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Every year I say: "this is a year I finally use VIM". It last about 1 day. It's the model-ness that messes me up. I'm in command mode and I start typing like I'm in insert mode and bad things happen.
@grumpygamer
I've heard it described as "vi turns your keyboard into a game controller"
@grumpygamer hey Ron, a bit off-topic but did you see Tim Cain posted a video reading one of your poems? I find it really cool of him
@vinnie @grumpygamer He posted it a couple days ago, check his feed! (Edit: yesterday)
@sertoo @grumpygamer thanks! 
@vinnie @grumpygamer all good!
@grumpygamer I saw that, too. Of course, I saw it because Ron posted the video.
@grumpygamer Press u to undo.
@grumpygamer
Meanwhile I can never work in GUI text inputs because I keep whacking ESC every time I stop typing in text.
Common obstacle for beginners to learn to overcome.
The easiest way to not get into a mess is to always hit ESC to know for sure what your mode is.
@SpaceLifeForm @grumpygamer
I remember when learning, I gained the habit to tap Esc while thinking/not typing to ensure I kept booting myself into normal mode.
I also found the most beneficial part of statusline plugins (like vim-airline) was the mode display to give a visual cue -- especially if it only shows a mode in the active buffer. It's far more effective than the built-in`set showmode` because it's always there.
It the olden daze of vi (not vim) there were no plugins, so ESC was your only escape.
'm not experiencing any problems:wq
@grumpygamer Vi seems great for wonky connections but I prefer something sane for anything more than editing a few lines in a config file.
@grumpygamer fwiw, that's normally a side effect of slightly too long hanging out in insert; it's a good habit to really get used to "insert is a thing I do as part of an editing operation". But also, I'm a big advocate for using whatever you get on with 
@grumpygamer I used to think this too. Ended up giving it a proper try and eventually came to like it. I've since switched to kakoune however, which is similar to vim, but simpler and just as powerful.
Kakoune does selection->verb instead of the other way around.
@grumpygamer Did you already tried to use stuff like Vim Airline to get a visual feedback of the mode you are in? https://github.com/vim-airline/vim-airline
@grumpygamer I look at these things like I'm in lost in space or something, if i find myself stuck in an old school Unix environment and I need to edit a file to save Will Robinson or whatever, then I know i can do. But there are better options out there
For the love of $diety i used to use edlin on a regular basis, I can do anything!
@grumpygamer Maybe you can resort to opening it once per year with a file and try playing the TECO game
@grumpygamer I was bit by that too early. the trick that worked for me is adopting habit of, if I'm ever not 100% sure which mode I'm in, to hit ESC key. I usually tap it a few times in quick succession in redundancy as a psychological thing to be sure. After that I know I'm in a fixed deterministic predictable "baseline state" and then next I can press whatever keys I want to do commands or to do edits.
When in doubt hit ESC. Then there is no doubt.
@grumpygamer if your next game is named The Secret of Mode Predictability in Vim on Monkey Island I expect royalties!
@grumpygamer The key to getting over this is to understand that you're supposed to be in command mode by default. Edit mode is a specific operation you do when you need to then you come back to command mode right after.
@grumpygamer i just set up freebsd yesterday and the first package I installed when I saw all they pack in the image is basic vi was nano. life is not long enough to edit all the config files in vi.
@grumpygamer then it's clearly not for you and you should move on 
not everything is meant for everyone. Why feel bad about it?
@grumpygamer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface Raskin was basically correct in most respects but doomed to be ignored because some of his conclusions were too radical and people didn't know how to get there from the current GUI status quo
@jplebreton @grumpygamer one interesting thing about modal interfaces like vim, is that you end up habitually spamming the "default mode" key after / before actions, so it effectively becomes a prefix to your work. I guess it's a bit like Ctrl+S spam. It becomes reflexive and you no longer question it, but that only happens for invested users and for everyone else they're struggling, losing work, or getting into weird modes.
@grumpygamer Make your own text editor, then sell it on Steam. It would be a cool experiment!
@grumpygamer That part always messes me up.
@grumpygamer I tried VIM over many, many years. Try it, give up, rinse, repeat. Then I tried Neovim and it finally stuck. It was nothing specific about Neovim, but I think that part of it was that using Kickstart with Neovim gave me a nice configured VIM environment that was ready to go.
@grumpygamer sometimes I accidentally open something in vim and have to spend the next 6 weeks trying to figure out how to exit 
@grumpygamer It clicked for me when I installed it as a plug-in in my existing IDE.
The transition is much smoother because you can use your old habits and remain productive while exploring and learning new ones.
@grumpygamer Have you given Helix Editor a shot? I never thought I’d end up using a modal editor but here we are :)
@grumpygamer I suppose you've tried turning on the thing that puts "INSERT MODE" on the status line when you are in insert mode?
@grumpygamer Well, at least it's not EDLIN...
@grumpygamer I’ve been using it for a couple of years. Only when on a remote server, because I’m not a masochist. I started by learning just what I needed to replace nano, which became too limited.
I still accidentally trigger stuff that duplicates what I just typed, or opens a command pane I can’t close. And I can’t google how to exit it, because all the online material is “Type X to enter Ludicrous Mode” and not “How do you call that shit where a command pane you can’t exit shows up?”
@grumpygamer Ain't nothin' wrong with Nano.