Yes! I am finally on the vim train. It's been about 2 weeks since I started to really customize and use Neovim and I have been having a blast. Turns out, all those complex vim motions and commands that drove me away from vim brought me back.
Turns out all I need was practice (who ever knew).
Once I started using Neovim regularly, I got really fast at it. My hands naturally moved in the editor. Also, I would think that the motions in Vim and very weird and seem unnatural, but as it turns out, they are very good for building muscle memory.
So, this is your sign to start using Neovim and really go all out in the vim ecosystem.
However, I recommend you do a few thing first
Be good with Command Line
This is a overlooked step with Vim. You need to know at least the basics of the command line. The command line should feel more natural to you then all those slow GUI's. Remember, vim is highly customizable, so if you want an IDE, you can make it a fully integrated desktop environment. However, You need the basics of using the command line and editing config files to do so
Use good plugins
Take full advantage of the Neovim ecosystem. Install as many community trusted plugins as you wish. Completely customize your development environment.
I believe customizing your development environment is equivalent to a swordsman working on his sword. This is crucial to your productivity.
Learn using init.vim
Yes. You heard that right. I am asking you to learn Neovim while editing it's config file called init.vim. Cool right? You can actually practice a lot of the common vim motions and the basics while customizing your Neovim environment.
My Config
I don't use a whole lot of plugins and most of them are quite standard ones. Stay tuned for an article on my favorite Neovim plugins. I write my config file in vim and not lua, mostly because I find it most confortable.
This is my config hosted on GitHub
Conclusion
I was always intimidated by vim, but now that I am using it quite regularly, I am slowly learning all the motions and I am feeling quite productive. Now if I compare it against it my previous editor VSCode, I can't say for sure yet. I'll may be update you with another article on vscode vs nvim.
Till then, I hope you give vim a try. If you do decide to give it a try, here is a informative video from the YouTube channel freeCodeCamp
Also, I use Neovim in Alacritty, which is a GPU accelerated terminal. I use Nu Shell for my default prompt. I have my config of all of these as well as my Neovim hosted on my GitHub. You can welcome to check them out.
Thanks for reading, Hope you learnt something and are inspired to try it out on your own.
Ishan Joshi