21 ms·

Vim Anti-Patterns (2012)

385 points by lelf 8y ago

cygned 8y ago
What I cannot wrap my head around is word-wise moving in code. I just never really know where w or b takes me, let alone how many w’s it takes to get me to the desired word. My moving is mostly based on estimating counts; nth space (nf ) or just before third comma backwards (3T,); plus manual adjustments.
- fanpuns 8y ago
  I find t and f more useful in my day to day. On any given line there is almost always some character that gets me within a few words of where I want to be then w or b to get to the word itself. Might be somewhat language/style specific though
- jolmg 8y ago
  There are 2 types of characters ignoring whitespace: * Upper and lower case letters, numbers, and underscore. This is what one commonly refers to as word characters as they're the least common denominator of what identifiers in programming language are usually allowed to consist of. * Everything else (punctuation and other symbols, etc.). We'll call these non-word characters. w, b, e, etc. will work in units of consecutive characters of the same type. So, if a consecutive set of word characters is a word, a consecutive set of non-word characters is a non-word, and everything else is whitespace. w will take you from the current word or non-word to the beginning of the next word or non-word. e will take you to the end of the current word or non-word, unless you're already there (one character word or non-words, for example), then it will take you to the end of the next word or non-word. b will do the same as e but to the beginning and work towards the previous. The upper case versions of these commands, W, B, and E, treat the aforementioned word and non-word characters as of the same type, so you move in units of consecutive non-whitespace characters.
stevebmark 8y ago
Using Vim without knowing WAY more than this article is an anti-pattern. Vim is inefficient for editing so you have to learn a lot more than these tricks and hacks to be proficient. If you aren't learning more about Vim's nasty design every day then it's an anti-pattern to use Vim, because you'll be much more efficient with less learning in any other editor. If, for example, you don't know how to edit searches and command-line mode commands in full Vim mode, then keep learning (press control-f in search mode). If you aren't proficient in Vim's garbage VimL then keep learning. Obviously an IDE with intellisense and multiple cursors is more efficient than most of Vim's efficiency hacks. Vim's efficiency gains more apply to editing text, not structured code.
- tartrate 8y ago
  Nice gatekeeping
- michal-franc 8y ago
  Been using vim for 'years' and I am not using it 'perfectly'. What I have noticed is that like with i3wm with vim you create your own way of working with it. You just find the way that works for you.
- lixtra 8y ago
  > Vim is inefficient for editing I learned vim a bit more than 20 years ago and can tell you it’s a very efficient tool. Fair enough if I was doing most of my coding in a single language it might be worthwhile to learn a different IDE. You’re welcome to use a different tool that better fits your needs. And hope that you find it at your next workplace or the legacy server that you are asked to fix.
  - stevebmark 8y ago
    I've voluntarily used Vim every day for 10 years, know it better than you do, and can tell you learning a good IDE is more efficient.
    - dang 8y ago
      Could you please stop being a jerk in HN comments? It's what we're trying to avoid here, and I'm afraid you've done it quite a lot. That's dismaying. If instead you would please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site to heart, we'd be grateful. Some other links that might help, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html
- Smaug123 8y ago
xaduha 8y ago
Who cares? As long as you can edit text and it doesn't get in your way it's all fine. I can switch between using vim and vscode without any problems. I don't use vim to its full potential and I never will, I don't know many vscode shortcuts either. I'm not a typist, most programmers should spend more time thinking than typing anyway.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Who cares? Some of us do. Else we wouldn't be used Vim in the first place. You can "edit text and it doesn't get in your way" in nano or 1000 other editors too.
  - xaduha 8y ago
    Busybox doesn't come with nano.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      Most programmers never had to use busybox. Especially the kind of programmers that take an issue with vim for being arcane. And even when they have to, its trivial to extend to add nano or whatever.
      - xaduha 8y ago
        I'm saying that vi is ubiquitous, not that I use busybox constantly or find vim arcane.
- 0xEFF 8y ago
  I've noticed the people who work to master the tools of their trade are also the people who master the trade itself. I've yet to meet someone who mastered the trade without also mastering the tools they use.
  - arcturus17 8y ago
    Semes to me that the mastery of a text editor doesn’t have an impact on your end product in the same way that the mastery of the chisel does for a woodworker...
morningmoon 8y ago
vim-adventures.com is a great way to learn vim by playing a game. It’s worth the money if you enjoy solving puzzles and learning by doing.
- mjlee 8y ago
  vimtutor is also a good way to get started with the basics of vim. If you have vim installed, it probably came with it.
- sgwae 8y ago
  Its a monthly subscription for a simple "game". vimtutor is free without the cutesy stuff.
aboutruby 8y ago
> Moving one line at a time I either go down with arrows (I know it's controversial), beginning of file with :1, end of file with G, line number with :[line number] or search with /. I usually don't have large files so this works very well (and I almost exclusively go by line number on large files). > Moving one character at a time I use ^ for beginning of line, $ for end of line, e to move quickly in a line > Searching for the word under the cursor Nice, didn't know about */#, I just type what I'm searching, gonna use that. > Deleting, then inserting Insert mode is fine. > Using the arrow keys I use the arrow keys, and I don't care about all the arrow-key shamers out there. > Moving in insert mode I use insert mode only while editing (makes sense). I don't get the point of this paragraph. > Moving to Escape I'm fine with escape key. > Moving to the start or end of the line, then inserting I much prefer just going into insert mode. > Entering insert mode, then opening a new line I also use o quite often (as it just goes into insert mode). > Entering insert mode to delete text Yes, I delete with dd, de, etc. (. is also useful for that), deleting in insert mode is painful for more than one character. > Repeating commands or searches Didn't know about q: and q/, pretty useful, nice. > Repeating substitutions I use %s/for/far/g or %s/for/far/, or for a few lines, I select them (shift-v) (visual mode) then : (which auto-sets it to :'<,'>) then :'<,'>s/for/far/ for instance. Anyway, been using vim for ~5 years with a pretty light .vimrc and one thing I would recommend is bogado/file-line plugin which lets you open a file at a line, e.g. vim app/models/user.rb:48 My vimrc if anyone is curious: https://gist.github.com/localhostdotdev/aa25d1c81f3f3b67ac35eccf1692f251 https://gist.github.com/localhostdotdev/aa25d1c81f3f3b67ac35...
