I'm learning Vi(m) right now because next semester our C++ course (programming 2) will be taught within a UNIX environment. I'm new to linux as well, so after recently installing Fedora, I limited myself to using Vim as a way of practicing.
So far it has helped to work on a project that involves typing in source code that has already been laid out (its Douglas Crockford's essay[1] on writing a JS parser). Literally I'm just typing it into one file, making a few decisions about whether to put all of the factory functions at the top and have the instances at the bottom, etc. It lets me focus on:
-Opening files
-Saving (:w to keep the file open, :x to save and close)
-Basic copy/paste
-Navigating around the file
-Switching modes
I've spent a few nights messing around over the last week and I feel like I'm picking it up. I like not having to do much with the mouse since I have a bad habit of straining my arm/wrist by holding the mouse while I'm not using it (while reading). Keeping my hands on the keyboard feels more comfortable and ballanced.
It's too early in my usage to say whether it's worth it or not, but I feel confident that being familiar with other text-editing 'paradigms' is a good thing.
You can install mc file manager (dnf install mc), and can use built-in editor mcedit for codding. ^O will switch to console (^C^O to switch back to editor), so it's easy to code and test console applications. It's a lot less powerful than vim/emacs, but it's easy to learn and use.
So far it has helped to work on a project that involves typing in source code that has already been laid out (its Douglas Crockford's essay[1] on writing a JS parser). Literally I'm just typing it into one file, making a few decisions about whether to put all of the factory functions at the top and have the instances at the bottom, etc. It lets me focus on:
I've spent a few nights messing around over the last week and I feel like I'm picking it up. I like not having to do much with the mouse since I have a bad habit of straining my arm/wrist by holding the mouse while I'm not using it (while reading). Keeping my hands on the keyboard feels more comfortable and ballanced.It's too early in my usage to say whether it's worth it or not, but I feel confident that being familiar with other text-editing 'paradigms' is a good thing.
[1] http://javascript.crockford.com/tdop/tdop.html