 I am a longtime Vim user and I have made many videos on this channel over the course of the last three years about Vim and why it's a superior experience to every other text editor on the planet. And for the most part I'll stand by that. I think that Vim movements are probably the best way to move around text period. I don't think that there's a better way out there. It's just I think that's fact. And while I know that there are people who disagree with me, those people are obviously wrong. Vim movements are awesome and they should be in every single application ever. Anything that has to do with text or moving the screen up and down whatever should have them movements. But recently I've been doing something weird. Now for the last three years you've been hearing me say that I'm not a developer and I'm not a developer. I don't ever have plans to be an actual developer. I'm not going to ever get paid for development work. And I think that that's kind of the threshold you need in order to actually be considered a developer. But I have been learning Python for a few months now and I've been getting back into HTML and CSS. I've been learning some Java script for some projects that I've been working on for my personal projects and stuff. So I've been using or I've been coding quite a bit lately I should say and I've been using Vim somewhat to do that. The more that I use Vim to code the less I like it. Now I know what you're thinking Matt you're a Vim fanboy how can you possibly say that Vim which is primarily a coding tool is not great for coding. Well first off I'm not going to say that it's not great for coding. I'm sure that people who are more experienced with the tools that enable them to be good at coding are probably much more adept at using them to doing that purpose. For me I'm a noob at all things but specifically in this I'm very much a noob and the tools that I've discovered to make them good at coding and development work and stuff like that don't feel very good to me. Now it doesn't mean that they're not good it just means that they don't really I haven't been able to adapt to the workflow that those tools are requiring of me. I've tried many different tools so it's not just one or two. I've tried many different code completion things. I've tried different plugins that allow for language management and stuff like that. Obviously you can tell from the lack of correct terminology there that I'm still very much a noob. So you know I've done obviously quite a bit of research. I've tried to find the best tools and the best plug in the stuff to enable them to be a good tool for my development work and it just hasn't kind of gotten there yet. Now I had thought that I could get past this problem by abandoning my configuration file of NeoVim and adapting somebody else's to my workflow. So for example I use NV Chad for quite a while and that is a very well configured and them config that is meant to kind of transform it into an IDE and it's a very good one. It has all the features that you want and probably more features that you don't even know that you need and more that you probably don't need. It has a ton of features, a ton of plugins already baked in and the key bindings and all that stuff are sane and it works really well and it looks nice and it feels nice and all this stuff. But I couldn't get into it all that much. Part of it is that I don't know a lot of Lua and that is a Lua config. Now I've been learning some Lua as I've been trying to dabbling in making NeoVim and Vim better or in this case NeoVim I should say. I have been learning some Vim or some Lua but I'm still not there yet. I don't really care for that language so I have a mental block there. So NV Chad, I used it for a while and I just customized it as much as I could on my own and it was okay but it still didn't feel right. So I tried Lunar Vim which is another IDE configuration file for NeoVim. It's kind of its own fork at this point but it's still kind of the same thing like it's built up to be a IDE for many different languages to enable people to use it use NeoVim for coding and it too just did not feel right for my level of expertise which is not a very high level at all. They both of those NV Chad and Lunar Vim felt like they would be fantastic for people who knew what the hell they were doing but for me who is very much a noob it felt overwhelming. There was too many features too many plugins so whereas my own configuration file felt very incomplete and kind of patched together very patchwork and it felt like it was missing things and things didn't really go together and I had no clue how to piece things together like I was supposed to in order to get them to work the way it was supposed to in order to actually make it work well as an IDE and on the NVM or NV Chad and the Lunar Vim side it just felt like there had there's way too much stuff that it and this is going to be a very bad comparison it felt like Emacs to me Emacs had has a lot of features that I don't ever need and therefore it feels like I am overwhelmed with all those features right it's not something that I feel comfortable with and that's kind of what NV Chad and Lunar Vim felt like to me so I've been struggling with this now for probably three or four months basically I've been going back and forth between different configuration files other peoples and my own I've been basically using my own recently mostly because I've basically abandoned the idea of creating my own NVM config for an IDE experience I've just been using it as is with a few of my previously used plugins so I've been struggling with this for a while and what I realized is is that unfortunately as much as I like them them is not going to be the the tool that I need to use if I'm going to continue to code as much as I have been recently and that sat in me quite a bit because like I said I am a Vim fanboy I have been for at least six years now I've been talking about them constantly on this channel I know them in and out I I know a lot of them script you know I've put a lot of effort into my configuration file both adding and tracking things trying to get to feel right and as much effort as I've put into it because I love them and I want to stay with it I just can't get it there yet maybe someday I can when I have more experience with what I'm doing when I understand the tools that go into actually being useful for this type of thing maybe then I'll be able to come back to them but right now I can't so I am leaving them that's basically the whole point of this video I am not I'm not going to be using them for coding or writing going forward now it doesn't mean I'm not I'm going to go go uninstall NeoVim and never use it again if I need to do a quick edit in a configuration file NeoVim makes more sense than opening up a graphical text editor it just does but if I'm going to sit down