dvorak and vim and cancer

🌱 This post is in the growth phase. It may still be useful as it grows up.

In 2009 I learned Dvorak and Vim at the same time.

I was tired of my favorite editors dying on me.
TextMate, Sublime — gone.
I figured an investment in Vim would pay off in transferrable productivity.
And if I was going to be slow anyway, might as well learn a new keyboard layout too.

I made this switch while my newborn was in the hospital with pediatric cancer.

Grasping for control, probably.

When everything that matters is outside your hands — your kid’s life, the diagnosis, the next round of tests — you reach for the thing you can control.
For me, that was the tool under my fingers.

I don’t think that’s noble.
I think it’s just what I did.

And it set a pattern I’ve repeated for fifteen years:
When the ground shifts, go deeper.
Find the layer below.
Get good enough there that the next earthquake doesn’t take you out.

I can be productive in all editors now.
At least those with good Vim emulation.

That’s not nothing.

(seed from pi)