> I really dont get the idea of having a vim mode in emacs
vim-mode is not just about keybindings.
It's about modal editing philosophy - the distinction between command and insert modes fundamentally changes how you think about text manipulation. When you're in command mode, every key becomes a text object or motion command, making complex edits incredibly efficient. You're not just getting vim's keybindings; you're getting vim's grammar of editing. The real power comes from composability - vim motions aren't just shortcuts - they're a linguistic system for describing text transformations.
Emacs veterans often detest "modality" without realizing how much modality already exists in Emacs. Key chords like C-x put you in a modal state where the next key has different meaning. Recording macros creates a modal context. The minibuffer is literally a different mode with its own keybindings and behavior. Transient menus are explicitly modal interfaces. Even isearch is a modal state. Vim-style modality is just making this concept more explicit and systematic.
Besides, it's simply an obtuse exercise to ask Emacs users why would they do something with their editor. The answer is obviously "because they can."
Vim's model of modality and mnemonics is a beautiful, powerful, amazing paradigm. Here's the thing though - there's no such thing as the "vim-mode". None of the IDEs and editors like IntelliJ, VSCode, XCode, Android Studio, Sublime, etc., can properly emulate Vim navigation. The one exception is Emacs.
Pretty much every other IDE fails to comprehensively replicate Vim. Unless it's Vim/Neovim, vim-mode in all of them is just that - an emulation. However, Evil mode in Emacs feels much more natural. Sometimes, you forget that it's an afterthought, an extension, and not a built-in functionality.
While Evil-mode obviously is not the most important or even built-in feature of Emacs, as a nerd and a computer programmer, if I discovered that there's a civilian plane that can perform a vertical landing, yet never actually needs to use it, I would still love that model over any other planes, even if the feature is purely accidental. The fact that it can do so alone would be great evidence of amazing engineering.
vim mode is far, far better than any alternative way of using a keyboard (because you don't have to ever move your hands from home row). Even without vim mode, just the vim keybindings by themselves are far better. Once I got used to using them, using a keyboard without them felt stupid.
Hence my using vim mode everywhere I can.
I also created a set of mappings to give me vim-style keybindings everywhere on the computer, so I can use vim-style bindings even within this very comment I'm typing on my browser. Obviously it doesn't support the full set of vim bindings, but just the basic movements and some other mappings (like selecting a word/sentence, backwards delete word, etc) are enough to get a huge amount of value.
