 I start a lot of my videos off saying this. I'm going to edit my script. I'm going to be using Vim, but you use whatever text editor you like because a text editor is a personal preference. And that's just me saying basically what I said. I use Vim. If you use something else, that's cool and that's what you're comfortable using. But three times in the last week I've had people comment on my videos telling me I shouldn't be using Vim, that there's other tools out there more efficient. And some of the examples they gave are Dreamweaver, Notepad++, and there was one other one that I had never used before. I want to say Sublime or something like that. Anyway, I don't understand why I can say it's okay for you to use whatever you want, but you have to tell me that I'm wrong for using Vim. And maybe they're not necessarily telling me wrong. Maybe they're just trying to help out. But I completely disagree with these other programs being more efficient. And these are my views on it, some of it technical and some of it personal opinion. First off, all the programs that were listed, well, I don't know about Sublime if that was the name of it because I've never used that, but Dreamweaver and Notepad++, Notepad++ I have used on occasion if I'm on a Windows machine it's just easy to install and it's a lot better than just Notepad. But they're GUI applications. First off, most of the time, unless you're editing a photo, editing a video, designing something in a 3D editor, a majority of the time, GUI applications are going to be less efficient. You may feel more comfortable in it and that's fine. But for a program to be GUI, the only reason you need to be GUI is because you're going to be using a mouse and most of the time, if you're reaching for your mouse, you're not being as efficient. Your hands should stay on the keyboard as much as possible. Now some people are more comfortable using the mouse, that's fine. But technically, you should be able to do everything from the keyboard and it's going to be a lot more efficient, maybe a little more for you to learn but more efficient in the long run. You don't want to learn shortcut keys, that's your decision. But another reason that I prefer a text-based text editor, as opposed to a GUI editor, is well, one, it's a lot easier to access it through SSH. Yes, you can use X4-ing but that's even less efficient. And in all three cases that people are commenting, they were referring to my videos on JavaScript and HTML, which I think is why I'm getting these comments because, and I'm going to insult some of my viewers here. I'm doing these videos on HTML, which now you're getting involved with website designers who aren't really programmers and they drive me crazy because they're not programmers, they're not concerned about efficiency, they're concerned about things being pretty. Which is valid, they're designers, they're not programmers, they're not developers. And it's good to have a good-looking program. Functionality should come first because that's what computers are about, efficiency, functionality. You should create the back-end first and then later on create a GUI front-end if you need one that gives you the option to use the GUI back-end or the text back-end or the GUI front-end as the end user. But when I'm working on my website, well SSH into my web server, whether it be my local web server running on my Pogo plug in the other room, or I used to use GoDaddy, now I host my site on HostGator, and I SSH in. First off, these systems already have Vim installed in most cases on both GoDaddy and HostGator, Vim was already installed, nice. I don't have to do a SSH forwarding, I don't have to edit my HTML locally and then upload it, I can edit it right there even if it's in a temporary file and then rename them. So it's just a lot more efficient in that aspect. Another thing just on text-based applications as opposed to GUI applications in general is that I can run a screen and leave them running in the background, this is great for something like an IRC client. Getting back to text editors for development, Vim is extremely small. I think the base thing is under a megabyte. You look at something like Dreamweaver, besides the fact that it's proprietary, it's anywhere from one gig to 1.8 gigs if you go to the website. I think it's a little over one gig for Windows, and it's 1.8 gigs if you're doing a Mac install. You're installing almost 2 gigs of stuff to write HTML. It is text, why do you need that much? And then the people who argue, well it has more features. Most of the time when they list these features, Vim can do that. You just have to install plugins, which is the way software should be. It shouldn't be loaded down with a bunch of stuff, you should install what you need, and that's why I love programs that use plugins. I personally, the only thing I really enable in Vim is syntax highlighting, but it can do auto completion, it can highlight errors, it can do auto indentation. These things kind of drive me crazy, but that's my personal opinion. I try to install, you know, set it up to do the auto tab thing, which is just like two or three lines of code into the startup file, but I'm so used to tabbing myself, what would happen is I go to, you know, the next line, I'm so used to hitting enter tab, I would end up doubling my tabs, and so everything gets out of space, and that's just because I'm used to it. Why don't I use auto completion? Auto completion is a great thing, and it will save you a lot of headaches. I personally don't do it because I feel like typing it out helps me remember it better rather than hitting tab or