I tried a couple of times and it’s still magic to see anyone able to use it properly
I’ll just stick to VScode for now I guess
If you are actually interested in learning, it’s not too hard, you’ll be slow for a little bit but it pays off in the end.
First, understanding there are actions and objects and quantifiers. Actions are what you do to objects, so when you want to (d) delete, that is the action, then you’d want to specify a object. ($) being the end of the line, (^) start, (w) is word, (j), (g) is top of file and so on, these are already the words you’ll use to move along as well.
Then, for many of these we can add quantifiers, i.e. repeat x number of times.
So 3dw is delete three words and 3dj is three lines down and so on. If you want to select, it’s just swap v for d and off to the races.
Once you learn the basic concept, you really only need a few actions and a few objects to be functional.
Print/find/make a cheat sheet and put it up by your monitor or keyboard and give yourself a week.
Also, checkout the vimtudor or vim golf and play the game for a few minutes.
Honestly that ability to edit stuff sounds really cool to be able to do
Maybe I should start out by making a cheet sheet with your comment in it and just try doing some basic editing with it
Try something like this: https://vim.rtorr.com/
Or one of these: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=vim+cheat+sheet&t=fpas&iax=images&ia=images
PSA: run
vimtutorin the terminalThis is exactly how I learned all those years ago, and to this day, I still use vim regularly. As in, literally, I was using it on a server this morning to make some changes. It’s just become natural to me now.
Oooh that’s a handy feature I didn’t know about
I have about 30 years of my career left. That’s not enough time for the return on investment of learning VIM to payout.
Eh. I know the basics. I can open, do some very basic editng, save and close. That’s about as much as is really needed, right?
You can close VIM? Fucking legend.
I can do it, too.
But I learned a few key steps in the process are: hit Ctrl Q, hit Ctrl C, hit Escape a few times, swear, take a breather, remember you’re in VIM and are now (accidentally rather then due to any correct move) out of INSERT mode, type :q.
Then you go to the sofa and put yourself in the fetal position.
I’ve tried for years to master vim, but still fall back to old habits. I have gotten to the point where single file editing is faster in vim than in IntelliJ, but still haven’t figured out the mysteries of vim buffers and multi-file editing.
Buffers are great, but I mostly go for tabs.
:tabnew:tabnext:tabmoveand so on.I use tabs and windows in vim. Mix this with telescope.nvim and a few keybinds and multi-file editing can get really fast.
Ctrl-p also works with buffers, making it almost trivial.
Emacs is my favourite IDE. I switched to it from vim and never looked back.
35 years ago (give or take) I used vi (no “m”) for email and Usenet. I doubt I could remember how to do anything useful with it now.
Helix > Vim (and neovim)
Nah… Helix is great, but the mouvement first philosophy is clearly something that I don’t want to learn
VSCode has a vim plugin, you should try it
I would never use an IDE that didn’t have a Vi/Vim mode or plugin :-)
I still remember first opening vim many years ago …
… I still haven’t figured out how to close it.
I’d tell you to Google it but that’d involve closing it in the first place
Drat, I’ve been working with vi for 35y now… (feeling old) I’m glad I now know how to kill the mouse functions in vim so X clipboard works. ;)
Tried emacs once (in '94)… opened an extra xterm and killed it as I couldn’t figure out how to save and exit. (it’s just what you’re used to ;) )
so… how does one kill the mouse functions?
With a stick ;)
From my .vimrc:
" disable mouse set mouse-=a
As a long time vim user with many macros and plugins, etc. and I love using it. But I have to say, it’s hard for me to actually suggest vim to anyone new, because of how long it takes until you actually start using it comfortably…
I mean, get it. VIM is great, but I’ll stick with VSCode because I always forget little syntax shit all the time lol
I am weird in that I never used VScode before. I started with Vim and just kept using it. It’s like second nature now. I sometimes end up using the keybindings somewhere else and realize what I’m doing
The only way to learn to use it is to use it. It’s OK if you don’t but using it will get you there. I’ve been a vi & vim user since the 90’s and I’m still learning new things.
I can use it. I just… I would rather not. Nano is soo much nicer…
You remind me of a guy in University who “used vim for a year” but didn’t know anything outside Insert mode
