John Gabriele wrote:
> On 4/25/06, Ryan Leavengood <leavengood / gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 4/25/06, SleepJunk13 <SleepJunk13 / gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I know of RadRails. I use it to work on my Rails apps, but it's testing
>>> and debugging isn't great. I don't need rails support in what I'm doing.
>>> Just a nice ruby editor.
>> Myself and a lot of other people swear by VIM (www.vim.org) for Ruby
>> editing and for most other editing. It can take a while to learn, but
>> once you do it is extremely powerful. It is also available on just
>> about every OS you can imagine. Today at work I did Java coding on
>> Windows using VIM, then just now I did some Ruby coding on Windows at
>> home, and later I'll be coding C++ on BeOS using VIM. I started using
>> it on Linux.
> 
> I've been using vim for light stuff for a while now, but it seems
> inconsistent to me, and has been difficult to get used to. That is,
> commands can take a number of different forms:
> 
> :set foo
> :foo on
> nfoo
> :%foo
> 
> Plus there's some commands you hit while in command mode, but then
> others with ctrl characters while in insert mode (like Ctrl-d). Wait
> though -- there's also some ctrl chars while in command mode too.
> 
> Besides that, in general I find myself slowed down constantly hitting
> Ctrl-[, forgetting whether I'm in command mode or not. Either that, or
> I'm filling my files with ":w" or ">>" or "i", "b", "w"...

I guess there might be a few inconsistencies, but what drew me to vim 
was pretty much the opposite feeling.  Most editors have seemingly 
random key bindings for running commands, and although they stay the 
same because you are always in one mode, they are rarely as powerful as 
vim.  For example, the whole concept of filtering ranges of text through 
commands is really genius.  It mixes in perfectly with the unix 
mentality, and it lets you compose your own commands from a simple set 
of primitives.  Sure, it might take a little practice to get the 
commands down, but then you can mix and match to create virtually 
infinite numbers of combinations.  That's just not possible or at least 
not natural in other editors, and I used emacs for about 5 years before 
my conversion...  Beyond that, you can program it in ruby!

On that note, I have been working on a ruby plugin, SnippetMagic, for 
vim that provides snippets functionality ala TextMate.  It's not method 
completion, but it's a sort of programmable macro system.  You can read 
descriptions and download it here: 
http://blog.rosejn.net/articles/2006/02/28/snippetmagic-0-02

-Jeff