for some coding when I'm going through some of my classes when it comes to actually you know learning how to do python or html or css or any of the things that I'm learning at the moment I'm going to be opening up a graphical text editor or an id in this case and the one that I've chosen is one that I've made a video about before and that is Kate now I've chosen Kate for two reasons one it's really good and it has all the features that I need it has the LSP client integration stuff that I need and stuff like that even though I'm still very much learning what all that stuff is and how to use it it has all of the necessary tools that I need in order to learn without feeling completely overwhelming now it is a kd project so it has a ton of options but I've been able to ignore those so it's not horrible in that regard also it works really really well so it handles large files so I can also use this for my writing which is good and the second reason that I chose it was because it's open source so I know a lot of people who are developers choose to use a tool called VS Code it's from Microsoft it is proprietary now there is a forker that I believe or something like that called VS Codeium I'm not exactly sure the relationship between VS Codeium and VS Code I've downloaded it I tried it I didn't really care for it all that much it just felt to proprietary even though VS Codeium is open source I I know that's weird some for something to feel proprietary but it still did so I I decided not to use that and decided to use Kate it works well for my workflow even though it doesn't seem to let me set a theme and let it stay there for whatever reason I'm not sure why that's happening but the point is is that I've chosen Kate it works really well for all the things that I've been doing I've been doing a lot of ascripting I've been doing Python HTML and all that stuff and it just works fantastic and it fits the workflow for my current experience level now whether it will continue to do so as I get better at coding I don't know it's possible that as I learn more I'll outgrow this tool that's possible in which case I'll go find something different maybe then VS Code will make more sense to me I don't know or VS Codeium whatever happens to be I'll make that decision in the future as of right now this has this has been perfect for my workflow both for writing and for coding and it's good now I have not been showing very many of my scripts that I've been writing in my classes on the channel I've been doing that for a reason because guys seriously my beginning Python is atrocious I don't want to show it to anybody it's embarrassing it's really really bad so I don't show that that what you guys just saw on screen was a bash script and even that is not very good so I'm still very much a noob which is kind of the whole point of all this stuff I'm still kind of learning what the good the best tool is for me and my you know use case and all that stuff so as of right now Kate is where I'm focusing my energy I'm learning it pretty good and it's just kind of worked fairly well for me when it comes to what I need to do so I'm leaving them behind now it's a kind of a sad day for me because I really liked them I will proselytize them if that's the right word I don't even know it's been a very long day and Vim is just a fantastic tool and I still oh here's another reason why I chose Kate I forgot it also has VimMotions so it has VimMotions built in and while I know that you can get a plugin to get VimMotions and Vim stuff inside of VS Code it's built right into Kate and that's fantastic I think that that is a necessity like I said at the beginning so that's another reason so I just remembered that I wanted to throw that in there the point is is that I'm leaving them and yeah it's a sad day but I think that this is probably the best choice for me in the future now I know that there is a certain segment of my audience that are going to ask me why not Emacs? Emacs has the same problem for me that NVChat and LunarVim have they have it has a ton of features and they're all in your face immediately upon actually using it for the first time and you have to almost immediately know how to configure it if you want to change it even just a little bit so if for example with Emacs and with Vim if you want to change a keybinding you have to know how to do that inside of the configuration file if I want to know how to do that in Kate it's simple it's going to a drop down menu and going to the options to do so that's it's really that simple and while I went through the pain of learning how to change key bindings and stuff inside of them I went through that journey of learning them I don't want to do that with Emacs I really have no interest in learning less I'm already learning like four other languages all at the same time although I have more experience with html and css so it's not it's more relearning in that aspect but that's beside the point I just don't have any interest in learning another language at the moment and I've tried Emacs in the past and every time I do I just come out feeling overwhelmed and disinterested I should say so that is the reason why I've not chosen Emacs Kate is the one that I've chosen for now we'll see where this journey kind of takes me and hopefully I'll get good enough of coding that I won't be so embarrassed by it and I'll be able to share some of that stuff with you guys in the future we'll see as is right now I can do some things I'm beyond hello world which is I think an accomplishment for me but it's still very early days even though it's been months so that's in the future that's it for this video if you have any thoughts on this you can leave those in the comment section below I'd love to hear from you if you could be so kind as to leave a thumbs up on this video I'd really appreciate it really does help the channel you can follow me on masses on our odyssey those links will be in the video description you can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash linuxcast if you're interested in supporting the channel through the merchandise store we now have a store you can find that at shop.thelinuxcast.org there you'll find t-shirts and mugs and hats and all that stuff it's a great way to support the channel and get something actually in return so thanks everybody who does who has done that and will do that in the future I really do appreciate it as well thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon and youtube because they're all absolutely amazing without you the channel just would not be anywhere near where it is right now so thank you so very very much for your support thanks again so so much thanks everybody for watching i'll see you next time also still can't say the word everybody when i'm losing my voice for some reason anyways again thanks for watching we'll see you next time