id: ile title: Immersive Learning and Experimentation previous: dmwi next: lim date: 2021-04-16 ---

## Immersive Learning and Experimentation

This past week I have started learning how to use Vim and I thought that the process was interesting and wanted to talk about it.

Vim is a text editor, like Notepad, Atom, Emacs, or many others. Mainly used for programming and simple text files. Vim is an older editor that runs in the command line instead of a graphical user interface and relies completely on the keyboard instead of making use of the mouse. It uses a lot of keyboard shortcuts instead and allows for very quick and very precise editing.

This means that it has a very steep learning curve but seems to have an equally high ceiling for skill with the program and its speed of use. The downside is that it is going to take me a lot of time to learn and will slow me down a lot while I do. The temptation to go back to Atom, which was my text editor of choice in the past, in order to make more headway on my projects is very strong.

Switching back and forth slows down learning so I had to decide what was more important. I don’t have any programming to do for school so I am only delaying my own projects. I decided to leave myself no other option and fully uninstalled all the other text editors on my laptop.

Full immersion and necessity is the fastest way to learn a lot of things but is not always possible. Language learning is fastest if you are travelling and actually have to use the language day to day to get by and I see using this new tool as the same thing. I am trying to train my brain to incorporate the use of Vim. Changing back and forth would keep reinforcing the particular way I use Atom as opposed to overwriting that with using Vim.

I have noticed the cost of switching back and forth when trying to learn more than one coding language at a time. Last semester I had one course using Java and one using C. Both languages I had seen before but not coded much in. I repeatedly made mistakes which were often using the syntax of one language in the other.

I have been using Vim exclusively for almost a week and I am no longer feeling painfully slow. I am still not as quick with it as I was with Atom but it is catching up. It also feels much better on my laptop where I much prefer using exclusively the keyboard as opposed to the touchpad. I am not sure how it would compare to a mouse.

I have not forced myself to learn anything in this way for a long time. So often I am trying to do a lot of related things at once that bleed over into one another. This was the perfect opportunity of retooling a task that I use very often but only affects a small portion of my overall life. It definitely is making me wonder where I can apply that level of immersion to other learning tasks in my life.

This ties into something else I am exploring. I have recently been reading a lot of articles on Derek Sivers’ website and listening to various interviews with him on spotify. I find his life philosophy very appealing in general but specifically I want to talk about his approach to experimentation for life.

It is quite rare that all the rules in a given philosophy, religion, or other system that one can use to structure their life or any activity in it will work for everyone. However having no rules often results in far too many options to properly analyze and make the best decision. There is a freedom that comes from restrictions. They help us by cutting down choices so that we can focus our attention on deciding between them. *Find the book that this is from* When faced with a larger number of options people are generally less happy with their choice as they wonder if another was better. Fewer choices results in making them faster and often being more happy with the decision.

Derek suggests coming up with your own rules and testing them. They can be pulled from anywhere but the key is that they can be tested one by one, keeping those that work and getting rid of those that don’t. The length of the tests can vary and will be dependent on how long I think I will need to give the rule a good run. In the end I will hopefully end up with a system that is personalized and works best for me. Getting rid of all the other text editors was essentially setting the rule that if I have to edit text I use Vim and it is working out well. I think I will keep it.

Other ideas I have are

- Only speaking french with people I know can speak it. (get my french back. Used to speak it regularly but not in years)
- No complaining (if a conversation starts going down that route change the subject)
- Slow carb diet
- No watching video of any type
- Phone stays out of the bedroom
- No internet use for an hour after I wake up and an hour before bed
- Start each day with time outside

I feel like the default for testing will be for a week, but for things that will take longer to have an effect like the diet I could see doing it for a few weeks to a month. I have done the slow carb diet for a while before but have fallen off for the last year. I remember feeling quite good on it and would like to give it another shot.

I look forward to testing some of these out and building my own structure for my life, up until this point I have been implementing practices that others have suggested without determining if they are best for me. They have been fantastically useful but by blindly implementing them I am cutting off the opportunity to find something that fits me better. If I don’t I will keep using them but it is important to leave open the option.

Thanks for reading

Phone time: 8h 7m