write arrow to complete stuff when I'm writing code, and most time when I'm writing code, I'm writing code to learn and get better at it, and I like to be able to just sit down and start typing. Another reason I don't use a lot of plugins for Vim is just like I just said, I like to sit down at a system and start typing in Vim and not have to go, oh, I'm so used to a plugin that isn't installed by default, and maybe I don't have time to install it now, I like to be able to test them. Once again, that's a personal opinion. So as far as efficiency, I'm sure maybe there are some features that these other programs have, even notepad plus plus, I should say, I want to say it's around 30 megabytes, which is still huge for a program just to write text. I'm not saying it's a bad program. I'm just saying it's overkill. I've never really used Dreamweaver, so I can't really argue its features, but I can't think of any feature that I would need writing HTML that I don't already have in Vim. And I am using a fraction of the size. I'm using a fraction of the system resources. And it's it's just when you're working with computers, you should be. And I say this all the time, your goal should be efficiency. It should be, you know, something that runs fast, something that's compatible, something that doesn't take up a lot of space. And it has the features you need. Vim falls into all that for me. It doesn't take up a lot of space. It's efficient in space size. It does not take. I can grab a computer from 30 years ago and Vim would probably run on it pretty good. And it has all the features I need. I just might need to install them. Like I said, the only one I really use is syntax highlighting, but that's just me. So those are my views on Vim and. You're writing HTML5 or HTML. If you need a two gigs worth of software to write HTML, you have issues. And yes, I just insulted a whole bunch of viewers, but that's how I feel. And I think it's better off that I'm honest with you on my feelings than to lie to you and say that I say, yeah, it's definitely better. It's because it's just a waste of space and resources on your system to write HTML. But I also feel the same way. And I'm not just talking about Dreamweaver because it's proprietary software, which it is, and it's not compatible with most systems out there. You buy one. It's like it's not going to run on a Mac. You buy the Mac. It's not going to run on Windows. It's not going to run Linux at all, at least not without some sort of emulation. It's not going to run old systems because it's just too bulky and sluggish. It's poorly designed, in my opinion, because of how big and bulky it is and how incompatible it is. But just to show I'm not saying that just because that's proprietary. Well, no pad plus plus is is open. But I would also say the same thing about Java and Eclipse. It drives me crazy. I don't write a lot of stuff in Java. I'd like to learn it more. But it's so annoying that every single tutorial uses Eclipse. And it took me a while when I first started learning it, how to write it out by hand and compile it in the shell. And I do I have figured out how to do that and it's not that hard. But I bet you there's a lot of Java programmers out there that don't have a clue how to compile their software if they didn't have a little compile button. And once again, Eclipse is rather large. I will say Eclipse. I think when you install it, I want to say it's like 100 megabytes. So it's not nearly the size of something like Dreamweaver. Once again, we're talking Java and HTML, which is funny that HTML is even larger than Java, because I would think Java development since it's actually a programming language would be bulkier than something just to write HTML. Anyway, the Eclipse and I'm not saying Eclipse is bad. I've barely used it. I know a lot of people use it. I'm sure it's great. And compared to Dreamweaver, it's not nearly as huge. But I want to say it's like 80 to 100 megabytes. But I think a lot of that is maybe the Java compiler and stuff itself. So even if I'm compiling a command line, I'm still probably installing a large number of those files, I think. But then again, it's again, I'd like to just I'm writing out code. All I need is a text editor. If you need more than text editor, that's your personal preference. But as far as efficiency, if it's a good text editor like Vim that has the features to do things like autocomplete and syntax highlighting is just to me, that's that's probably the most important thing because I can see problems faster because they'll be color coded wrong and it stands out. So anyway, that's my view on VIM. That's why I use VIM. I know there's a lot of other text based used to use NANO when I first started using Linux, they use NANO all the time. VIM has so many features that it can be complex. But I think a lot of people who who look down on VIM when they use something like Eclipse or Dreamweaver or notepad plus plus is because they don't realize all that VIM can do. And again, you use what you want to use. I hope it's something open source. But those are my views on VIM. And once again, I've rambled on for a while. I hope I didn't bore you. I'd like to hear your thoughts below. Just be nice. Don't be insulting. I tried not to be insulting. I might have been a little bit in this video and I apologize. So anyway, thank you for watching. I hope that you have a great day. Please visit my website. There should be a link in the description. Films by Chris, ChriswithaK.com. Actually, filmsbychris.com. Chris in that is Chris with a K. Anyway, links in the description. Thank you and have a great day.