Skip to main content

Oneway ticket from Visual Studio to Vim

Not so while ago If you had asked: Would you ever leave Visual Studio (+ReSharper and tools)?. The answer would be: “Hell No!, Why on earth I'll leave the most powerful IDE ever built?!

But as the time goes by, I've changed my mind...
Lately I been working on Mac, Linux and Windows, doing .NET, JavaScript, TypeScript, Ruby, HTML, CSS, some SQL and batch/shell scripts. Having and editor that works (almost) the same way in all of these platforms is a big win for me. Not to mention that I can code in any language I want with out switching editors.

Here is a short a short list features that made me change my mind.
* Cross platform support. (Big one).
* Lightweight. (When in the road, your battery will last longer).
* Fast as hell. You won't be waiting for minutes to open solutions.
* You can code in any language you want.
* Tiny footprint. You don't need 8 GB of disk's space just to install the tool.
* Already installed on most Unix systems.

Ok, that sounds good. But which features will you miss if you decide to give Vim a try?
Well, that heavily depends on your workflow, but based on fellow developers, I'll say:
* Built in Debugger.
* Smart refactors (a huge one for me too).
* Intellisense.
* Drag and Drop stuff around.
* There is no easy way to work with project and solutions files.
* Being able to use the mouse (really?!).

In general, I do TDD, so the builtin debugger it's not an issue to me. I always say that been in debug land is huge waste of time (almost as bad as being at meetings with project managers ;))
With regards to intellisense, you can use ctags to get some sort of intellisense (statement completion, quite frankly). It's not perfect, but it's good enough to get work done.
As far as refactors goes, I not gonna lie. Move code around without resharper is a bit of a pain in the ass; but as you will be working with a plain text editor, believe me, your code will be simpler and hence it won't be “that” hard to move around.

Note: I do know about omnisharp and I'm aware that it can provide almost the same Visual Studio's experience, but compared to plain old Vim, omnisharp is as slow as a dog. Not to mention you have to run a web server just to get intellisense. That sounds crazy to me.


Essential Vim plugins:
* CommandT. Resharper's Ctrl+N (kinda).
* MRU. Most recently used files.
* NERDTree. Directory/File explorer.
* Airline. Lightweight status line.
* Vim-CSharp. Better support for C# projects.
* SupertTab . Tab completion in insert mode.
* Snipmate. Vim's code snippets.
* Tcomment. Adds shortcuts to comment / uncomment code.
* Vim-Multiple Cursors. Simliar to Sublime Multiple Cursors.

External tools that will make your life easier:
* Exuberant Ctags.
* Git.

And last but not least, I haven't to be an all-in bet. Installing VsVim is a nice way to get a taste of Vim with out leaving your comfort zone. You wouldn't be able to use plugins, but I'll be good enough to get a taste of the powerful Vi motions and edit modes.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Migrating an ASP.NET MVC 4 app from Azure websites to WinHost

About a week ago I've to migrate an ASP.NET MVC 4/EF5 application from Azure websites to WinHost. While the process was really smooth, there were some caveats related to database connections that I want to share with you. Create and setup the ftp profile on VS and configure the connection string was really easy, WinHost provide you those values and there is nothing special here. But once you deploy your website and try to see it online, you may get the “yellow screen of dead” with the message: "A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified)" Assuming you wrote the connection string properly, this happens because you cannot use the default connection name in your web.c

How to show excel files inside the .NET Webbrowser Control

If you are reading this, chances are you been banging your head against the wall for a couple of hours (or even days) trying to show excel files inside the WinForms webbrowser control. Possible reasons you ended up in here: You had working code that got broke after upgrading from Win 7. Your code doesn’t work the same way between machines running different (newer) versions of IE. A download box pops up every time your app tries to show an excel file inside the webbrowser control (you wanna show the actual content). You just have no clue on how to get excel working into the .NET embedded webbrowser control. You are trying to implement IInternetSecurityManager and don’t know where to start. (Or how don’t know how to delegate calls to your security manager). Among many other, maybe….. Yes, COM is a PITA, so is ActiveX and IE (Embedded or full for that matter). And no, showing excel files inside the webbrowser control shouldn’t be that hard, but sometimes we have

Moving to Medium

It's been a long time since I want to give medium a try, and finally, I made some time to do it. To get started on the new platform, I'll be doing series on "Getting programming concepts, languages and tools". If it sounds interesting to you, please take a look at the first post  Getting AWK  and spread the word if you like it. I'm not going to migrate old entries to the new web site. They will remain here safe and sound! As usual, thanks for reading!