October 3, 2004

Using Vim

When one is used to using GUI-based text editors, getting your head around using vi or vim can be a grating, frustrating experience.

But if one is anticipating using computers with any flavour of Unix, being proficient in vim is a very useful skill. Even if you're using Windows, Vim is a handy tool to have around.

Having said that, I must admit that I still don't find Vim intuitive to use. Useful, but not intuitive. Simon has recently reported on his experience, which he describes as moving from feeling utterly bewildered to being at least familiar.

In my own case, I'd say that Vim is a useful acquaintance. I appreciate having Vim around, I find it's colour coding very helpful but I don't have many of the key stroke combinations for the various commands committed to memory. We haven't exactly connected on the same wavelength.

So I appreciate having online documentation available.

Posted to Software Development by Keith Pitty
Comments

The online reference doco is a dump of what's available through ":help"

Posted by: Alan Green at October 3, 2004 11:44 AM

Vim is worth learning. It is definately not intuitive, but is extremely powerful.

Posted by: Brian McCallister at October 3, 2004 12:36 PM

Vim is pretty powerful. I tend to not allow anyone who can't use vim (vi in general really) root on any unix system that I'm charge of. Some of the "friendlier" editors can unexpectedly mangle files in various ways. I used to use Vim for everything, includng coding. I switched to Emacs though, because most editors can remap to Emacs keys. Vim's modal operation makes it mostly impossible to map it's keystrokes on other programs. I use Xkeymacs (http://www.cam.hi-ho.ne.jp/oishi/indexen.html) on windows to map the keys for -all- of my programs to Emacs editing keys. Plus, the "ESC" dance was starting to feel really slow to me.

Intuitive? Definitely not. Powerful and useful, you bet.

Posted by: Rob Meyer at October 3, 2004 4:04 PM