- StreamBright 8y ago
  Same here. I cannot take my vimrc everywhere I go so keep it on the minimum.
- vram22 8y ago
  >I either go down with arrows (I know it's controversial) Probably not that controversial any more. It used to be (although I would use the word inadvisable instead), because dumb terminals like VT-100 and some emulators of them, would emit escape sequences when arrow keys were pressed. Since an escape sequence starts with the Escape key and then has some other keys following it, it would result in your going from input mode (if you happened to be in it) back into command mode (due to the Esc key) and then the remaining keys in the sequence would be likely interpreted as vim commands (since many letters of the alphabet are vim commands), so any unwanted modification could happen to the file you were editing, maybe without your noticing. Then if you saved the file without knowing that there was some such inadvertent change, you could have lost or mangled some of your content. Nowadays common emulators that I have come across, don't have that issue, so arrow key usage should be fine. The other reason why people may comment if you use arrow keys for movement in vim, is because if you instead use the default and recommended hjkl keys (for left, down, up, right respectively), your fingers stay on the home row (on a QWERTY keyboard), which may make for less finger / hand movement, so less strain. >beginning of file with :1, end of file with G, line number with :[line number] You can use 1G for beginning of file, G for end of file, and nG for going to line n, without having to hit Enter after some of those commands as you have to with the :[line number] method, thereby potentially saving one keystroke many times per edit session. >I use ^ for beginning of line, $ for end of line, e to move quickly in a line 0 goes to the real start of the line, ^ goes to the first non-blank character on the line. >I use the arrow keys, and I don't care about all the arrow-key shamers out there. Good on you. >I also use o quite often (as it just goes into insert mode). O (a capital O) Opens a line above the cursor, o (small o) opens a line below it. > Repeating substitutions >one thing I would recommend is bogado/file-line plugin which lets you open a file at a line, e.g. vim app/models/user.rb:48 vi(m) +n filename will open filename at line n, for both vi and vim, so I'm not sure why that plugin is needed, unless it does other stuff too. And: vi(m) +/pattern filename will open filename at the first occurrence of pattern in filename.
shmerl 8y ago
> Ctrl+F — Move forward one screenful. > Ctrl+B — Move backward one screenful. Why use such obscure combinations instead of standard PgUp / PgDn? I find this bend on "make vim usage super fast by using completely obscure keyboard shortcuts for common actions that already have designated keys" not to be helpful at all. Such kind of micro-optimizations are not really what increases productivity.
- jknz 8y ago
  Two laptops never have PgUp and PgDown at the same place, while Ctrl, F and B have consistent locations.
  - shmerl 8y ago
    I guess on laptops it can be useful. I prefer to use a full keyboard to avoid this kind of mess.
    - jolmg 8y ago
      Full keyboards also commonly differ. There are some that have that little island of keys as 2 rows and 3 columns of normal size keys, then there are those that are 3 rows and 2 columns with a delete key that is twice the size of the others, then the keyboard at my work is 2 rows of 4 columns with an up arrow key between page up and down. I admit this last one is a little more unusual, though.
      - shmerl 8y ago
        Sure. I find Unix layout useful, though it's hard to find such keyboards, besides may be Sun Type 7 these days, which are already out of production as well and have become a rarity.
- kurtisc 8y ago
  The same bindings work in less, manpages, and git diffs. They're not obscure.
blunte 8y ago
Any tool you need to use more than a few times is worth learning properly. And any superior tool is worth switching to and learning if you would use it frequently. I suppose it depends on how one's mind works. If the mind moves slowly and holds onto ideas and abstractions easily, then the slower motor movements of moving the hand back and forth from arrow keys to home keys, and to mouse and back, are not really a problem. But if you're like me, and your mind is constantly racing, you need to be fast to get your ideas out before they're gone/replaced. It's not just the time cost of moving the hand from home row down to find the correct cursor key, do the presses, and then move back to typing position - it's also the likely visual/mental cost of looking away from your screen to aid in positioning the hand, then looking back at the screen and finding what you were looking at before. All those movements and recalibrations take time and involve mental context switches. If you're spending a lot of time using a certain set of tools, there is no reason to avoid learning those tools well. Refusing to do so is choosing to be ignorant and subperformant. Now, if you'll only use the tool once in a while, perhaps it's not worth the effort. But chances are, there's some other tool you use often that you could master for your long term benefit. If you program, Vim (behavior) is very difficult to beat for getting whats in your head out and into your computer VERY quickly. As a bonus, using a full featured IDE like one of the JetBrains products, but with the Vim plugin, is win win. You get the code editing speed of vim, plus the project navigation and other benefits of the IDE. Totally worth the time investment.
- muststopmyths 8y ago
  > As a bonus, using a full featured IDE like one of the JetBrains products, but with the Vim plugin, is win win. I refused to use Visual Studio for code editing until ViEmu came along. These days I use VsVim. vi is fantastic for editing/writing and using the other niceties of Visual Studio is a win-win, as you said.
  - transpostmeta 8y ago
    This cannot be overstated. 90% of the advantages of VIM is the modal editing interface, which can be used beautifully in Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ IDEA, and other nice IDEs. The VIM way is a very good way of editing text. IDEs offer a lot more than editing text. Faking an IDE within a text editor with random plugins is terrible. Emulating VIM text editing within a real IDE is amazing. Just use VIM keybindings in your industry standard IDE, you will be able to use all the tips in the linked article and still not miss out on anything offered by the IDE. The only problem is that the VIM keybindings are integrated into direct text editing, but not the IDE UI. For example, in Visual Studio, IntelliSense offers you a choice of possible completions for a variable name you are typing. You can only navigate these choices with your cursor keys, rather than with the VIM-style jkl; keys. But it's a small price to pay for really good text-editing qualities!
fanpuns 8y ago
