Semi-Skimmed vim A practical path to text editing enlightenment Sam Whitehall 2017-02-15 The Oxford Mega Super Meetup Meetup 

What is this talk? • vim is a 25-year old command line modal text editor • Based on vi (even older) • Let’s skim the surface of why you may want to invest time into learning it 

Learn!? It’s a text editor • Has a reputation of being hard to learn • You can’t just start typing and see your code • Insert Mode vs Normal Mode • Normal mode is where the power lies • Often compared with another command-line editor, emacs • We won’t get into the “holy war” 

Why would I learn it? Ubiquitous Likely to be available Stable Learn it now, and it won’t change much Lightweight Won’t die with large files Fast Code a lot faster than a GUI editor 

“Flow” is the killer reason for me (more on this later) 

How do I get started? The Hard Way Everything all at once Do things “right” right away How I started (and failed) a few times The Practical Way Step-by-step Don’t worry about doing things “right” How I eventually got going 

Step 1: Survive • $ vim my_file • Normal mode: • :w to save, :q to quit • i to enter insert mode • u to undo • x to delete character • ESC to return to normal mode Congratulations! You’re now as productive as in a normal text editor (especially if you have mouse mode enabled). 

Step 2: Get Comfortable Entering Insert Mode Moving Around a o w $ ^ enter insert mode after cursor enter insert mode on line below cursor first character start of next word final character Examples: These may seem like trivial gains, but they add up over time. Especially in terms of focus. You’re telling your editor what you want it to do (reach the end of the line), not how you want to do it (pressing “right” 12 times). 

(aside) • Learning vim is not a case of memorising loads of arbitrary shortcuts • It’s a grammar: modifiers, verbs & nouns → flow! • Most have mnemonics • d → delete, c → change (i.e. delete, then insert mode) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-most-productive-shortcut-with-vim/1220118#1220118 

dt: di( d$ delete to end of line ($) delete to the next : delete inside () 

ALL THE PIECES MAKE SENSE 

Step 3: Expand Comfort Zone • Learn one noun/verb every day (/relevant time unit) • Stay in normal mode as often as possible (hit ESC a lot) • Make your own cheat sheet • Exponential power from combining these actions 

• You can also use hjkl for cursor movement • This is weird at first, but requires less finger movement • You can edit your .vimrc to disable arrow keys • vim-adventures.com – great for practicing! 

Step 4: Mastery visual mode blocks completions 

• Customising your ~/.vimrc • Beginners’ .vimrc • github.com/samwhitehall/.vimrc • Start to customise your own! 

Plugins • use Pathogen as a package manager NERDTree fugitive 

You’ll be fine • Try it a little bit at a time, don’t be overwhelmed! • Thousands of people have learned it before, so can you! 

Thanks! @sgwhall Ask me your vim questions, no question too simple!