The ability to join together optional "contexts" (this visual selection, this line range, the whole file, ...) with "verbs" (delete, change, append, ...) and "adjectives" (up to, including, ...) and "nouns"/"things" (word, WORD, next search term, letter, line number, ...) is what makes the language both worth to learn, and powerful.
This is enlightening: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-mos...
My point being: aside from the few IDEs which "really include" a copy of "full" vi/vim (i.e. including a remote neovim they communicate with), a well-seasoned Vi user is probably far better off using the real editor, than they are using a crippled "vi-like mode".
Also, try vim mode in VSCode before stating that it's not really mature enough and you're better off with vanilla vim. I am certain you haven't and are operating on the mistaken assumption that vim modes are not mature enough
IDEs should just support NeoVim integration for text editing. It removes the need to replicate anything because it's literally just Vim with the unchanged user configuration. I think it would be a win for both users and developers.
I gave this a shot actually, and it was 1) slow and 2) missing features I used a lot. The tab/window/buffer behavior was close enough to feel similar but not close enough to be a direct replacement, and that just left me frustrated.
For anybody who has really deeply ingrained muscle memory on using vim (beyond the basics of navigating around a file), trying to switch to an IDE with a vim emulation mode is still a pretty big haul.
(This isn't to say that the vim-like modes of other editors aren't good/useful for people, it's just to say that for a lifelong vim user they may be lacking in too many ways to justify)
I was scared of vim for... years.
Then I used it for like a day, and I was already better off than using nano.
It's a bit pompous to call the vim commands a "language". Basically all you have to know to use vim very powerfully is the difference between insert and navigation mode, how to switch between them, how to move around with hjkl, how to move around in "blocks", that \ opens the search and that y = yank means basically copying. You can learn that in under an hour. Combine that with stuff like "yiw" (yank in word) or "dib" (delete in bracket) and you will get a lot farer than with most other editors. I guarantee you that I do not think about how "dib" means "delete in bracket" when I use it, I have it just memorized.
Totally maintainable /s
I haven't done that too much with vim in the ~35 years since then, but that's only because I haven't quite grok'ed how to write vim macro's by hand, yet. I should probably figure that out by now, but as a vim guy all I've ever needed is maybe 1% of all of vim's feature set to be productive ..
I originally never wanted to use Vim but had to use it often at work (especially in the server room), so I got used to mechanically entering and exiting insert mode as many people do. That was the extent of my knowledge, but then during a slow period at work I took the time to learn Vim thoroughly by reading "Learning the vi and Vim Editors" from O'Reilly. It changed my view of VI and Vim to the point that (as I had said) I now think of them as command-based editors rather than modal editors. Once you realize that each key press is a command in a very terse language, you can see the power and expressiveness of the language, but it takes some practice and time to build up your intuition.
For example, I often find myself typing something like "79a-ESC" or "79i-ESC" to put in a horizontal rule in text or Markdown documents. To somebody thinking modally this command makes little sense, since I leave insert mode immediately after typing a single character! But from a command language perspective it makes total sense, since I merely instruct Vim to append 79 dashes to the current line. Once you see that it's a language, you stay in command "mode" much more, since that is where the power is.
Disclaimer: vi/vim user for 30+ years.
Then recently I've come to appreciate how well Vim composes with "it's just text" Unix tools and how being able to filter things to tabularise or sort your code is almost magic. All while keeping your edit history and not requiring any plugins.
It goes deep, but in a good way.
I guess what's also good is you can get a lot of value without having to go that deep