The opening of this rings true for me. Once I get a pattern ingrained, it can be difficult to reverse it even if there is a more efficient way. To combat this I usually pick one thing per coding session to work on. I find lists like these helpful to check-in and see if I can add anything to my future to-work-on lists. When I started learning vim I read an interview where someone (Ben Orenstein maybe?) talked about keeping notecards or a cheatsheet on their desk so they could do the same thing and I thought they were insane (and vim was insane). With time though, this method got me proficient at vim, then better, then better still. Each time I learn something new or unlearn sometime inefficient for something better I get a little bit of joy out of my daily work.
csomar 8y ago
Here is a trick that I used to use when I started learning VIM: - Write down 2-3 tricks/shortcuts in a piece of paper. Put that piece of paper in front of you (ie: tag it to your screen). - Code with Vim. You'll eventually look at the piece of paper and find some of these shortcuts helpful. So you'll use them. - After a while, these shortcuts will get into your muscle memory and you'll no longer need the piece of paper. - When you are coding with VIM, detect annoying patterns: For example, I need to jump code, I need to replace often, I need to be able to select some text this way, I need GIT integration. You get the point. - Put these observations on a list. Pull 2-3 items (shortcuts) from this list and tag another paper to your screen. Pull 2-3 items (plugins/functionality) and enhance your VIM. - After a few years, your VIM will become extremely customized. You'll actually have trouble writing code on any other IDE. - Here is mine: https://github.com/omarabid/vimrc https://github.com/omarabid/vimrc Other bonus tips: - Use GIT to keep track of your VIM configuration. - Write a README file for your configuration. Other things that I should do: Update the README often, and add screenshots. ps: in case you haven't noticed, I'm a die-hard VIM fan.
- ManDeJan 8y ago
  After ~2 years of switching between using and not using vim you have convinced me to try and make my own config
  - jokh 8y ago
    Try github.com/amix/vimrc to start off. It has a nice look. You can then add more shortcuts/customize further as you gain more experience with vim.
  - ma2rten 8y ago
    I recently made my own vim config. It was very easy and wish I had done it earlier.
  - Bekwnn 8y ago
    2 biggest things for me were vimplug (or something to make plugin installation easy) and NERDtree, which lets you open a window for directory navigation, set bookmarks, and change your current directory path for other vim commands. I'm also super partial to Hydrangea scheme https://vimcolors.com/690/hydrangea/dark https://vimcolors.com/690/hydrangea/dark That site is good for browsing for something you'll like.
dang 8y ago
2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12643887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12643887 2012: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3563292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3563292
blunte 8y ago
These are excellent. I didn't know about gi, and that's very useful. Today I accidentally learned that ctrl-a and ctrl-x increment or decrement the number under the cursor. That's not terribly useful unless you're dealing with a lot of numbers, but if you are, it will save a lot of keystrokes. One set of movement keys the article didn't mention but which I use all the time are H M and L (shift-h, etc.) They jump to top (high), middle, and bottom (low) of the editor window, respectively.
- h43z 8y ago
  Even better you don't have to be with the cursor on the number you want to increment or decrement with Ctrl-A and Ctrl-X. It will work with the next number to the right of the cursor. The same goes for ci' or ci". a = 'foo' // imagine the cursor on the letter a Executing ci'bar will change foo to bar.
  - blunte 8y ago
    Wow! Thank you.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
    > Even better you don't have to be with the cursor on the number you want to increment or decrement with Ctrl-A and Ctrl-X. It will work with the next number to the right of the cursor. To the point that I have used c-x c-a as a stupid shortcut to jump to the next number on a line. I'm sure there's a better way to do this, but it's fast so...
    - edanm 8y ago
      Surprisingly, there actually isn't an out-of-the-box way to jump to numbers that I know of! I personally added a "number" text object, so that I can treat numbers just like "words", and also created a "jump to number" shortcut.
  - vbsteven 8y ago
    And just for completeness: ci' and ci" replace everything within the quotes, ca' and ca" replace everything including the quotes.
emmelaich 8y ago
Some vim keys I use a lot that seem not to be mentioned too often: { and } to go back and forwards a "para" ^U and ^D to up and down a half a page { and } are particularly useful with verb keys such as y, d, < and > (outdent and indent). And ! (bang) to reformat text with `fmt` I cry a little inside when I see people go through pages with the j,k or up and down keys.
- therealdrag0 8y ago
  One I noticed missing (based on another comment here) is ctrl+o to run a movement command while in insert mode. To me this is pretty valuable glue between command/insert mode. E.g. "ctrl+o 2e" to skip forward 2 words.
  - emmelaich 8y ago
    Cool. There's always stuff I didn't know about. I think that on most terminals/vim combos the arrow keys will also move in insert mode.
waivek 8y ago
I've used vim for seven years now. My vimrc is a gargantuan 122 lines of vimL. It went from 0 lines to 300 to 750 and it's been 122 for a year now. Whenever someone asks me for tips and tricks to learn vim I reference this tweet: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/473247789728952321 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/473247789728952321 Just use VSCode / SublimeText / Notepad++
darkpuma 8y ago
> @@ Something somebody once showed me was noremap <Space> @q With this, you can quickly record a macro to the q register by typing qq (and q a final time to end the macro.) Subsequently with that binding, pressing the space bar will execute the macro once. With this binding I find myself making sometimes dozens of throw-away macros an hour.
dredmorbius 8y ago
Disclaimer: My vim knowledge has many gaps. Understanding vim's model, what Chris Toomey of Thoughtbot calls "the Vim Language", helps incredibly: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wlR5gYd6um0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=wlR5gYd6um0 I've picked up numerous tips watching this and other of Thoughtbot's excellent video series. More importantly, though, is that I've learned why specific vim idioms and motifs exist. They've lead me to rethink my own usage patterns, sometimes changing them, sometimes holding them just a bit more tightly. (Say, my practice of doing global regex pattern-replacement edits rather than repeated vim edits or macros, generally.) But for a tool I use for coding, data cleaning, systems administration, email, writing, document preparation, and more, it pays to be on the lookout for more effective, faster, reliable, and/or repeatable methods. And no, vim's not the only editor I have, or do, use. It's not even the first Unix editor I'd used. There's been DOS EDIT, EDLIN, MacWrite, WP51, WordStar (me and GRR!), EDT, EVE, the ISPF editor, emacs, pico, ae, MS Word, ... you get the idea. But back in the 1980s, I first encountered (and balked noisily at, for a few weeks), BSD vi. And the basic muscle memory acquired, after a brief period of pain, has almost certainly been my best technical investment after learning to touch-type itself. Most importantly becaue both have been remarkably durable skills. No, vim is not vi, but it builds on its core. And over 30 years later, I find it useful both to see what new capabilities have been added, and where my old knowledge has holes or flaws. And I plan to be using, and able to use, that knowledge in another 30 years. Which I cannot say for most of the other editrs I've listed, or those listed by others here. It's been both vi/vim's utility and consistent access to it which have made it a valuable and durable tool. Vim is a massively efficient tool for sculpting text. And that's why I use it and continue to hone my own skill with it.
