I am mentoring Junior Developers, working students, trainees and interns who are at the very beginning of their career, they don't have _their_ setup yet. I watch them do something very tedious, and then I point out that there is a shortcut or IDE function for that. They have always been grateful, so far.
> And why does one even need to know vim at this point in time?
I was thinking about this a lot last night. I have learned drumming, bass guitar, guitar and I am learning piano now, so I may not be an authority on practicing, but I know that practice usually leads to a certain degree of improvement.
And very early in my career, I also practiced coding, more specifically I practiced using the IDE, and later I practiced using vim.
Both of these things give me confidence in the "writing and editing" aspects which let me focus on the other aspects of coding, like the abstract/ideas and the stack.
So I don't think it's important to know about vim, but it is important to at some point have deliberately practiced with the tools one uses daily for years to come.
Recording oneself is also a common strategy for improving musicianship.
When I was drumming, it sometimes helped me see exactly where my movements where improper, hesitant, or superfluous/exaggerated.
When I look over junior developers' shoulders while they code, i kind of do something similar, where I point out small improvements in their "movement from one state of code to another", like IDE functions for refactoring, keyboard shortcuts to delete a line or to go back to the previous editing position.
(I always wonder, when is the right time to introduce someone to vim?)