I think you just embodied the entire sentiment the GP was criticising: the whole concept that Vim is not an editor; it's a state of mind.
I compel you and anyone else who is quite dogmatic about their choice of editor to try explaining it in such an objective, non-patronising way, so that the layman can think, "oh, it sounds like it's worth learning then."
I'm not a Vim user per-se, but I'd find more value in something like this, possibly with a more specific follow up:
Vim works a bit differently than other editors. It cares more about manipulating existing text than creating new text, and so it tries its best to let you make changes without just deleting and re-typing from scratch, or using your mouse to point and click and drag and highlight.
It has a steep learning curve so it's initially hard to adapt not just to this change in perspective, but also to the commands and shortcuts that allow you to be more efficient and productive.
Such is the investment of time and effort required to do be good in it, you might consider grokking Vim a commitment as big as grokking your programming language of choice. However, you will in return acquire a life-long knowledge of working in Vim, and using it will become second-nature and infinitely preferable to manipulating text by hand.
As a developer, knowledge of Vim is valuable because of two things:
1. Portable configuration: what you learn, and how you personalise your editor, is transferrable to other machines, as it's just text. No modern editor has adequately replicated such basic functionality.
2. Ubiquity: you can't load Sublime Text, Textmate, Eclipse, {$gui_editor} on the VPS you routinely SSH into. You will, however, have access to Vim, or its predecessor Vi. You can thus have a somewhat familiar environment when working on remote servers, without any faff.
I compel you and anyone else who is quite dogmatic about their choice of editor to try explaining it in such an objective, non-patronising way, so that the layman can think, "oh, it sounds like it's worth learning then."
I'm not a Vim user per-se, but I'd find more value in something like this, possibly with a more specific follow up:
Vim works a bit differently than other editors. It cares more about manipulating existing text than creating new text, and so it tries its best to let you make changes without just deleting and re-typing from scratch, or using your mouse to point and click and drag and highlight.
It has a steep learning curve so it's initially hard to adapt not just to this change in perspective, but also to the commands and shortcuts that allow you to be more efficient and productive.
Such is the investment of time and effort required to do be good in it, you might consider grokking Vim a commitment as big as grokking your programming language of choice. However, you will in return acquire a life-long knowledge of working in Vim, and using it will become second-nature and infinitely preferable to manipulating text by hand.
As a developer, knowledge of Vim is valuable because of two things:
1. Portable configuration: what you learn, and how you personalise your editor, is transferrable to other machines, as it's just text. No modern editor has adequately replicated such basic functionality.
2. Ubiquity: you can't load Sublime Text, Textmate, Eclipse, {$gui_editor} on the VPS you routinely SSH into. You will, however, have access to Vim, or its predecessor Vi. You can thus have a somewhat familiar environment when working on remote servers, without any faff.