- JdeBP 8y ago
  No Brief? Or qedit? Or E? (-: ^K^D
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    I omitted a few. Qedit makes the list.
ma2rten 8y ago
One thing I noticed myself doing is moving my fingers from the home row alot. For example when type "0p, I think I am supposed to only the pinky the type the entire command, but I am using the ring finger.
godelski 8y ago
I don't suggest disabling arrow keys and mouse. But I don't suggest using them either. (This goes for tmux as well). The reason being is that you will frequently have to work with others. If someone comes over to your computer (or you bring it to them), they need to be able to look at the code. It just saves a lot of hassles. Besides, disabling these isn't going to help you develop those patterns, what helps you develop keeping on the keyboard is actively staying on the keyboard. Side note: you'll notice vim users are more likely to use keyboard shortcuts in substantially more programs than in the terminal.
- thatoneuser 8y ago
  I don't see the point of disabling them. If you're a grown ass adult and you want to learn the homerow movement, just use the homerow until you naturally don't feel like using the arrows. It's not really that hard and you can always fall back on the arrow keys if you really can't afford to guess where your cursor will end up next.
  - thosakwe 8y ago
    I disabled mine earlier this week. After a bajillion years of using the arrow keys (even in Vim), I needed something explicit to force me to use the homerow.
    - keithnz 8y ago
      I think this is actually the point he was trying to make in the article, if your instinct is to use the arrows and you want to break that, then Vim can help you!
blunte 8y ago
More tips: If you inoremap jk to ^[ (esc), and kj to ^[ as well, you can just roll jk or kj keys to escape back to command mode. No more reaching for the esc key.
- sagartewari01 8y ago
  Or swap caps lock and escape. How many times did you reach for caps lock during the last year?
  - blunte 8y ago
    I prefer CTRL to be where caps lock was. I use CTRL very often, especially since (on macOS and Linux) many text fields use readline, which means you get Emacs ctrl- movement keys. Almost the only time I use ESC is in Vim, and ctrl-[ or ideally the jk/kj->ESC mapping is really nice for me. Now that I go the jk/kj esc mapped for .ideavimrc, I'm super psyched.
mattrp 8y ago
I will never understand why iPad keyboards do not have a proper esc key. I know you can remap but it’s not the same. It’s almost as if apple knew this one key would forever preserve the MacBook as a developer platform.
- jjpprrrr 8y ago
  The current Macbook Pro with Touchbar does not have a physical Esc key either.
  - fjp 8y ago
    I find this highly annoying as it's my issued computer at work, but it took me like one day to get used to standard ctrl + [ as an alternative
    - mattrp 8y ago
      Perhaps but shouldn’t there be a rule that if it takes more keystrokes we shouldn’t do it? It’s like deprecating df.ix for df.iloc... why do I need to type two more letters for essentially the same functionality?
lnyng 8y ago
For the advice towards ESC key, anyone uses ctrl+c for quitting insert mode? I didn't know about the ctrl+[ combo works too.
yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
Another tip: Don't remap your comma (,) key to leader. Many people suggest this — and I don't know why — but it shadows the command(verb? motion?) to move to the previous match in a line-wise find. Some people in this thread say they skip through a line by word with w/W/e/E, but sometimes it's faster to see the character you want to jump to, say it's the number 4, and do f4. If the cursor lands on an earlier occurrence of the character that you didn't know was there, hit ; to jump to the next one. If you skip too far, hit , to go back again.
- fwip 8y ago
  I like <Space> as my leader key. Easy to hit and it doesn't do anything useful.
Assossa 8y ago
Ctrl-[ is a good replacement for escape but I've found it's not always supported in every vim implementation. If I remember correctly it doesn't work in the visual studio vim plugin. Binding something like JJ to escape is also a good solution, but if you ever have to edit on another machine without your vimrc, your speed will seriously suffer. I try to not change/add any core hotkeys for this exact reason. I can ssh into a brand new Linux install and edit with stock vi at the same speed as on my development machine's vim install. I discovered that Ctrl-C is another default escape alternative. It's worked on everything I've tried so far: vi, vim, nvim, gvim, vim over ssh, vim for visual studio, vim for IntelliJ, etc. This is what I've gotten used to using. Another benefit is if you're using a non-vi editor and try to exit insert mode out of habit, Ctrl-C won't actually do anything, whereas Ctrl-[ could be a hotkey in that program and JJ will obviously insert two unwanted characters in your document.
- fwip 8y ago
  Ctrl-C will keep certain events from firing in vim (can't remember their names off the top of the head, something like OnInsertLeave). Remap caps lock to escape on your computer and it'll work in every editor and every machine you ssh into.
  - sjy 8y ago
    But I'm using Caps Lock to type Ctrl-C!
- amedvednikov 8y ago
  Caps Lock :)
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  git clone http://github.com/me/myvimstuff http://github.com/me/myvimstuff
dredmorbius 8y ago
See also the excellent "Your problem with Vim is that you don't grok vi" by Jim "Linux Answer Guy" Dennis: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-most-productive-shortcut-with-vim/1220118#1220118 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-most...
Schiphol 8y ago
Of all the good practices listed here, the only one I can't seem to be bothered with is */# for searching the word under the cursor. I am curious is this happens to others, or it's just thst my workflow is idiosyncratic in this respect.
- pvinis 8y ago
  I use * often. It's even more convenient nice I have * mapped to pressing a modifier+n, so after I type * I can just hit the same key and type n, or switch to shift+n to go backwards. The map is on my keyboard, not on vim. (You have an interesting username!)
  - Schiphol 8y ago
    It's an interesting airport :)
- aidos 8y ago
  I love * / #. One of my regular pattens is *#ciw<something><esc>n.n. So I put the thing I want to change in the search register, jump back, change it and then start hopping through subsequent occurrences changing them too.
grondilu 8y ago
Glad to notice I knew all of these, apart from q: and q/

