As these might be good reasons for a "Cloud" developer, there are more valid ones making for an even better case to learn Vim or Emacs for _any_ developer.

I wouldn't put nano in the same category, because it's not mode based, which makes it pretty easy to get started with.

But anyway, here comes my Vim plea. I can't say much about Emacs, because I've hardly ever used it. Maybe some Emacs-dude finds the time to write a few good pros in favour of that classic.

So, where was I? Ah Vim, right, here we go:

1. It's lightning fast.

2. It's mode based. For some people that's a negative thing, when in fact, it's quite awesome, because it keeps within the reach of a few keystrokes.

3. Together with tmux you can create a perfect session based IDE.

4. It actually enables you to develop directly on any machine in the web. I've set up my entire development environment on a "Cloud" machine.

5. It's slim as hell. You don't need an expensive 32GB ram/16 core etc. machine for writing programs like you do when using VisualStudio.

6. It's not controlled by some big Corporation. I'm not against them, I just don't trust them. Don't say, you have no choice, because it's right there and in my case it's Vim.

7. When you set up Vim with tmux on a server, you can do peer programming, without much ado.

I've mentioned tmux a few times, and in fact: once you've started with Vim you might want to use tmux too, because it's a perfect match, if you develop complex projects and large code bases.

And yes, there's a tunnel at the end of the light, I've just described:

Getting started is frustrating like hell. But if you're a sub mediocre coder like me, located in the lower 10% of the food chain, you're used to frustration and Vim will be just another "problem" to deal with.

For me, it has been worth the pain.