There is a continuum, and there is an explore/exploit problem.
Using notepad (on Windows) has 0 up-front cost. But you are going to be frequently frustrated, you are going to frequently produce files with errors in them that you have to fix, and you are going to be frequently doing things in a repetitive way. And then you are going to have to do things differently on another platform, etc.
Using a highly configurable, plugin-rich, live-programmable editor like vim or emacs does have some up-front costs to configure and learn to use. But almost certainly not as much as you think. They LOOK absolutely terrifying, but the reality isn't so bad. (I haven't found it bad, anyway - I certainly don't keep around refcards or consciously memorize things, although that might mean I'm not taking 100% advantage of the tools or maxing out my geek score.. those just aren't my use cases).
Feeling frustrated all the time breaks up your flow and just feels bad. And yes, if you are feeling frustrated with repetition, you probably ARE wasting real time... but it's up to you whether it matters. Some people have half the productivity of others and get by fine and get paid the same.
The underlying philosophy here is: it's a programmable computer, you should be able to have it your own way. vim and emacs are the fruits of text editing being a really mature problem domain for software.
But if your philosophy is rather: I don't want to take an extra week to learn a new tool... then you are not ready and might never be ready to leap to a really strong text editor.
vim and emacs have warts. but if you know them and need their power, it will not matter much to you that (say) scribes is so much simpler and prettier, because the absence of warts doesn't make up for the massive loss of functionality.
Each of these embodies about a lifetime of very poorly compensated work; there isn't anything else like them in the pipeline, so you might wait a lifetime for something with the same functionality and fewer warts. And the problem is that others will perceive warts in the new thing and it will be a religious war just like vim vs. emacs.
Using notepad (on Windows) has 0 up-front cost. But you are going to be frequently frustrated, you are going to frequently produce files with errors in them that you have to fix, and you are going to be frequently doing things in a repetitive way. And then you are going to have to do things differently on another platform, etc.
Using a highly configurable, plugin-rich, live-programmable editor like vim or emacs does have some up-front costs to configure and learn to use. But almost certainly not as much as you think. They LOOK absolutely terrifying, but the reality isn't so bad. (I haven't found it bad, anyway - I certainly don't keep around refcards or consciously memorize things, although that might mean I'm not taking 100% advantage of the tools or maxing out my geek score.. those just aren't my use cases).
Feeling frustrated all the time breaks up your flow and just feels bad. And yes, if you are feeling frustrated with repetition, you probably ARE wasting real time... but it's up to you whether it matters. Some people have half the productivity of others and get by fine and get paid the same.
The underlying philosophy here is: it's a programmable computer, you should be able to have it your own way. vim and emacs are the fruits of text editing being a really mature problem domain for software.
But if your philosophy is rather: I don't want to take an extra week to learn a new tool... then you are not ready and might never be ready to leap to a really strong text editor.
vim and emacs have warts. but if you know them and need their power, it will not matter much to you that (say) scribes is so much simpler and prettier, because the absence of warts doesn't make up for the massive loss of functionality.
Each of these embodies about a lifetime of very poorly compensated work; there isn't anything else like them in the pipeline, so you might wait a lifetime for something with the same functionality and fewer warts. And the problem is that others will perceive warts in the new thing and it will be a religious war just like vim vs. emacs.