's modal editing and extensive set of commands can be daunting for new users, requiring significant time and effort to master.
Minimal Default Config The default configuration of Vim is quite minimalistic, which may necessitate additional setup and customization to meet modern development needs.
Limited GUI Vim primarily operates in a terminal, and while there are graphical variants like GVim, they are not as feature-rich or user-friendly as modern GUI editors.
Plugin Management While Vim is highly extensible, managing and configuring plugins can be cumbersome compared to more modern editors that offer integrated plugin management.
Inconsistent Behavior Across Platforms There may be inconsistencies in behavior or available features of Vim across different operating systems, which can complicate its use in certain environments.
Lack of Integrated Modern Features Vim lacks some modern IDE features like integrated debugging, advanced code introspection, and refined autocompletion, which often require third-party plugins to achieve.
Compatibility KornShell (ksh) maintains backward compatibility with Bourne Shell (sh), making it easy for users familiar with sh to transition without altering their existing scripts substantially.
Advanced Scripting Features ksh offers advanced scripting capabilities such as associative arrays, floating-point arithmetic, and built-in regular expressions, providing more powerful and flexible scripting tools.
Job Control It provides robust job control, allowing users to manage and switch between multiple background tasks and processes easily.
Interactive Use ksh supports features like command aliasing, history manipulation, and inline editing, enhancing its utility in interactive command-line environments.
Performance ksh scripts often execute faster than those written in other shells like csh, due to more efficient resource management and execution mechanisms.
Possible disadvantages
Complexity ksh is more complex compared to simpler shells like sh, making it potentially overwhelming for beginners or those seeking simplicity.
Portability Not all systems come with ksh pre-installed, and differences between ksh88 and ksh93 can lead to portability issues across different Unix-like systems.
Learning Curve Due to its rich feature set, ksh has a steeper learning curve, which could be a barrier for new users unfamiliar with shell scripting.
Limited Adoption Despite its capabilities, ksh is not as widely adopted as other shells like bash or zsh, meaning less community support and fewer resources available.
Licensing ksh is under the Common Public License, which may pose constraints for users or organizations compared to more permissively licensed shells.
Analysis
An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.
VimKornShell
Overall verdict
Yes, Vim is a good text editor, especially for users who invest the time to learn its powerful commands and features. Its steep learning curve may be challenging initially, but once mastered, it significantly enhances productivity.
Why this product is good
Vim is considered a powerful text editor because of its efficiency and versatility. It offers extensive features, such as syntax highlighting, a robust plugin system, and support for numerous programming languages. Vim is highly configurable, enabling users to customize its environment to fit their needs. It is particularly appreciated for its speed and the ability to perform complex text manipulations using simple commands.
Recommended for
Vim is recommended for programmers, developers, and system administrators who require a highly efficient and customizable text editing experience. It is especially useful for those who work extensively in terminal environments or need a quick, resource-light text editor for remote systems.
Vim offers a variety of features like split windows, macros, and extensive customization options. It has a steep learning curve, but once you master it, you’ll be amazed at the speed and productivity it brings to your...
It’s tough to say which developers would enjoy Vim as a text editor. It’s an old system with an outdated interface. Yet, it still has the charm and powerful feature-set that the average developer needs. I would...
The entire installation process is perfectly documented on their Sourceforge page, which you must definitely pay a visit. There is another standalone Vim software, known as the gVim that brings a GUI-based interface...
Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.
Vim10 mentionsKornShell1 mention
regular Vim has lua?!
Lua is quite small, encouraging distros to include it. The ubuntu gvim has, and the gvim AppImage linked from vim.org does. The default Makefile from github is set up to not include it, but you can uncomment one line there to get it.
Source:
over 3 years ago
is there a way to make highlighted text persistent after quit when using something like [match Search /\%'.line('.').'l/] ?
I've not used vimwiki locally (tho I'm old enough to remember the Vim wiki on vim.org :), but I think what you are wanting to do is extend vimwiki's syntax file. I presume it installs one at $VIMRUNTIM/syntax or or ~/.vim/syntax. If...
Source:
almost 4 years ago
Vim.org has 242k total visitors, tailwindcss.com has 4.4m, planetscale.com has 412k, jpl.nasa.gov has 2.6m, all built with Tailwind, all several years younger than Vim's website. Unnecessary comparison, unnecessary defence. It's a...
Source:
about 4 years ago
Well now I'm at the point that I see it's calling for the Korn shell, which I'm not directly familiar with, and seemed to stop on the mouse input driver. I'll change my VBox mouse device settings and see what happens from there...
Source:
over 4 years ago
Alternatives to Vim and KornShell
When comparing Vim and KornShell, you can also consider the following products.
Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features. Fully customizable with macros, and syntax highlighting for most major languages.
Sublime Text
VS Code
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GNU Emacs
Microsoft Visual Studio
Netbeans
IntelliJ IDEA
GNU Bourne Again SHell
fish shell
zsh
Tcl
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PowerShell Plus
CentminMod
