17 ms·

Two Simple Steps Helped Me Learn Vim

81 points by delongshot 12y ago

alfiedotwtf 12y ago
Here are some more tips: - disable arrow keys - turn relative numbers on by default - force yourself to only move vertically using relative numbers - force yourself to only move horizontally using [fF,;]
- delongshot 12y ago
  Good tips! You just reminded me that I did both of those first two at first as well. Arrows especially. But those last two are good too! I'll have to add them into my workflow.
- madeofpalk 12y ago
  Why would you want to disable arrow keys?
  - beaumartinez 12y ago
    To to keep your fingers on the home row, in order to have better access to all the other keys in your keyboard. Having your fingers on the arrow keys mean your hand has to travel that much further to type the other keys—making you slower.
    - Syssiphus 12y ago
      It's not so much about speed. It's about comfort.
    - AlexeyBrin 12y ago
      I've always wondered if the "disable the arrow key" advice given to every VIM novice makes any sense for the user of a 11" - 13" laptop. It was probably a good advice for a classical keyboard, but I find the arrow keys quite handy when I work on a small laptop keyboard.
      - Morgawr 12y ago
        I started seriously using vim around the time I started coding on the go with a very old eeePC (the first model, the absurdly small one). This was around 5-6 years ago probably. Back then I had already used vim before but only as a "normal" text editor, just go into insert mode and move around with arrows. I was forced to use vim because that old piece of crap PC (I still love it though) wasn't powerful enough to run anything, really, and the screen was super small. I noticed using arrows key was super uncomfortable because yes, they were closer to the actual home row but they were also smaller, clunkier and harder to press. So I decided to force myself to use hjkl and disable arrow keys. It was definitely one of the best decisions of my (coding) life. Just comfortably resting your hands on the home row (either laptop keyboard or normal one) simply makes your typing more relaxed and after the couple of weeks (months?) struggling with left/right (up and down was fairly easy) you really stop noticing it. Funnily enough, I re-enabled arrow keys a year or so ago and I haven't really felt the temptation to use them anymore. DISCLAIMER: This turned me into a super slow and awkward typist when I am trying to work on text in an editor that does not support vim mode (like google docs for example). I have several documents around with jjjkkjhjjhjjllljh unfortunately.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - throw_away 12y ago
    I would argue that it's best to disable arrow keys in insert mode only. This is the real problem here. By using arrow keys in insert mode, the novice ends up using vim just like a glorified notepad, and never truly understanding the different modes. Since they aren't ever going back to command mode, they never consider using more advanced movement operators, and then they never realize the power of composing motions and commands. Whenever I start teaching someone vim, I always add this to their .vimrc: inoremap <Left> <nop> inoremap <Right> <nop> inoremap <Up> <nop> inoremap <Down> <nop> This way, arrows still work as expected in command mode, but not in insert mode. The novice will learn to only insert in insert mode, and move and operate in command mode.
- beaumartinez 12y ago
  Good tips. Getting in the habit of explicitly searching (/) instead of scrolling is another one. On the subject of using fFtT (and other motions), there's a plugin I quite like that works well with my mental model of that motion—I often don't want to go to the first instance of that character, but the second or third in that line. EasyMotion[1] lets you do that. [1] https://github.com/Lokaltog/vim-easymotion https://github.com/Lokaltog/vim-easymotion
- tomjakubowski 12y ago
  > - force yourself to only move vertically using relative numbers > - force yourself to only move horizontally using [fF,;] These tips doesn't strike me as helpful. The w, b, e et al. (word boundary); % (paired delimiters); /, ? (occurrence); ^, $ (begin/end of line); and text object motions are indispensable to a Vimmer, and I use them all far more than I use [fF,;]. / and ? are more useful to me than f/F because it's often easier and faster to include another character or two of unique context for a character than to count occurrences beforehand or tap ; a bunch of times and they also work across multiple lines. I'm finally learning and remembering to use marks which are another great way to navigate a buffer or even several buffers at once.
