from Hacker News

Vim is a cast iron skillet

by ossusermivami on 12/24/24, 8:45 PM with 6 comments

• by yen223 on 12/24/24, 10:13 PM

  I suspect cast iron pans are talked about more often than they are used, so I suppose the analogy still works.

  Stainless steel and carbon steel pans have most of the same upsides of cast iron, but none of the downsides. Which is why they are the workhorses of restaurant kitchens everywhere.

• by McUsr on 12/24/24, 11:01 PM

  A cast iron skillet doesn't evolve.

  The nice thing about Vim is that it evolves to your needs as you configure and reconfigure and tweak as you go along, exploring different itches.

  I change my .vimrc ever so often, and the changes usually rewards me.

• by dmwood on 12/24/24, 10:08 PM

  As Frank Siegert used to say (maybe still does): "Vi is the answer. Now what is the question?".

• by xyse53 on 12/24/24, 10:00 PM

  I setup my vimrc about 15 to 20 years ago, and I haven't touched/cleaned it since.

• by flufluflufluffy on 12/24/24, 9:48 PM

  I think any decent text editor would meet the definition then, but also wasn’t the defining feature of the cast-iron skillet that it required a greater amount of cleaning? What do you have to clean up?