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The article was not against a tool but a way of thinking. He didn't say anywhere that Sublime was better than Vim. He did say that he disagrees with the idea that a tools friction is a feature.

I can take his entire thesis and use it to show that vim is the perfect editor for me precisely because vim is invisible to me when I use it. In part this is because I turned vim into the tool I wanted. He turned sublime into the tool he wanted. His basic point however still stands. If you are making something for someone else to use then making that tool invisible to them is a powerful property.

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>He turned sublime into the tool he wanted.

I think this also misses the point. Sublime just is the tool I want. I install it and I use it.

Eventually I may install a handful of add-ons via the baked in package control. But primarily it just is the text editor I want.

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> In the long run, every piece of software tends towards mediocrity.

Alternative view: Maybe that's okay, and greybeards know that.

Mediocre: "something of only moderate or ordinary quality"

Maybe we don't need the latest and greatest extraordinary technology when coding our next CRUD app.

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> I am afraid the author confuses familiarity with proof that his tools are better.

Literally NOT what I was implying or even said anywhere. Quote me where I said anything like that.

To quote myself:

> What baffles me is that so many people treat that friction—the effort of working around a tool’s limitations—as the “fun” part, and then advertise it as evidence that the tool is great.

This has nothing to do with why I or another person one tool over another, but rather treating the flaws as if they are things to have a puzzle game to work around.

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People don't use vim because they enjoy puzzle solving. I don't even know how you got this conception. People use vim because they are effective at editing with vim, period, just like you are effective with Sublime Text.

People don't use Linux because they enjoy tweaking config files and everybody else has too busy a life to do that. That's a silly misconception and veiled attempt at feeling superior at those time-wasters.

> rather treating the flaws as if they are things to have a puzzle game to work around

Case in point.

Good tools are indeed invisible, but the arguments the article is built on are very shaky and honestly just sound from someone that didn't spend much time with other tools, but still has strong opinions about them.

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I do know quite a few people who use vim because they do enjoy the puzzle. So there are absolutely people as he describes. Saying that there aren't people like that just undermines your point.
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Geez, I’m not saying there are none. I’m saying it’s silly to characterise it as an editor for puzzle lovers. You knowing ‘quite a few people’ can’t be generalised to the millions that use vim daily.
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The article discuses that specific subset of users who are into puzzle solving, so we should ground this discussion around that point and not fall into the “tool x is good/bad” pointless debate.
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> People don't use vim because they enjoy puzzle solving.

I didn't say that either nor even imply it, and you know that when you quote me afterwards. So huh?!?!

> People don't use Linux because they enjoy tweaking config files and everybody else has too busy a life to do that.

A lot of people, including younger myself, got into Linux and Android BECAUSE it was configurable and customizable. And even played around with all of the customizations because it was fun to do. But it didn't really make my general experience better because I was forever trying to correct something I should have to correct in the first place.

I am not sure how much clearer I can be in the article or in my replies to comments.

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