- mmahemoff 12y ago
  - disable arrow keys - force yourself ... - force yourself ... This strikes me as an attitude that drives people away from Vim. Maybe it depends on individual differences in learning style, but I would say the exact opposite. Embrace the arrow keys! And all else that is familiar. The moment you start with Vim you're diving in the deep end and productivity will take a plunge. At least training wheels like the arrow keys can help you stay productive and keep using it for long enough until you cross over the productivity threshold (where you're more productive than on a normal editor, even though you still have a lot more learning to do).
  - raverbashing 12y ago
    Arrows are just another way of jumping, this is not Unix VI, this is VIM It's an editor, it should be as easy as possible. People (should) use VIM because it's powerful, not because it's different from other editors.
  - IE6 12y ago
    Agreed - I use vim heavily and also use arrow keys (when I can) and when they do not work for whatever reason i fall back to HJKL. For me my main blocker was just purely not being able to use it for the absolute basic operations. I found that once I learned how to do the absolute basic (insert, copy, paste, move around, search, etc.) I was able to use vim. The next step was building my own vimrc with some very basic configurations that made vim much easier to use. Then whenever I need or want to do something complicated I just google for the command, plugin, or write my own plugin.
- Supermighty 12y ago
  I think disabling the arrow keys is a mistake for someone just coming to vim. The arrow keys can act as a warm blanket of familiarity while learning the harsh winter of vim. When a noob is making mistakes and getting frustrated having the arrow keys work like normal is a comforting reprieve. Once someone has a couple of months of vim under their belt then would I recommend disabling the arrow keys.
jumpwah 12y ago
But that was what Ornstein meant by cheatsheet. Anyways, why did you "want to learn Vim for a long time", did you feel limited by st?
- delongshot 12y ago
  Right, I thought I heard him mention it, but couldn't remember where. Looks like he mentions it in this post >> http://robots.thoughtbot.com/the-vim-learning-curve-is-a-myth http://robots.thoughtbot.com/the-vim-learning-curve-is-a-myt... And really, I wanted to learn so I could pair with other programmers remotely. I had heard that many were using tmux and Vim so I thought it was time.
  - jumpwah 12y ago
    I don't remember where exactly either, but I think in multiple videos/talks of his, one of his top tips if you're new, is to make a list of your top 5 or so new commands you'd like to learn/focus on each week and keep using or referring back to them so that it starts becoming muscle memory. And fair enough, was just curious why you kept persisting. :p
- briandear 12y ago
  Vim is much more efficient. For example, within Tmux, one never needs to leave the terminal; with ST, there's a frequent switching cost which compounds over the course of a day. If one were to put Tim Pope up against an ST master, it's almost certain Pope would win.
  - wyclif 12y ago
    I love the iTerm2 + tmux + vim + zsh environment. It takes a little time to figure out how to juggle the configuration for them, but once you do, it's super efficient.
    - joshfinnie 12y ago
      Are you dotfiles openly available? I have the same set of tools, but still find things are slightly off... would love to compare notes.
sgt101 12y ago
1) Having to because the environment only supported Vim and was locked down, and my job depended on it. 2) There is no 2 Because if there is no (1) then why would you?!!!
kornakiewicz 12y ago
Considering that learning Emacs is comparably hard as learning Vim I think that second advice is not always right, especially when the pet project is developed in language you're learning and not familiar with - which is often the case. It's often hard to learn new keybindings, new syntax, new workflow, new idioms and maybe even new paradigm. Sometimes it's simply too much for evening time, when I want to do something for pleasure.
stemc43 12y ago
I'm only using Vim for server-side config editing. And then a good full-fledged IDE for any large software development tasks.
- desdiv 12y ago
  The two aren't completely mutually exclusive. There are Vim emulators for pretty much every popular IDE out there.
