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Notepad++ vs Vim: What are the differences?
Notepad++ and Vim are popular text editors used for coding and writing. While both have similar functionalities, there are key differences between the two.
User Interface: Notepad++ provides a simple and user-friendly interface with menus, toolbars, and a tabbed view for multiple files. On the other hand, Vim has a command-line interface (CLI) and requires commands to navigate and perform actions, making it more suitable for experienced users.
Customization and Extensibility: Notepad++ offers a wide range of plugins and themes that can be easily installed and customized to enhance the editor's features and appearance. Vim, on the other hand, is highly customizable with its own scripting language and offers a vast collection of plugins and scripts created by the community.
Operating System Compatibility: Notepad++ is primarily designed for Windows and provides full support and compatibility for the Windows environment. In contrast, Vim is available for multiple platforms including Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it more versatile for users of different operating systems.
Editing and Navigation: Notepad++ provides a familiar editing experience with features like syntax highlighting, auto-completion, and code folding. However, Vim excels in editing efficiency with its modal editing, allowing users to perform complex edits using powerful commands and shortcuts. Additionally, Vim's navigation through files and searching capabilities using regular expressions are highly optimized.
Memory Usage and Performance: Notepad++ is known for its lightweight nature, consuming less system resources and providing fast startup times. Vim also has a small memory footprint but may have a slightly slower startup due to loading its extensive configuration files.
Learning Curve: Notepad++ is relatively easy to learn and use, suitable for beginners or those who prefer a graphical interface. Vim, on the other hand, has a steep learning curve, requiring users to learn commands and shortcuts to fully utilize its features and efficiency. However, once mastered, Vim can significantly speed up editing workflows.
In Summary, Notepad++ offers a user-friendly interface and customization options, while Vim provides powerful command-line editing, multi-platform support, and high extensibility.
For a Visual Studio Code/Atom developer that works mostly with Node.js/TypeScript/Ruby/Go and wants to get rid of graphic-text-editors-IDE-like at once, which one is worthy of investing time to pick up?
I'm a total n00b on the subject, but I've read good things about Neovim's Lua support, and I wonder what would be the VIM response/approach for it?
Neovim can basically do everything Vim can with one major advantage - the number of contributors to the code base is just so much wider (Vim is ~100% maintained only by B. Mooleanaar). Whatever you learn for Neovim you can also apply to Vim and vice versa. And of course there is the never ending Vim vs Emacs controversy - but better not get into that war.
Actually, the biggest advantage with Neovim (as a VS user) is that you can embed REAL Neovim as the editor UI, rather than using a "Vim emulation", you're using actual NVIM, embedded in VS!
"asvetliakov.vscode-neovim" is the extension you are looking for:
- Install the 'vscode-neovim; extension (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=asvetliakov.vscode-neovim)
- Install Neovim version 0.5+ nightly
- Start winning.
(You can install neovim-nightly separately for just vscode, I usually build and install it to /opt/nvim - it's enough enough to do - let me know if you need help).
Works wonderfully. It might not work out of the box if you have some 100K epic nvim initialization file, but the plugin documents a workaround for having an embedding/VS specific configuration.
I don't actually notice much of a difference between the two, as the end result looks identical. If you use Vim and are switch to Neovim it's an extremely easy 1-minute process. I switched from Vim to Neovim. I can't say I found much of a difference, but the key points where Neovim could be better than just vim is that first, there are much more people maintaining Neovim compared to vim, which means fewer bugs and a modern code base. It also has a smaller code base which might result in a small speed improvement. Another thing is that it's basically just a fork of vim, so what harm can it do? ;)
I recommend using vim 8+
it has native plugin support
if you need language supports you can install the package vim-nox which will come with support for python, lua, ruby, etc
The hints on the codebase's contributors and the VSCode integration helped me make up my mind.
I really appreciate all comments, though.
Thanks a bunch!
It truly depends on whether you want to completely avoid GUI and stick to TUI and command lines. If you want to edit all of your codes within a terminal, then Vim or neovim would be the choice. Emacs can be run in a terminal, but the functionality is limited. Most people use Emacs using GUI and emacs-client not to use too much memory.
My general preference is to use an independent text editor, which is better if it is highly customizable and programmable. So, I have used Emacs for several years. For beginners, I guess Emacs requires significant time to learn to fully enjoy its wonderful functionalities. In that sense, using atom would be a recommendable option.
Regardless of all the situations, learning basic vim in the terminal will help you in any case. In summary, I recommend 1. vim as a default editor in the terminal 2. atom if you are a beginner, or 3. Emacs if you have a long-term plan to master a programmable editor
Other editors like sublime text, VS code, and so forth are also worth learning and using. But, no matter which editor you choose, stick to one or two until you become an advanced user. Being able to use most text editors at an intermediate level is waste of time.
I hope it helps.
Since communication with Github is not necessary, the Atom is less convenient in working with text and code. Sublim's support and understanding of projects is best for us. Notepad for us is a completely outdated solution with an unacceptable interface. We use a good theme for Sublim ayu-dark