Vim vs AWS Cloud 9

When compared to modern graphical editors like Atom and Brackets (which have underlying HTML5 engines, browsers, Node, etc.), Vim uses a sliver of the system's memory and it loads instantly, all the while delivering the same features. Vim is also faster than Emacs.

Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware.

Unlike other editors such as Sublime Text, Vim is a command line editor and hence can be used in remote development environments like Chromebooks via SSH.

Vi/vim exists on almost all Unix-like platforms. It's the de-facto Unix editor and is easily installed on Windows. All you need to make it work is a text-based connection, so it works well for remote machines with slow connections, or when you're too lazy to set up a VNC/Remote Desktop connection.

There's no need to reach for the mouse or the Ctrl/Alt buttons again. Everything is a mere key press or two away with almost 200 functions specifically for text editing. Vim does support the mouse, but it's designed so you don't have to use it for greater efficiency.
Versions of Vim, like gVim or MacVim, still allow you to use the mouse and familiar platform shortcuts. That can help ease the learning curve and you'll probably find you won't want to (or need to) use the mouse after a while.

Vim's keyset is mainly restricted to the alphanumeric keys and the escape key. This is an enduring relic of its teletype heritage, but has the effect of making my ost of Vim's functionality accessible without frequent awkward finger reaches.

Many text editors have programmable macros, but since Vim is keyboard-based, your programmed macros are usually far more predictable and easier to understand.

As it loads the whole file into RAM, replacing all string occurrences in 100 MB+ files is quick and easy. Every other editor has sort of died during that. It is extremely fast even for cold start. Vim is light-weight and very compact. In terminal, it only uses a small amount of memory and anytime you invoke Vim, it's extremely fast. It's immediate, so much so you can't even notice any time lag.

This makes Vim the definitive resource for every environment (Ruby/Rails, Python, C, etc.), or simply just provides more information in your view.

No need to memorize different key combinations for things like deleting the text inside of a block or deleting the text inside of a pair of quotes. It's just a series of actions, or nouns and verbs, or however you prefer to think about it. If you want to delete, you select "d"; if you want it to happen inside something, you select "i"; and if you want the surrounding double-quotes, just select ". But if you were changing the text, or copying it, or anything else, you'd still use the same "i" and ". This makes it very easy to remember a large number of different extremely useful commands, without the effort it takes to remember all of the Emacs "magic incantations", for example.

Vimtutor is an excellent interactive tutorial for people with no prior experience of Vim. It takes about 30 minutes to complete.

Vimscript provides a rich scripting functionality to build upon the core of Vim. When combined with things like Tim Pope's Pathogen plugin management system, it becomes easy to add support for syntax, debugging, build systems, git, and more.

If you happen to be logged into SSH, you can use Vim in a terminal. It can also run with a GUI too.

And will be supported for many years to come.

Vim's somewhat steep learning curve is more than made up for once you've mastered a few basic concepts and learned the tricks that allow you to program faster with fewer cut/paste mistakes.

The fact that very few, if any, people claim to be a "Vim Master" is a testament to the breadth and depth of Vim. There is always something new to learn - a new, perhaps more efficient, way to use it. This prevents Vim from ever feeling stale. It's always fresh.

Vim allows users to include many features found in IDEs and competing editors, but does not force them all on the user. This not only helps keep it lighter in weight than a lot of other options, but it also helps ensure that some unused features will not get in the way.

Interaction with Vim is centered around several "modes", where purpose and keybindings differ in each.
Insert mode is for entering text. This mode most resembles traditional text entry in most editors.
Normal mode (the default) is entered by hitting ESC and converts all keybindings to center around movement within the file, search, pane selection, etc.
Command mode is entered by hitting ":" in Normal mode and allows you to execute Vim commands and scripts similar in fashion to a shell.
Visual mode is for selecting lines, blocks, and characters of code.
Those are the major modes, and several more exist depending on what one defines as a "mode" in Vim.

All Linux distributions out there will have Vim built into them, which is highly convenient!

If you use Vim long enough, it will rewire your brain to be more efficient.

Vim does not only offer unlimited undo levels, later releases support an undo tree. It eventually gives the editor VCS-like features. You can undo the current file to any point in the past, even if a change was already undone again. Another neat feature is persistent undo, which enables to undo changes after the file was closed and reopened again.

Starting with Vim 8, a package manager has been built into Vim. The package manager helps keep track of installed plugins, their versions and also only loads the needed plugins on startup depending on the file type.

