Is vim good for programming?

...

Yes, for simple projects

no

if it works for you

It's good if you like staring at config files and shit breaking every other update

well yes and no

yes, I use it at work for a large multi-language project (1 million + SLOC)
vim filters retards, hence I love it

do you use regular vim or neovim?
If I wanted to switch to one of those, which one should I use?
I can't stand the shit vscode crap anymore

No. It doesn't even have mouse support.

vim for small conf edits.
spacevim for actual progging

If you like bloat, may as well use Doom Emacs. It has vim keybinds too.

given an option between the two: neovim. I personally use vscode + vim extension.

Is there a (Neo)Vim config I can just set and forget or one that requires minimal tinkering? I refuse to learn Lua just for this...

Yes.

Lua is easy af are you retarded?
Evil mode is the only thing I've used that even comes close to acceptable vim emulation. Doom is p nice, spacemacs is much more bloated.

are programming socks good for drawing

>Lua is easy af are you retarded?
That's not the point. It looks like in order to make a suitable programming environment in Vim/NeoVim you need a lot of a plugins and such.

yes but actually no

I used vanilla vim for 3 years as a physicist and for about 1.5 years as a professional programmer. The fanciest thing I did was write a little vimscript (awful language, btw) to autogenerate ctags for linking, I only switched to Doom for the hell of it.
On the contrary, I found VSCode quite lacking without plugins. I've never used any full fat IDE for more than a few weeks, perhaps that functionality is more what you're expecting.

Not the guy you're talking to, just curious - how'd you make that switch from physics to programming? That was my undergrad, and now I'm doing government work that's completely unrelated but thinking about making the switch back that way.
Did you go to grad school or just put a portfolio of projects together or what? I've heard of professors and postdocs getting headhunted, but those are usually finance gigs.

TL;DR portfolio.
I dropped out of a PhD program and took a few lab jobs. I made little tools along the way and tossed them on github.
I work for my undergrad university now doing mostly data work for medical research while I do postbacc en route to an MS in CS (I want to do computational physics is the only reason I'm planning on doing an MS at all). My gf just quit her job and went back to school (2nd BS) for CS and got an internship that resulted in a job offer. I think both routes are viable, she's going to make more than me but I'm well paid and get free classes. It seems like the hardest thing in programming is getting the first job.