385 points by lelf 8y ago

What I cannot wrap my head around is word-wise moving in code. I just never really know where w or b takes me, let alone how many w’s it takes to get me to the desired word. My moving is mostly based on estimating counts; nth space (nf ) or just before third comma backwards (3T,); plus manual adjustments.

fanpuns 8y ago
I find t and f more useful in my day to day. On any given line there is almost always some character that gets me within a few words of where I want to be then w or b to get to the word itself. Might be somewhat language/style specific though
jolmg 8y ago
There are 2 types of characters ignoring whitespace: * Upper and lower case letters, numbers, and underscore. This is what one commonly refers to as word characters as they're the least common denominator of what identifiers in programming language are usually allowed to consist of. * Everything else (punctuation and other symbols, etc.). We'll call these non-word characters. w, b, e, etc. will work in units of consecutive characters of the same type. So, if a consecutive set of word characters is a word, a consecutive set of non-word characters is a non-word, and everything else is whitespace. w will take you from the current word or non-word to the beginning of the next word or non-word. e will take you to the end of the current word or non-word, unless you're already there (one character word or non-words, for example), then it will take you to the end of the next word or non-word. b will do the same as e but to the beginning and work towards the previous. The upper case versions of these commands, W, B, and E, treat the aforementioned word and non-word characters as of the same type, so you move in units of consecutive non-whitespace characters.

stevebmark 8y ago

Using Vim without knowing WAY more than this article is an anti-pattern. Vim is inefficient for editing so you have to learn a lot more than these tricks and hacks to be proficient. If you aren't learning more about Vim's nasty design every day then it's an anti-pattern to use Vim, because you'll be much more efficient with less learning in any other editor. If, for example, you don't know how to edit searches and command-line mode commands in full Vim mode, then keep learning (press control-f in search mode). If you aren't proficient in Vim's garbage VimL then keep learning. Obviously an IDE with intellisense and multiple cursors is more efficient than most of Vim's efficiency hacks. Vim's efficiency gains more apply to editing text, not structured code.

tartrate 8y ago
Nice gatekeeping
michal-franc 8y ago
Been using vim for 'years' and I am not using it 'perfectly'. What I have noticed is that like with i3wm with vim you create your own way of working with it. You just find the way that works for you.
lixtra 8y ago
> Vim is inefficient for editing I learned vim a bit more than 20 years ago and can tell you it’s a very efficient tool. Fair enough if I was doing most of my coding in a single language it might be worthwhile to learn a different IDE. You’re welcome to use a different tool that better fits your needs. And hope that you find it at your next workplace or the legacy server that you are asked to fix.
- stevebmark 8y ago
  I've voluntarily used Vim every day for 10 years, know it better than you do, and can tell you learning a good IDE is more efficient.
  - dang 8y ago
    Could you please stop being a jerk in HN comments? It's what we're trying to avoid here, and I'm afraid you've done it quite a lot. That's dismaying. If instead you would please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site to heart, we'd be grateful. Some other links that might help, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html
Smaug123 8y ago

xaduha 8y ago

Who cares? As long as you can edit text and it doesn't get in your way it's all fine. I can switch between using vim and vscode without any problems. I don't use vim to its full potential and I never will, I don't know many vscode shortcuts either. I'm not a typist, most programmers should spend more time thinking than typing anyway.

coldtea 8y ago
>Who cares? Some of us do. Else we wouldn't be used Vim in the first place. You can "edit text and it doesn't get in your way" in nano or 1000 other editors too.
- xaduha 8y ago
  Busybox doesn't come with nano.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Most programmers never had to use busybox. Especially the kind of programmers that take an issue with vim for being arcane. And even when they have to, its trivial to extend to add nano or whatever.
    - xaduha 8y ago
      I'm saying that vi is ubiquitous, not that I use busybox constantly or find vim arcane.
0xEFF 8y ago
I've noticed the people who work to master the tools of their trade are also the people who master the trade itself. I've yet to meet someone who mastered the trade without also mastering the tools they use.
- arcturus17 8y ago
  Semes to me that the mastery of a text editor doesn’t have an impact on your end product in the same way that the mastery of the chisel does for a woodworker...

morningmoon 8y ago

vim-adventures.com is a great way to learn vim by playing a game. It’s worth the money if you enjoy solving puzzles and learning by doing.

mjlee 8y ago
vimtutor is also a good way to get started with the basics of vim. If you have vim installed, it probably came with it.
sgwae 8y ago
Its a monthly subscription for a simple "game". vimtutor is free without the cutesy stuff.

aboutruby 8y ago

> Moving one line at a time I either go down with arrows (I know it's controversial), beginning of file with :1, end of file with G, line number with :[line number] or search with /. I usually don't have large files so this works very well (and I almost exclusively go by line number on large files). > Moving one character at a time I use ^ for beginning of line, $ for end of line, e to move quickly in a line > Searching for the word under the cursor Nice, didn't know about */#, I just type what I'm searching, gonna use that. > Deleting, then inserting Insert mode is fine. > Using the arrow keys I use the arrow keys, and I don't care about all the arrow-key shamers out there. > Moving in insert mode I use insert mode only while editing (makes sense). I don't get the point of this paragraph. > Moving to Escape I'm fine with escape key. > Moving to the start or end of the line, then inserting I much prefer just going into insert mode. > Entering insert mode, then opening a new line I also use o quite often (as it just goes into insert mode). > Entering insert mode to delete text Yes, I delete with dd, de, etc. (. is also useful for that), deleting in insert mode is painful for more than one character. > Repeating commands or searches Didn't know about q: and q/, pretty useful, nice. > Repeating substitutions I use %s/for/far/g or %s/for/far/, or for a few lines, I select them (shift-v) (visual mode) then : (which auto-sets it to :'<,'>) then :'<,'>s/for/far/ for instance. Anyway, been using vim for ~5 years with a pretty light .vimrc and one thing I would recommend is bogado/file-line plugin which lets you open a file at a line, e.g. vim app/models/user.rb:48 My vimrc if anyone is curious: https://gist.github.com/localhostdotdev/aa25d1c81f3f3b67ac35eccf1692f251 https://gist.github.com/localhostdotdev/aa25d1c81f3f3b67ac35...