  - hoggle 12y ago
    That's also how I've been doing it for some time now - best of both worlds! Sometimes it can get a little flaky though as recently there were some glitches in the IdeaVim plugin and it hurt my productivity badly (I'm so much faster in Vim mode). The issues have fortunately been fixed by now. I had always been struggling with Vim for bigger projects because I had to waste many good hours over highly individual sets of dotfiles with plugins like Nerdtree and others (integrated debugging, jumping to function definitions etc) I could have been programming instead... IDEs like Xcode and RubyMine are tightly integrated with their domain out of the box so to me there is not much I could rationalize about in terms of using Vim (unfortunately). I even picked up WebStorm for node/js/html development recently, naturally with the IdeaVim plugin activated at all times :)
chestervonwinch 12y ago
Perhaps this is stating the obvious, but for me, the biggest thing was to not allow myself to fall back on my normal editor. Otherwise, the path of least resistance is easiest to follow.
mwfogleman 12y ago
I found Anki / spaced repetition helpful when learning (still learning, always learning) Emacs. I make cloze deletion cards for the commands and their explanations.
- jmr0 12y ago
  Agreed. Especially for the more advanced or less commonly used vim/ed shortcuts, adding them to my general Anki deck was invaluable. I went through "Practical Vim" by Drew Neil and added all the useful shortcuts to the deck, and whenever they would come up for review I would also try my best to put them to use that same day. The card format would be question/answer e.g. "how do you split a window vertically?" I also used this approach to familiarize myself with the various unix tools I don't necessarily use daily (sed, awk, etc)
snarfy 12y ago
Still relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2911930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2911930
muraiki 12y ago
The biggest thing that helped me to learn to use vim fluently by building up muscle memory (and making commands automatic) was playing Vim Adventures, a browser based adventure game that gradually teaches you vim commands: http://vim-adventures.com/ http://vim-adventures.com/ I haven't tried the full (paid) version yet, but the demo was enough to get me moving around text quickly. Now I finally understand why people use this crazy thing. :) Also, if you really want to fly through text, try out https://github.com/Lokaltog/vim-easymotion https://github.com/Lokaltog/vim-easymotion
- organsnyder 12y ago
  I sprung for the paid version, and have progressed part of the way through the last level. Compared to the demo, I think that it helped with some more advanced features, but mostly just made me aware of them rather than giving me the proficiency I learned with the basic commands. Perhaps if I repeated the game, I'd become more natural with them. Still, highly recommended. It's been a lot of fun to play, and it helped me to quickly become proficient.
- hereonbusiness 12y ago
  The biggest thing that helped me was when I realized that it actually all makes sense. Every time you use vim and catch yourself repeating a command over and over (x, dd, hjkl) take a moment and think about if there is a more efficient way to do it by combining the commands you know. Let's say you need to delete everything from you current cursor position to the next paren in the current line, ok you know that: t -> move till char x in the current line T -> move till previous char x in the current line d -> delete so you can combine that to: dt( -> delete everything till next ( in line Delete 10 lines, instead of 10 times "dd" you can just do: 10dd Go from line 0 to line 20, instead of pressing j 20 times: 20G Delete from current position to line 20: d20G These are all really simple examples, but once you get the hang of it you move on to more complex stuff in no time, and you probably won't even have to look it up, it will just make sense.
  - muraiki 12y ago
    Yes, but there's a difference between "makes sense" and "I can do it without thinking, so it is a lot faster than pressing ctrl + right arrow a few times" which then leads to "maybe I'll use vim instead of Sublime Text after all." :)
cschmidt 12y ago
There is finally a good 'first' book about learning Vim, that just came out this week: Pro Vim www.amazon.com/Pro-Vim-Mark-McDonnell/dp/1484202511/ He sets you up with a reasonable .vimrc to start, which I think it key to get over the bad defaults. He starts at the beginning, and takes you well beyond what vimtutor covers. I'm working my way through it now. I'd also suggest vimcheatsheet.com, for something to hang on the wall. I just don't get the cheatsheets that have a keyboard, since I don't really think about the location of the keys I'm typing.
