Reasons for using command line Vim versus GUI Vim

vim macos editor macvim
John Gallagher picture John Gallagher · Jan 27, 2010 · Viewed 15.1k times · Source

Background

I'm building an application where it detects what documents you're using from the file system. To do this it must access the AXDocument attribute of the active window. MacVim provides this. Running Vim in the Terminal wouldn't provide this.

I've just put out a survey to ask what editor coders who are interested in my app use. A significant number of the folk using Vim used it directly from the command line.

Why not use a GUI Vim?

Why do some people prefer to run Vim this way versus a GUI implementation like MacVim?

What advantages does this offer? As I understand it, you can send files to MacVim from the command line just as easily as command line Vim.

Answer

prodigitalson picture prodigitalson · Jan 27, 2010

These reasons may be different for each specific developer but my guess would be:

  1. vim is pretty much vim on any platform. GUI implementations can vary.
  2. Familiarity - being familiar with vim does not nessecarily mean being familar with vim wrapped ina GUI - espectially given #1.
  3. "Elite Complex" ;-)
  4. No definite avantages to the users over cli vim.

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