The choices become much more obvious with experience. Waiting 3-5 seconds is completely unrealistic once you know what you are doing. I’d fall back to using the mouse well before 3 seconds, unless I’m in a remote terminal or something that doesn’t support it, in which case I’d use / / ? and n.
You could theoretically target any character in the file using only Space to advance the cursor and gg to go back to the start (well, depending on your settings). But nobody even thinks to do it this way (because it’s stupid), so it doesn’t seem to drain any mental resources not thinking about it.
Similarly, experienced vimmers don’t use hjkl very much.lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll is just not something that occurs to you when you think of (and act on) better options first. If you have to use an arrow key more than a few times in a row, you’re doing something wrong. (I mean, sometimes I use js to scroll down as I’m reading, but I’m not going for speed in that case.) By the time you get to about 4-5 keystrokes, you’re better off searching with / / ?.
Similarly, if you have to hit w more than a few times, you’re probably doing something wrong. It’s usually not something that even occurs to me.
I mostly jump around within a line by using f/F and ;/,. It’s faster than going by word with w or by character with h/l. One still has to pick a character or two to target, and for longer jumps, one learns to avoid common characters like vowels, and learn to prefer rarer characters like punctuation. This is just a fast heuristic, I’m not mentally counting character statistics for my current line.
Yes? I mean, other vimmers might feel differently, but I basically don’t use counts like that. Counting to move the cursor is too much effort, especially if you’re counting higher than 2-3. It’s not worth the time it takes.
ww is the same number of keystrokes as 2w. I might use the latter if I needed a single motion operator to repeat later with ., like c2w, but ww or even www would be easier most of the time. Past that, we’re getting to the 4-5 keystrokes where / is better, and you can probably do it in two to three keystrokes with f-something (;) as easily as www.
So rather than counting how many words to get from here to there to find the right number to enter before the w, I’m just looking at the there and hit f, plus whatever character I’m looking at getting to, or a less common one adjacent to it. If the cursor doesn’t quite get there, you can ; a few times. If you overshoot, use , to reverse.
The choices become much more obvious with experience. Waiting 3-5 seconds is completely unrealistic once you know what you are doing. I’d fall back to using the mouse well before 3 seconds, unless I’m in a remote terminal or something that doesn’t support it, in which case I’d use
//?andn.You could theoretically target any character in the file using only Space to advance the cursor and
ggto go back to the start (well, depending on your settings). But nobody even thinks to do it this way (because it’s stupid), so it doesn’t seem to drain any mental resources not thinking about it.Similarly, experienced vimmers don’t use
hjklvery much.lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllis just not something that occurs to you when you think of (and act on) better options first. If you have to use an arrow key more than a few times in a row, you’re doing something wrong. (I mean, sometimes I usejs to scroll down as I’m reading, but I’m not going for speed in that case.) By the time you get to about 4-5 keystrokes, you’re better off searching with//?.Similarly, if you have to hit
wmore than a few times, you’re probably doing something wrong. It’s usually not something that even occurs to me.I mostly jump around within a line by using
f/Fand;/,. It’s faster than going by word withwor by character withh/l. One still has to pick a character or two to target, and for longer jumps, one learns to avoid common characters like vowels, and learn to prefer rarer characters like punctuation. This is just a fast heuristic, I’m not mentally counting character statistics for my current line.Do you mean that for both doing “4w” and “wwww”?
Yes? I mean, other vimmers might feel differently, but I basically don’t use counts like that. Counting to move the cursor is too much effort, especially if you’re counting higher than 2-3. It’s not worth the time it takes.
wwis the same number of keystrokes as2w. I might use the latter if I needed a single motion operator to repeat later with., likec2w, butwwor evenwwwwould be easier most of the time. Past that, we’re getting to the 4-5 keystrokes where/is better, and you can probably do it in two to three keystrokes withf-something (;) as easily aswww.So rather than counting how many words to get from here to there to find the right number to enter before the
w, I’m just looking at the there and hitf, plus whatever character I’m looking at getting to, or a less common one adjacent to it. If the cursor doesn’t quite get there, you can;a few times. If you overshoot, use,to reverse.