As with all vi-like editors, Vim provides a modal paradigm for text editing and processing that provides a rich syntax and semantic model for composing succinct, powerful commands. While this requires some initial investment in learning how it works in order to take full advantage of its capabilities, it rewards the user well in the long run. This modal interface paradigm also lends itself surprisingly well to many other types of applications that can be controlled by vi-like keybindings, such as browsers, image viewers, media players, network clients (for email and other communication media), and window managers. Even shells (including zsh, tcsh, mksh, and bash, among others) come with vi-like keybinding features that can greatly enhance user comfort and efficiency when the user is familiar with the vi modal editing paradigm.

Since Vim 8, Vim can exchange characters with background processes asynchronously. This avoids the problem of the text editor getting stuck when a plugin that had to communicate with a server was running. Now plugins can send and receive data from external scripts without forcing Vim to freeze.

It is called "registers".

Using vim not just increase your productivity, but helps you flex.

Cloud9 gives full terminal access to home directory. In their hosted Linux Ubuntu environment it has sudo powers. No UNIX commands have been blocked - npm, ifconfig, chmod, chown, tar, etc work. All commands can be accessed and any package can be installed.

And if the terminal is used when using Remote SSH feature it connects directly to the server and runs the commands on that server.

Cloud9 uses their own editor called ACE. Besides the basics, it covers most important advanced code editor features such as code folding, converting cases, auto-completion, code analysis and refactoring, regex search and offers easy access to relevant documentation.

It also gives access to the CLI, has support for Vim and Emacs keybindings, includes multiple cursors and zen coding mode that removes all distractions and allows focusing on code.

Cloud9 has extensive, well-organized documentation at docs.c9.io.

An important feature of Cloud9 is the real-time collaboration ability. It allows pairing programs or perform code reviews really easily as well as simultaneously text chat.

Prior to being part of the AWS Toolchain, AWS integrates deeply with CodeStar and AWS Lambda, allowing you to build serverless architechtures.

By installing and running a client application that syncs the local file system and cloud storage Cloud9 can be run locally. Great alternative for situations when the Internet connection is unreliable.

Since Cloud9 is an open source project with source code available on GitHub, it can be run as a self-hosted solution on own hardware and behind a firewall.

Git and hg commands can be run in the command-line, the same way as in a local terminal. There are also built-in add-on services for GitHub, BitBucket and GitLab.

The runner has built-in functionality fo Apache, Node, Python, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Go, CoffeeScript, Julia, Mocha and Shell script, but any other language can be used by creating a runner for it.

Prior to the Cloud9 core source code being released, an Alpha version of a desktop version can be built from the source which is based from NW.js. Instructions can be found here.

Allows you to connect directly to your external server via SSH. Modifying files directly on your server using a cloud based editor allows you to have the portability of the a cloud based workspace with the control of your own server (including complete DNS control).

Breakpoints allow specifying a stopping points in the execution of the application. When these breakpoints are hit, the application will stop executing and give the ability to examine data such as local variables, run commands and control the execution flow of the application.

Cloud9 provides one free private workspace. However, I can host multiple projects there by cloning as many repositories into the root project directory, thanks to the full access terminal.

Similar to package managers for the desktop, Cloud9 also includes their own package manager, c9pm, which allows adding new software from a list of available utilities.

Apt-get can be used in the project's workspace terminal to install/update/upgrade software. Composer, Bower or any other utilities of choice can be installed to manage dependencies and packages.

Cloud9 allows quickly deploying apps via CLI. There are instructions on how to deploy to Azure, CloudFoundry, OpenShift, NodeJitsu, Modulus and Heroku. For example, all hosted environments have Heroku's toolbelt installed by default so all heroku commands are available from the get-go.

Cloud9 can connect to a dedicated VM to provide a powerful Ubuntu runtime environment in the cloud using Docker. Apps can be either run from the run panel where a selection of runners is provided or from a terminal.

In addition to launching a server to run code, Cloud9 will also host a database to develop against. Support for MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB and SQLite.

Cloud9 integrates with Sauce Labs a browser testing suite that allows previewing the app in any desktop or mobile browser.

Cloud9 allows quickly deploying apps via CLI. There are instructions on how to deploy to Azure, CloudFoundry, OpenShift, NodeJitsu, Modulus and Heroku. For example, all hosted environments have Heroku's toolbelt installed by default so all heroku commands are available from the get-go.