StreamBright 8y ago
Same here. I cannot take my vimrc everywhere I go so keep it on the minimum.
vram22 8y ago
>I either go down with arrows (I know it's controversial) Probably not that controversial any more. It used to be (although I would use the word inadvisable instead), because dumb terminals like VT-100 and some emulators of them, would emit escape sequences when arrow keys were pressed. Since an escape sequence starts with the Escape key and then has some other keys following it, it would result in your going from input mode (if you happened to be in it) back into command mode (due to the Esc key) and then the remaining keys in the sequence would be likely interpreted as vim commands (since many letters of the alphabet are vim commands), so any unwanted modification could happen to the file you were editing, maybe without your noticing. Then if you saved the file without knowing that there was some such inadvertent change, you could have lost or mangled some of your content. Nowadays common emulators that I have come across, don't have that issue, so arrow key usage should be fine. The other reason why people may comment if you use arrow keys for movement in vim, is because if you instead use the default and recommended hjkl keys (for left, down, up, right respectively), your fingers stay on the home row (on a QWERTY keyboard), which may make for less finger / hand movement, so less strain. >beginning of file with :1, end of file with G, line number with :[line number] You can use 1G for beginning of file, G for end of file, and nG for going to line n, without having to hit Enter after some of those commands as you have to with the :[line number] method, thereby potentially saving one keystroke many times per edit session. >I use ^ for beginning of line, $ for end of line, e to move quickly in a line 0 goes to the real start of the line, ^ goes to the first non-blank character on the line. >I use the arrow keys, and I don't care about all the arrow-key shamers out there. Good on you. >I also use o quite often (as it just goes into insert mode). O (a capital O) Opens a line above the cursor, o (small o) opens a line below it. > Repeating substitutions >one thing I would recommend is bogado/file-line plugin which lets you open a file at a line, e.g. vim app/models/user.rb:48 vi(m) +n filename will open filename at line n, for both vi and vim, so I'm not sure why that plugin is needed, unless it does other stuff too. And: vi(m) +/pattern filename will open filename at the first occurrence of pattern in filename.

shmerl 8y ago

> Ctrl+F — Move forward one screenful. > Ctrl+B — Move backward one screenful. Why use such obscure combinations instead of standard PgUp / PgDn? I find this bend on "make vim usage super fast by using completely obscure keyboard shortcuts for common actions that already have designated keys" not to be helpful at all. Such kind of micro-optimizations are not really what increases productivity.

jknz 8y ago
Two laptops never have PgUp and PgDown at the same place, while Ctrl, F and B have consistent locations.
- shmerl 8y ago
  I guess on laptops it can be useful. I prefer to use a full keyboard to avoid this kind of mess.
  - jolmg 8y ago
    Full keyboards also commonly differ. There are some that have that little island of keys as 2 rows and 3 columns of normal size keys, then there are those that are 3 rows and 2 columns with a delete key that is twice the size of the others, then the keyboard at my work is 2 rows of 4 columns with an up arrow key between page up and down. I admit this last one is a little more unusual, though.
    - shmerl 8y ago
      Sure. I find Unix layout useful, though it's hard to find such keyboards, besides may be Sun Type 7 these days, which are already out of production as well and have become a rarity.
kurtisc 8y ago
The same bindings work in less, manpages, and git diffs. They're not obscure.

blunte 8y ago

Any tool you need to use more than a few times is worth learning properly. And any superior tool is worth switching to and learning if you would use it frequently. I suppose it depends on how one's mind works. If the mind moves slowly and holds onto ideas and abstractions easily, then the slower motor movements of moving the hand back and forth from arrow keys to home keys, and to mouse and back, are not really a problem. But if you're like me, and your mind is constantly racing, you need to be fast to get your ideas out before they're gone/replaced. It's not just the time cost of moving the hand from home row down to find the correct cursor key, do the presses, and then move back to typing position - it's also the likely visual/mental cost of looking away from your screen to aid in positioning the hand, then looking back at the screen and finding what you were looking at before. All those movements and recalibrations take time and involve mental context switches. If you're spending a lot of time using a certain set of tools, there is no reason to avoid learning those tools well. Refusing to do so is choosing to be ignorant and subperformant. Now, if you'll only use the tool once in a while, perhaps it's not worth the effort. But chances are, there's some other tool you use often that you could master for your long term benefit. If you program, Vim (behavior) is very difficult to beat for getting whats in your head out and into your computer VERY quickly. As a bonus, using a full featured IDE like one of the JetBrains products, but with the Vim plugin, is win win. You get the code editing speed of vim, plus the project navigation and other benefits of the IDE. Totally worth the time investment.

muststopmyths 8y ago
> As a bonus, using a full featured IDE like one of the JetBrains products, but with the Vim plugin, is win win. I refused to use Visual Studio for code editing until ViEmu came along. These days I use VsVim. vi is fantastic for editing/writing and using the other niceties of Visual Studio is a win-win, as you said.
- transpostmeta 8y ago
  This cannot be overstated. 90% of the advantages of VIM is the modal editing interface, which can be used beautifully in Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ IDEA, and other nice IDEs. The VIM way is a very good way of editing text. IDEs offer a lot more than editing text. Faking an IDE within a text editor with random plugins is terrible. Emulating VIM text editing within a real IDE is amazing. Just use VIM keybindings in your industry standard IDE, you will be able to use all the tips in the linked article and still not miss out on anything offered by the IDE. The only problem is that the VIM keybindings are integrated into direct text editing, but not the IDE UI. For example, in Visual Studio, IntelliSense offers you a choice of possible completions for a variable name you are typing. You can only navigate these choices with your cursor keys, rather than with the VIM-style jkl; keys. But it's a small price to pay for really good text-editing qualities!

fanpuns 8y ago

The opening of this rings true for me. Once I get a pattern ingrained, it can be difficult to reverse it even if there is a more efficient way. To combat this I usually pick one thing per coding session to work on. I find lists like these helpful to check-in and see if I can add anything to my future to-work-on lists. When I started learning vim I read an interview where someone (Ben Orenstein maybe?) talked about keeping notecards or a cheatsheet on their desk so they could do the same thing and I thought they were insane (and vim was insane). With time though, this method got me proficient at vim, then better, then better still. Each time I learn something new or unlearn sometime inefficient for something better I get a little bit of joy out of my daily work.

