Learning Vim keybindings after used to Emacs Vanilla?

I know plenty of people come to emacs from Vim, so it makes sense to use evil, spacemacs, etc, but I rarely if ever see the other way around. I've been doing vanilla emacs for a bit, and while I'm used to it, I definitely don't love the navigation shortcuts, and I've always been very interested in how Vim works. Anyone here was already used to and comfortable with regular emacs bindings and decided to learn Vim keybindings? Did you think it was worth it? Did you keep it or went back to vanilla emacs? Do you use it only in certain contexts? Any tips for how to pursue it?

It's not the key bindings that are the problem for me, it's the whole model editing model that my brain has never been able to wrap around. I am not modal, I contain multitudes! That said, if you have a strong enough motivation to learn vim keybindings then sure, you'll eventually master it. But if normal keybindings are working for you, where is the motivation?

I was using vim for 10+ years before Emacs, but somehow I always hated vim bindings in Emacs. Perhaps because I have to switch between Emacs and vim on a daily basis so different bindings allow me to have a mental separation between the two "OK, now I'm in vim, I use vim bindings and think in vim. Now I switch to Emacs, use native Emacs binding and think in Emacs terms". I think though objectively vim bindings and text editing model are better, unless you you earn money playing vim golf professionally, Emacs bindings are just good enough for majority of tasks.

I learned vi key bindings in Emavs using viper, the other vi emulation Emacs has. This let me use vim productively for years. For me, the modal editing approach really worked when I had to do a lot of work in a terminal over a slow link. The modal way is almost like editing declaratively. You can “type ahead” with more certainty that what you think will happen actually will. This is a big win over a slow link because you don’t need as much visual feedback. That said, I didn’t find that it scaled beyond the core editing operations very well, but that is just my casual opinion. I find that with Emacs I need near instant visual feedback. There are so many more wild things you can do with all the key bindings that I find the result harder to predict without the instant on screen feedback. That said, when I went back to using Emacs with its native bindings I found it to be much more pleasant, and almost “lightweight“ in comparison. I had already found myself doing lots of non-trivial editing using emacs bindings while in insert mode, so you could say that I gravitated away from modal editing organically. But, in all honesty, after many years using both approaches I concluded long ago that the difference really doesn’t matter at all. If your day to day work depends on the minor advantages one has over the other, then I recommend figuring out why you must be a hyper efficient typing machine to be effective. Most vim and Emacs users are “knowledge workers“ that can probably benefit much more by stopping to think before typing the correct thing, rather than reflexively typing the wrong thing without thinking. The effectiveness of the pre-cognition that comes before the typing is what makes for efficiency, not modal vs modeless editor bindings.

Search "vimtutor" on the tips of learning vim keybindings. For other questions, the answer is "yes".

I did this. I think the main benefit of Vim/Evil is the text objects. I use both bindings. - Emacs commands can be used as Evil motions. For example, one can use `d C-x h` to delete the buffers contents. In a Vim way, one might use `gg d G`. In this way, knowledge of the basic Emacs key bindings carries over. - Evil has many text objects for working with pairs of delimeters (`ya"`, `ci)`, etc.), but I think that Emacs commands for sexps (`C-M-u`, `C-M-k`, etc.) are just as convenient depending on where the hands lie on the keyboard. I think that the change is worth it. Between the two, there is normally a comfortable way to enter a command. Some things are more convenient in one than the other. I like using Evil everywhere with the package Evil Collection. Evil Collection setups up many packages to use Evil-style keybindings. This helps to avoid everyone writing the same settings in their config file. There are also other alternative keybindings beyond Evil. Meow (https://github.com/meow-edit/meow) is a recent example. Xah Fly Keys (https://github.com/xahlee/xah-fly-keys) is another. It might be worth trying them as well.

Emacs keybinding is good enough for me, I don't need to swith between normal and insert. I guess most people don't like Emacs key binding is because the Ctrl key is too hard to press. I use palm to press the Ctrl key on mechanical keyboard.I've almost forgotten that the Ctrl key exists. By the way, I use Emacs key binding everywhere outside Emacs

I've learned the basics of vi(m) over the years, yes, but I've never once felt the need or desire to switch from standard emacs keybindings. I sometimes use vim for a quick edit of a config file, when I need to edit as root, but I can't say I find it a particularly pleasant or rewarding experience. Not-horrible is about the highest I can rate vim.

I never got used to the Emacs keybindings, literal finger + wrist pain. Decided to learn vim modal editing (via evil) and never looked back since.

I used Emacs bindings for 15 years. I switched because I frequently log in to Unix machines that someone else configured. Vim is always available. It's great to use the same key bindings for all environments. It also helped that vim support in Emacs was getting more polished, thanks to Spacemacs and Doom becoming popular. Before I felt that evil-mode was to much work to get right.

Try meow in emacs。It is awesome.

My 2 cents : i decided to try vim bindings after maybe 10 years on and off emacs. What I liked : typing succession of single keys instead of hand twisting shortcuts. It was rather pleasant for my left hand What i disliked : could never get used to the hjkl keys for movement. Most bindings are hard to remember (the same could me said for emacs) In the end i ended up building my own modal minor-mode, it was surprisingly easy and fun to do. Can't say that modal editing is faster but it is definitely easier on the hands

I swapped the Ctrl key with caps lock since caps locks is hardly ever used. Would recommend to everyone who has trouble with the default

I did this while still a beginner. Mainly, it was because I wanted to try Doom and see what the big deal was with Vim keybindings. Modal bindings can be very efficient, but I felt like all of that was cancelled out by my occasional attempts to type text while still in command mode. So I eventually quit using Evil and stuck with regular Emacs bindings. They actually get better the more you use them. You just have to solve the problem of the control key. There are many approaches to this: caps lock, dual-role spacebar, home-row modifiers, pedals, extra prefix keys, etc. Another thing I've started to enjoy is binding a navigation cluster with the Super key. I still use the traditional bindings, but sometimes it's just more comfortable to go up and down without having to move a finger across the keyboard.

I went to that road. It took me 1 month to be more productive with modal bindings. Some tips: 1. I still use emacs bindings in insert mode. That way the transition was very easy for me because I was able to use all the shortcuts I am familiar with. Then gradually removed my vanilla shortcuts in favor of the evil one. 2. I did some bindings to help with the transition. E. g. I had C-n/C-f/etc working in normal state. IMHO the combination modal editing + emacs state outperforms vanilla vim/emacs.

Would you say that emacs keybinds are more ubiquitous than vi keybinds for general/development type of software? For instance vimium is an excelent addition for any browser, but I don't know any emacs keybind equivalent.

Both types of keybinding are common in my opinion, each with their pros and cons. If you usually use vim a lot, then you don't need to think about it, just use vim keybinding. But for users who are not familiar with vim, just use the emacs keys directly. For the vimium you mentioned, in fact, I am also using it. I have installed vimium in google chrome and safari, but I basically don't use jk to scroll the screen, and occasionally use f to jump. I think a better way to scroll page on browser is a touchpad or mouse.