icantthinkofone 12y ago
Step one should be to get it out of your head that vim is hard or hard to learn. Sitting with my son, years ago, I got him doing simple editing of files for me proficiently in less than five minutes. Deleting words and lines and selecting whole paragraphs and sections. Copying and pasting. He was 15. vim is easy.
danso 12y ago
I've always wanted to learn vim, as so many great coders use it and swear by it, and it doesn't seem fundamentally harder than any other power-user skill. My biggest fear is that I work with novices (who are using something like Sublime) on a regular basis, and it's more friction than it's worth to switch between the two kinds of muscle memories. Also...maybe I don't write/edit enough code to justify learning vim? I mean, both measured in lines and in number of projects. I'd like to think I've advanced to the point where I'm spending 95% of my time thinking and 5% of my time actually typing in code...being able to quickly grep and navigate through Sublime Text is definitely a vital asset, but I'm not sure how much vim will add to my overall efficiency.
- nkuttler 12y ago
  If you have tools that work for you I don't see a reason to change. I use vim because it's a great editor, can run in a terminal, and is open source. I know the producer won't go out of business.
  - danso 12y ago
    Ah yes...the ability to use in a terminal is a huge thing. That ubiquity was not important to me a year ago, but now I'm at a Unix shell so often that I most definitely feel the pain of doing quickie scripting via nano/pico. Hmm, I think you've convinced me :)
- couchand 12y ago
  I agree that an advanced developer spends very little time actually typing, and I think knowing some of the more advanced vim commands can help cement that. Visual block mode and command-limited search and replace in particular are vital features for a software developer, when so many of the code changes that need to be made are similar in multiple locations.
wyclif 12y ago
A more elegant solution than a notecard may be using a vim cheatsheet wallpaper, like this: http://vimfoo.com/2012/09/vim-shortcut-wallpaper/ http://vimfoo.com/2012/09/vim-shortcut-wallpaper/ The downside of that is that it isn't customizable, so I get why he likes the 3x5 card. But at least you can't lose this.
- couchand 12y ago
  Notably that only features the movement commands. But by limiting the scope it allows for a remarkably intuitive layout that helps put everything in context. Thanks for the link!
- to3m 12y ago
  "Awesome! With my vim cheat sheet wallpaper I will never forget anything! This time next year, Rodney..." <opens large vim window> "Oh..."
  - bencollier49 12y ago
    +5 points for using that reference on Hacker News.
  - Zardoz84 12y ago
    Konsole with transparent background or set the wallpaper as background...
userbinator 12y ago
Vim is a huge editor but I don't think the subset of commands that are absolutely necessary to do any editing at all is difficult to memorise; from memory, these are the ones I started with: hjkl i Esc or ^[ :w :q :q! :wq
- cosarara97 12y ago
  Also, if you want to learn hjkl you just have to play some NetHack ;)
heyts 12y ago
I have been meaning to learn Vim for a while but everytime I was trying I ended up being overwhelmed by the number of command (and also frankly, the weird syntax of .vimrc). I finally took a step by step approach and started with a very minimal .vimrc and worked my way up from there, solving real problems I ran into. I think the key is to choose your battle. Also this helped me understand the core concepts of how Vim operates: https://pragprog.com/book/dnvim/practical-vim https://pragprog.com/book/dnvim/practical-vim
- wyclif 12y ago
  That is the way to do it, because I think it's a mistake to copy another user's ~/.vimrc especially if you aren't aware of why those settings are in use. You'll learn more, faster, if you start with a blank ~/.vimrc and build it up yourself. Another tip to advance up the learning curve is to start using vim for everything, not just code. Write email, todo's, documentation, and everything else with it and pretty soon the learning curve doesn't feel so steep anymore.