csomar 8y ago

Here is a trick that I used to use when I started learning VIM: - Write down 2-3 tricks/shortcuts in a piece of paper. Put that piece of paper in front of you (ie: tag it to your screen). - Code with Vim. You'll eventually look at the piece of paper and find some of these shortcuts helpful. So you'll use them. - After a while, these shortcuts will get into your muscle memory and you'll no longer need the piece of paper. - When you are coding with VIM, detect annoying patterns: For example, I need to jump code, I need to replace often, I need to be able to select some text this way, I need GIT integration. You get the point. - Put these observations on a list. Pull 2-3 items (shortcuts) from this list and tag another paper to your screen. Pull 2-3 items (plugins/functionality) and enhance your VIM. - After a few years, your VIM will become extremely customized. You'll actually have trouble writing code on any other IDE. - Here is mine: https://github.com/omarabid/vimrc https://github.com/omarabid/vimrc Other bonus tips: - Use GIT to keep track of your VIM configuration. - Write a README file for your configuration. Other things that I should do: Update the README often, and add screenshots. ps: in case you haven't noticed, I'm a die-hard VIM fan.

ManDeJan 8y ago
After ~2 years of switching between using and not using vim you have convinced me to try and make my own config
- jokh 8y ago
  Try github.com/amix/vimrc to start off. It has a nice look. You can then add more shortcuts/customize further as you gain more experience with vim.
- ma2rten 8y ago
  I recently made my own vim config. It was very easy and wish I had done it earlier.
- Bekwnn 8y ago
  2 biggest things for me were vimplug (or something to make plugin installation easy) and NERDtree, which lets you open a window for directory navigation, set bookmarks, and change your current directory path for other vim commands. I'm also super partial to Hydrangea scheme https://vimcolors.com/690/hydrangea/dark https://vimcolors.com/690/hydrangea/dark That site is good for browsing for something you'll like.

dang 8y ago

2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12643887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12643887 2012: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3563292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3563292

blunte 8y ago

These are excellent. I didn't know about gi, and that's very useful. Today I accidentally learned that ctrl-a and ctrl-x increment or decrement the number under the cursor. That's not terribly useful unless you're dealing with a lot of numbers, but if you are, it will save a lot of keystrokes. One set of movement keys the article didn't mention but which I use all the time are H M and L (shift-h, etc.) They jump to top (high), middle, and bottom (low) of the editor window, respectively.

h43z 8y ago
Even better you don't have to be with the cursor on the number you want to increment or decrement with Ctrl-A and Ctrl-X. It will work with the next number to the right of the cursor. The same goes for ci' or ci". a = 'foo' // imagine the cursor on the letter a Executing ci'bar will change foo to bar.
- blunte 8y ago
  Wow! Thank you.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  > Even better you don't have to be with the cursor on the number you want to increment or decrement with Ctrl-A and Ctrl-X. It will work with the next number to the right of the cursor. To the point that I have used c-x c-a as a stupid shortcut to jump to the next number on a line. I'm sure there's a better way to do this, but it's fast so...
  - edanm 8y ago
    Surprisingly, there actually isn't an out-of-the-box way to jump to numbers that I know of! I personally added a "number" text object, so that I can treat numbers just like "words", and also created a "jump to number" shortcut.
- vbsteven 8y ago
  And just for completeness: ci' and ci" replace everything within the quotes, ca' and ca" replace everything including the quotes.

emmelaich 8y ago

Some vim keys I use a lot that seem not to be mentioned too often: { and } to go back and forwards a "para" ^U and ^D to up and down a half a page { and } are particularly useful with verb keys such as y, d, < and > (outdent and indent). And ! (bang) to reformat text with `fmt` I cry a little inside when I see people go through pages with the j,k or up and down keys.

therealdrag0 8y ago
One I noticed missing (based on another comment here) is ctrl+o to run a movement command while in insert mode. To me this is pretty valuable glue between command/insert mode. E.g. "ctrl+o 2e" to skip forward 2 words.
- emmelaich 8y ago
  Cool. There's always stuff I didn't know about. I think that on most terminals/vim combos the arrow keys will also move in insert mode.

waivek 8y ago

I've used vim for seven years now. My vimrc is a gargantuan 122 lines of vimL. It went from 0 lines to 300 to 750 and it's been 122 for a year now. Whenever someone asks me for tips and tricks to learn vim I reference this tweet: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/473247789728952321 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/473247789728952321 Just use VSCode / SublimeText / Notepad++

darkpuma 8y ago

> @@ Something somebody once showed me was noremap <Space> @q With this, you can quickly record a macro to the q register by typing qq (and q a final time to end the macro.) Subsequently with that binding, pressing the space bar will execute the macro once. With this binding I find myself making sometimes dozens of throw-away macros an hour.

dredmorbius 8y ago

Disclaimer: My vim knowledge has many gaps. Understanding vim's model, what Chris Toomey of Thoughtbot calls "the Vim Language", helps incredibly: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wlR5gYd6um0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=wlR5gYd6um0 I've picked up numerous tips watching this and other of Thoughtbot's excellent video series. More importantly, though, is that I've learned why specific vim idioms and motifs exist. They've lead me to rethink my own usage patterns, sometimes changing them, sometimes holding them just a bit more tightly. (Say, my practice of doing global regex pattern-replacement edits rather than repeated vim edits or macros, generally.) But for a tool I use for coding, data cleaning, systems administration, email, writing, document preparation, and more, it pays to be on the lookout for more effective, faster, reliable, and/or repeatable methods. And no, vim's not the only editor I have, or do, use. It's not even the first Unix editor I'd used. There's been DOS EDIT, EDLIN, MacWrite, WP51, WordStar (me and GRR!), EDT, EVE, the ISPF editor, emacs, pico, ae, MS Word, ... you get the idea. But back in the 1980s, I first encountered (and balked noisily at, for a few weeks), BSD vi. And the basic muscle memory acquired, after a brief period of pain, has almost certainly been my best technical investment after learning to touch-type itself. Most importantly becaue both have been remarkably durable skills. No, vim is not vi, but it builds on its core. And over 30 years later, I find it useful both to see what new capabilities have been added, and where my old knowledge has holes or flaws. And I plan to be using, and able to use, that knowledge in another 30 years. Which I cannot say for most of the other editrs I've listed, or those listed by others here. It's been both vi/vim's utility and consistent access to it which have made it a valuable and durable tool. Vim is a massively efficient tool for sculpting text. And that's why I use it and continue to hone my own skill with it.

