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Here’s the proper fix. In your .bashrc, or wherever:

export EDITOR=<anything but vim>



Vim works fine. I use EMACS. TextMate, Atom and Sublime are OK. Any mainstream editor is fine is all but a few corner cases. Truth be told I would be fine without EMACS but maybe less happy. People unable to exit Vim is just a sign of a larger problem, that a generation of programmer relies more on Google and Stack Overflow than simply READING documentation and EXPERIMENTING by writing short little throw away programs. There is so much Vim material out there on the internet that it makes me afraid these defective programmers can't even use Google properly. I still look shit up on the internet all the time but 99% my answer is right in the documentation. Anyone who can really program is horrified by idiots who can't shut off Vim or use WordPad to write c programs and try to compile them.


> Anyone who can really program is horrified by idiots...

I think you should take a broader look at the world.

> these defective programmers can't even use Google properly.

Try searching "how to exit vim" in google... see what the first result is... .

If everyone around you looks like an idiot, you can probably figure out who the real idiot is. Or maybe not.

But hey, maybe you're a natural talent who knows by instinct how to exit VIM.


There's a bit of irony here. You're poking fun at people stuck in a new unfamiliar environment doing the wrong thing over and over without looking into why it isn't working.

Somewhat similar to how most of your comments here are down voted and/or dead/flagged, yet you keep posting new ones with the same tone.


Or just learn the very basics of the program:

Ins to write

Esc to enter command mode Shift+V while in cmd mode to select lines, d to cut or y to copy selected lines. p to paste. u in cmd mode to undo, ctrl+r to redo.

:q! to quit and discard changes when in cmd mode. :qw to quit and write changes :w to write changes and no exit.

It aint that hard really, once you get the hang of it :) - And then I would suggest changing default editor if you still wish.


Forget to enter insert mode before typing? Now you're levels deep in some command recorder where none of your suggestions work.


Ins to write? I always press <i>. (Nano user;-))




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