Why Nevim makes me a better developer

Tools don’t define your skills

First of all, your editor doesn't define your skill at all! Some elitist developers might say, "Noob uses browsers as an editor," but that's not true. Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, just vibe coded on Google anti-gravity on one of his personal projects, so stop judging people by their tools. Some just enjoy coding on different tools, and that's totally fine.

Customizing Neovim: My favorite form of procrastination

For me, using Neovim is about the fun of customizing my workflow and making it more efficient. I have always liked to customize my toys, including how my computer looks. I want to make it customized to my liking. When I tried Neovim, this is the part that I really enjoyed.

I used to spend days tweaking my Neovim config, trying different plugins and themes, and creating a custom script for some workflow commands that I often use. This process of customization makes me feel more connected to my tools and makes me enjoy coding more.

Along the way, I also learned a lot about how things work under the hood for a text editor, like how Language Server Protocol (LSP) bridges the gap between a simple terminal and a full-blown IDE, or how to write Lua scripts, and how to optimize my workflow. This learning process makes me a better developer because I understand my tools better and can use them more effectively. And to be honest, sometimes I think I spend too much time customizing Neovim than doing my actual coding work. But at least, I'm having fun doing it.

Keyboard only life

Another major advantage of using Neovim is the keyboard-centric approach called Vim motion. I dislike the trackpad, not because it's slow, but I just don't like the feeling of touching it; my hands often sweat. When I know that I can literally control everything with just my keyboard, I feel liberated.

This makes me enjoy coding more because I can stay in a "Flow State" longer (focus more on my code) and less on switching between keyboard and mouse that breaks my concentration (adios micro-context switching). But of course, the cons are that you have to remember a lot of keybindings, and sometimes it can be overwhelming, especially for beginners. But once you get used to it, you can't go back, and you want everything to have vim keybinding.

Another reason you might find for switching to Neovim is the performance. It is fast, but to be honest, the difference is not that significant because of my powerful laptop. But if you have a low-end laptop, Neovim can be a good choice for its lightweight and speed.