JdeBP 8y ago
No Brief? Or qedit? Or E? (-: ^K^D
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  I omitted a few. Qedit makes the list.

ma2rten 8y ago

One thing I noticed myself doing is moving my fingers from the home row alot. For example when type "0p, I think I am supposed to only the pinky the type the entire command, but I am using the ring finger.

godelski 8y ago

I don't suggest disabling arrow keys and mouse. But I don't suggest using them either. (This goes for tmux as well). The reason being is that you will frequently have to work with others. If someone comes over to your computer (or you bring it to them), they need to be able to look at the code. It just saves a lot of hassles. Besides, disabling these isn't going to help you develop those patterns, what helps you develop keeping on the keyboard is actively staying on the keyboard. Side note: you'll notice vim users are more likely to use keyboard shortcuts in substantially more programs than in the terminal.

thatoneuser 8y ago
I don't see the point of disabling them. If you're a grown ass adult and you want to learn the homerow movement, just use the homerow until you naturally don't feel like using the arrows. It's not really that hard and you can always fall back on the arrow keys if you really can't afford to guess where your cursor will end up next.
- thosakwe 8y ago
  I disabled mine earlier this week. After a bajillion years of using the arrow keys (even in Vim), I needed something explicit to force me to use the homerow.
  - keithnz 8y ago
    I think this is actually the point he was trying to make in the article, if your instinct is to use the arrows and you want to break that, then Vim can help you!

blunte 8y ago

More tips: If you inoremap jk to ^[ (esc), and kj to ^[ as well, you can just roll jk or kj keys to escape back to command mode. No more reaching for the esc key.

sagartewari01 8y ago
Or swap caps lock and escape. How many times did you reach for caps lock during the last year?
- blunte 8y ago
  I prefer CTRL to be where caps lock was. I use CTRL very often, especially since (on macOS and Linux) many text fields use readline, which means you get Emacs ctrl- movement keys. Almost the only time I use ESC is in Vim, and ctrl-[ or ideally the jk/kj->ESC mapping is really nice for me. Now that I go the jk/kj esc mapped for .ideavimrc, I'm super psyched.

mattrp 8y ago

I will never understand why iPad keyboards do not have a proper esc key. I know you can remap but it’s not the same. It’s almost as if apple knew this one key would forever preserve the MacBook as a developer platform.

jjpprrrr 8y ago
The current Macbook Pro with Touchbar does not have a physical Esc key either.
- fjp 8y ago
  I find this highly annoying as it's my issued computer at work, but it took me like one day to get used to standard ctrl + [ as an alternative
  - mattrp 8y ago
    Perhaps but shouldn’t there be a rule that if it takes more keystrokes we shouldn’t do it? It’s like deprecating df.ix for df.iloc... why do I need to type two more letters for essentially the same functionality?

lnyng 8y ago

For the advice towards ESC key, anyone uses ctrl+c for quitting insert mode? I didn't know about the ctrl+[ combo works too.

yakshaving_jgt 8y ago

Another tip: Don't remap your comma (,) key to leader. Many people suggest this — and I don't know why — but it shadows the command(verb? motion?) to move to the previous match in a line-wise find. Some people in this thread say they skip through a line by word with w/W/e/E, but sometimes it's faster to see the character you want to jump to, say it's the number 4, and do f4. If the cursor lands on an earlier occurrence of the character that you didn't know was there, hit ; to jump to the next one. If you skip too far, hit , to go back again.

fwip 8y ago
I like <Space> as my leader key. Easy to hit and it doesn't do anything useful.

Assossa 8y ago

Ctrl-[ is a good replacement for escape but I've found it's not always supported in every vim implementation. If I remember correctly it doesn't work in the visual studio vim plugin. Binding something like JJ to escape is also a good solution, but if you ever have to edit on another machine without your vimrc, your speed will seriously suffer. I try to not change/add any core hotkeys for this exact reason. I can ssh into a brand new Linux install and edit with stock vi at the same speed as on my development machine's vim install. I discovered that Ctrl-C is another default escape alternative. It's worked on everything I've tried so far: vi, vim, nvim, gvim, vim over ssh, vim for visual studio, vim for IntelliJ, etc. This is what I've gotten used to using. Another benefit is if you're using a non-vi editor and try to exit insert mode out of habit, Ctrl-C won't actually do anything, whereas Ctrl-[ could be a hotkey in that program and JJ will obviously insert two unwanted characters in your document.

fwip 8y ago
Ctrl-C will keep certain events from firing in vim (can't remember their names off the top of the head, something like OnInsertLeave). Remap caps lock to escape on your computer and it'll work in every editor and every machine you ssh into.
- sjy 8y ago
  But I'm using Caps Lock to type Ctrl-C!
amedvednikov 8y ago
Caps Lock :)
gameswithgo 8y ago
git clone http://github.com/me/myvimstuff http://github.com/me/myvimstuff

dredmorbius 8y ago

See also the excellent "Your problem with Vim is that you don't grok vi" by Jim "Linux Answer Guy" Dennis: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-most-productive-shortcut-with-vim/1220118#1220118 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-most...

Schiphol 8y ago

Of all the good practices listed here, the only one I can't seem to be bothered with is */# for searching the word under the cursor. I am curious is this happens to others, or it's just thst my workflow is idiosyncratic in this respect.

pvinis 8y ago
I use * often. It's even more convenient nice I have * mapped to pressing a modifier+n, so after I type * I can just hit the same key and type n, or switch to shift+n to go backwards. The map is on my keyboard, not on vim. (You have an interesting username!)
- Schiphol 8y ago
  It's an interesting airport :)
aidos 8y ago
I love * / #. One of my regular pattens is *#ciw<something><esc>n.n. So I put the thing I want to change in the search register, jump back, change it and then start hopping through subsequent occurrences changing them too.

grondilu 8y ago

Glad to notice I knew all of these, apart from q: and q/