- couchand 12y ago
  One thing to remember about your .vimrc file is that it's just a list of commands. What's the command to expand tabs? :set et. And the corresponding .vimrc setting? set et. One fun thing to do to a friend is echo q >> ~/.vimrc.
gnuvince 12y ago
[Two steps, eh?](http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/572078-how-to-draw-an-owl http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/572078-how-to-draw-an-owl)
samuell 12y ago
For me, what finally worked, after many other attempts, was: 1. Run through vimtutor thoroughly [~30 mins]. 2. While doing that, memorize the 10-15 commands in the tutorial that stick. Leave the rest (for a later time). 3. Start using vim full-time from now on. Worked perfect!
vegabook 12y ago
For me, mapped caps lock to escape and thereafter never looked back. I found reaching to the top left of my keyboard was breaking my concentration. Especially given I touch type. Also visualbell is almost mandatory otherwise "beep mode" was enough to drive me crazy.
MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
Time and again, these "how to coerce yourself into learning this hostile tool called vim" posts appear. I read them, and it sparks my interest. But usually, whats missing is part 2, which goes: "... and this is why it was so totally worth it". An no, just because it works over SSH and is installed on every server is not quite sufficient. Also, are you programming in a script language or a .NET or JVM behemoth?
- Kurtz79 12y ago
  "... and this is why it was so totally worth it". This is something that is difficult to explain, but absolutely clear to you once you have achieved some degree of efficiency. Muscle memory makes the editor disappear and let you focus, not on the keyboard, not on the menus, but on code itself. I suggest you watch some live-coding videos of people very experienced in the editor to get an idea (in this case the programmer uses emacs, but the concept is the same): https://www.youtube.com/user/handmadeheroarchive https://www.youtube.com/user/handmadeheroarchive
  - rballonline 12y ago
    Do you know what is the guy using within VS here? Is this an Emacs extension or something added on top. He seems to be going full screen and switching files very quickly. I've seen this before on someone's machine but didn't ask about it. I don't know anything about emacs myself.
    - Kurtz79 12y ago
      I'm a vim guy, but the strength of emacs is that is basically running on its own lisp, so it's completely programmable. He's likely to be running a customized version.
- DEinspanjer 12y ago
  I first saw Vim in use back in 2000. I was working at NuMega (Compuware lab at the time) and I was a Windows only user that was just starting to get very comfortable with the DOS prompt and I used Notepad for any editing that wasn't done in Visual Studio. I had some huge file in which I had to do a bunch of refactoring. Some search and replace, and some reorganization. I had been plodding away, copying, pasting, and repetitively hitting the arrow keys and typing a few characters in each place for about 5 minutes when a friend came over and saw what I was doing. He was an absolute *nix expert. After a few moments, he told me that he could finish all those changes in just a minute. I had seen him code in Vim before, and was impressed, but it seemed like magic at the time. I saved the file and went over to his desk and asked him to walk me through exactly what he was going to do. He loaded the file up in Vim and started with a quick regex that knocked out 80% of the work. He then recorded a macro that yanked the current counter number into a buffer, searched for the next edit position, pasted in the counter number, incremented it, then shifted position to the next code block and updated that reference as well. He then asked me about how many sections there were. I said about a hundred, so he typed 99@q and poof! There were a few more, so he did a :g/<some keyword>/p to see how many lines there were and then did that many more macro invocations and the file was done. I was hooked at that point. He set me up with gVim and some tutorials and taught me the most basic fundamentals and told me that it didn't matter if I couldn't make vimgolf par for the first year or so. If I used it and every once in a while picked up a new motion or command, after a few years, it would change my coding life. He was right.
cjjuice 12y ago
The most important thing I would say to anybody that wants to use vim is relax! Here are some steps I think will be helpful: 1 ) Install vim with janus and use gvim/macvim. This will allow you to use vim pretty close to your previous editor. 2) Learn hjkl movement and how to move between insert/movement/visual modes. 3) Try to use them as much as possible. It's ok if you use arrow keys or mouse from time to time. 4) Introduce no more than one additional feature a week. 5) Have fun! There is no "right way" to use vim. Use it how you see fit.
