“no modes”, i’ve always considered that to be a bit of a mantra worth following. but now i seem to be breaking that rule while learning Vim (normal mode, insert mode, and so on).
yesterday i was test driving a car with eco mode, sport mode..the Larry in me was yelling “no modes”!!!
I also use vim (or neovim). But that doesn't mean that I believe in modes or that neovim/vim is a good editor.
I think there is some kind of psychological thing driving this. Like subconsciously, I came to the conclusion many years ago that "real programmers" use vim or Emacs, and then consciously decided that the default keybindings for Emacs were slightly worse.
So for decades I have been trying to learn just enough vim to get by. But practically every day I miss my PC keys for things like selecting text.
At least three times I have got my keybindings the way I wanted and then after a new install or something just decided to deal with the outdated way that vim does it.
You have to realize the context that vim was invented. There was no WYSIWYG. People were used to things like 'ed' where everything was a command. Just being able to stay in a mode and move around freely on the screen was a big deal. The terminal hardware didn't even have a way to hold a key combination.
Vim modes allow you to keep your hands on the home row most of the time and make a mouse unnecessary for editing. That keeps my hands, wrists and forearms healthy and for that I am grateful. Of course a great programmer is not defined by their tools. What matters is what you create, not how you create it.
yesterday i was test driving a car with eco mode, sport mode..the Larry in me was yelling “no modes”!!!