> I cannot recall the last time I wanted to move 16 lines - that would imply I stopped to count the lines
I'm sure something like this is possible in Emacs, but in vim I have it set up so that my current line shows the absolute line number and other lines show the relative line number.
If I'm eyeing a particular line that I want to jump to, I just read off its relative line number and hit j or k, according to whether it's down or up from where I'm at -- I'm there. Because I use relative line numbers, the number is never more than two digits.
For more precise navigation (jumping to a particular spot on a particular line), I use a plugin called EasyMotion, which basically lets me jump to any text object on the screen with a few key strokes.
I like the idea of knowing relative line numbers, but I have been unwilling to relinqish seeing absolute ones due to how prevalent it is to see them -- diffs, linting errors, and stack traces often include line numbers, and I find it really helpful to be able to easily find that. Go-to-line is supremely useful, but I also find the visual reminder helpful as well.
In VS, I use VSVim which lets me actually have both absolute and relative line numbers, but it probably wouldn't be difficult to write a vimbinding to bind enabling/disabling the line numbers plugin to a chord/hotkey.
I'm sure something like this is possible in Emacs, but in vim I have it set up so that my current line shows the absolute line number and other lines show the relative line number.
If I'm eyeing a particular line that I want to jump to, I just read off its relative line number and hit j or k, according to whether it's down or up from where I'm at -- I'm there. Because I use relative line numbers, the number is never more than two digits.
For more precise navigation (jumping to a particular spot on a particular line), I use a plugin called EasyMotion, which basically lets me jump to any text object on the screen with a few key strokes.