- joshfinnie 12y ago
  I am still on the fence about the usefulness of Janus as someone starting with Vim. Sure it gets you closer to ST, but is that really the end goal? Why not still use ST?
sophacles 12y ago
I've been using vim pretty much full time since around 2000. The one important thing to accept about it: you'll never know all of it. It's just huge. (but you'll never know all of any big dev environment - such is the life of a software dev). To get really good with it, after the basics, I just kept (and still do) in mind that "there's probably a better/easier/faster way to do this". Then roughly once a quarter I'll spend an afternoon figuring out how to do something new, and consciously focus on incorporating it into my workflow. Just like I would with any other tool or technique. Just because it's "old school stuff like vim" doesn't mean it isn't worth learning. I don't know how it's viewed so differently than say, learning how to use containers, or learning how to do event based programming, or any other concept that slows you down for a little before making you more productive.
cellover 12y ago
Interesting post! I found another way to improve my vim skills and memory was to simply write a wiki page with all the shortcuts / key strokes I learned or used. It has a big benefit for me of anchoring things in my memory. Always having it open when in vim, referring to it often, adding things, moving things, reorganizing categories was a huge benefit for me. Here is a screenshot of my wiki page index: http://imgur.com/my7lJJG http://imgur.com/my7lJJG Also, having ones' dotfiles synced on github can be highly beneficial as your vim env / plugins will be consistent between desktop / laptop / office / friends' place. [Edit] - cosmetics
- quickpost 12y ago
  Would you be willing to share the HTML for your wiki page? Just looking at the table of contents, it seems really useful for those of us trying to learn vim compared to the normal cheat sheet that looks like a periodic table...
  - cellover 12y ago
    Sure! Here it is: http://pastebin.com/BbJv6sWX http://pastebin.com/BbJv6sWX It's raw HTML, sorry for the format :) Note that I have the same kind of stuff for everything linux related: http://imgur.com/fI12YY5 http://imgur.com/fI12YY5
    - quickpost 12y ago
      Great, thanks!
kev6168 12y ago
Vim's usefulness comes from the combined effects of many Vim commands, also the benefit of a unique way of doing things. Sadly this combination is hardly available after only a few hours or a day's study. Knowing only a few commands won't give you much reward, and without immediate reward, people often lose motivation to continue. IMHO a good approach is to devote one or two months' available time, make yourself super focused, just read, memorize and practice, whenever and wherever you can. Also try not to use Vim for actual work in this stage. Practice a lot with small scripts. After a month or two of violently focused study/practice, you will either stop for whatever reason (that's OK because the knowledge gained will be useful for the rest of your career), or you have become good at 30 or 40 Vim commands/options/tricks, the combination of them actually make you more productive than before. The reward is sweeeet, so the learning goes on, probably for many more years.
somehnreader 12y ago
I used vim for a long time on servers, and only there to make quick edits and wasn't very good at it. I bought a new laptop recently and just didn't install any text editors. I had a deadline a month away and a project where I was familiar with the existing technologies. That motivated me enough. Add a bit of vimgolf and a lot of googling and here I am using vim for everything, everywhere. I occasionally catch myself writing emails in vim and then just copying them into Mail before I fire them off.
cnp 12y ago
I went the flashcard route, but used Wunderlist instead. I would look at it at night before bed, and in the morning right after I woke up. Using this technique I felt totally proficient after about a month, with the ability to get work done after about a week.
larrybolt 12y ago
What made the difference for me was a Vim version with a project/file drawler, like the one by alloy: https://github.com/alloy/macvim https://github.com/alloy/macvim After a while I got fluent enough with vim to switch to NERDTree. Btw, such a shame vimR (http://vimr.org/ http://vimr.org/) wasn't around back when I started using vim, it looks awesome to learn vim-motions but still be able sometimes to use insert-mode and mouse if you have to get something done quickly.

81 points by delongshot 12y ago

Here are some more tips: - disable arrow keys - turn relative numbers on by default - force yourself to only move vertically using relative numbers - force yourself to only move horizontally using [fF,;]

delongshot 12y ago
Good tips! You just reminded me that I did both of those first two at first as well. Arrows especially. But those last two are good too! I'll have to add them into my workflow.
madeofpalk 12y ago
Why would you want to disable arrow keys?
