stochastictrebuchet

Yes. It’s mnemonic and composable whereas your key chord isn’t. It’s fine if you don’t care for it. Each to their own. I’m just explaining the appeal of modal editing

Just in case you’re not trolling, here’s a simple example: yi) means yank inside )-parentheses. It copies the contents of round brackets. Core commands like these are relatively easy to remember

The interface is modal editing, which, yes, takes some getting used to. The payoff is that you get a kind of programming language for text editing. Rather than memorizing ctrl+shift+alt-style keybinds, you decompose stuff into chainable actions.

Have you ever played a video game, be it with kbd+mouse or gamepad, and realize you’re doing a bunch of stuff without actually consciously thinking about what buttons you’re pressing? That’s what working in editors like Vim or (my fav) Helix feels like.