Getting used to Vim

Posted February 9th, 2013 • 2 min read

So there we go. Writing this post in vim. Macvim to be exact. Trying not to touch the arrow keys, not use the h-j-k-l too extensively either, work with A and I a lot, and generally trying not to cock things up too much by hitting the wrong commands.

So why do I willingly put myself through the torture of using the monster that is Vim? Well, just like a lot of developers out there, I've had a long time desire to be able to use Vim properly. No immediate need, just a personal goal if you will. I've tried Vim a couple of times over the last few months, but pretty much every attempt lead quickly to being overwhelmed by all the different commands and feeling about a gazillion times slower as I did when using Sublime Text Edit 2.

New tactic

The new plan is not as exciting or brilliant as one might hope, but it's one that might just work: Forceful editing What? Well, it's simple really .. whenever I was trying out Vim and found myself having to actually "quickly" edit a file or whip up some code I switched to my trustworthy Sublime. This time around I'm going to force myself to stay in Vim. This will slow me down at first. A lot. And it will probably lead to some cursing and frustration. But I guess it's the only way to learn.

So here we go, I've written this post in Vim, the keyboard is still intact, I haven't cursed and screamed more than usual, so I suppose we're off to a good start.

As a bonus I've decided I'll keep you guys informed of my progress and share my findings, tips and useful plugins I might stumble upon whilst enduring this ordeal :)

If any of you are already using Vim and have some tips or tricks, let us know!

For now all that's left is to save, commit and push this file .. all from within Vim!

I like.

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