- beaumartinez 12y ago
  To to keep your fingers on the home row, in order to have better access to all the other keys in your keyboard. Having your fingers on the arrow keys mean your hand has to travel that much further to type the other keys—making you slower.
  - Syssiphus 12y ago
    It's not so much about speed. It's about comfort.
  - AlexeyBrin 12y ago
    I've always wondered if the "disable the arrow key" advice given to every VIM novice makes any sense for the user of a 11" - 13" laptop. It was probably a good advice for a classical keyboard, but I find the arrow keys quite handy when I work on a small laptop keyboard.
    - Morgawr 12y ago
      I started seriously using vim around the time I started coding on the go with a very old eeePC (the first model, the absurdly small one). This was around 5-6 years ago probably. Back then I had already used vim before but only as a "normal" text editor, just go into insert mode and move around with arrows. I was forced to use vim because that old piece of crap PC (I still love it though) wasn't powerful enough to run anything, really, and the screen was super small. I noticed using arrows key was super uncomfortable because yes, they were closer to the actual home row but they were also smaller, clunkier and harder to press. So I decided to force myself to use hjkl and disable arrow keys. It was definitely one of the best decisions of my (coding) life. Just comfortably resting your hands on the home row (either laptop keyboard or normal one) simply makes your typing more relaxed and after the couple of weeks (months?) struggling with left/right (up and down was fairly easy) you really stop noticing it. Funnily enough, I re-enabled arrow keys a year or so ago and I haven't really felt the temptation to use them anymore. DISCLAIMER: This turned me into a super slow and awkward typist when I am trying to work on text in an editor that does not support vim mode (like google docs for example). I have several documents around with jjjkkjhjjhjjllljh unfortunately.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- throw_away 12y ago
  I would argue that it's best to disable arrow keys in insert mode only. This is the real problem here. By using arrow keys in insert mode, the novice ends up using vim just like a glorified notepad, and never truly understanding the different modes. Since they aren't ever going back to command mode, they never consider using more advanced movement operators, and then they never realize the power of composing motions and commands. Whenever I start teaching someone vim, I always add this to their .vimrc: inoremap <Left> <nop> inoremap <Right> <nop> inoremap <Up> <nop> inoremap <Down> <nop> This way, arrows still work as expected in command mode, but not in insert mode. The novice will learn to only insert in insert mode, and move and operate in command mode.
beaumartinez 12y ago
Good tips. Getting in the habit of explicitly searching (/) instead of scrolling is another one. On the subject of using fFtT (and other motions), there's a plugin I quite like that works well with my mental model of that motion—I often don't want to go to the first instance of that character, but the second or third in that line. EasyMotion[1] lets you do that. [1] https://github.com/Lokaltog/vim-easymotion https://github.com/Lokaltog/vim-easymotion
tomjakubowski 12y ago
> - force yourself to only move vertically using relative numbers > - force yourself to only move horizontally using [fF,;] These tips doesn't strike me as helpful. The w, b, e et al. (word boundary); % (paired delimiters); /, ? (occurrence); ^, $ (begin/end of line); and text object motions are indispensable to a Vimmer, and I use them all far more than I use [fF,;]. / and ? are more useful to me than f/F because it's often easier and faster to include another character or two of unique context for a character than to count occurrences beforehand or tap ; a bunch of times and they also work across multiple lines. I'm finally learning and remembering to use marks which are another great way to navigate a buffer or even several buffers at once.
mmahemoff 12y ago
- disable arrow keys - force yourself ... - force yourself ... This strikes me as an attitude that drives people away from Vim. Maybe it depends on individual differences in learning style, but I would say the exact opposite. Embrace the arrow keys! And all else that is familiar. The moment you start with Vim you're diving in the deep end and productivity will take a plunge. At least training wheels like the arrow keys can help you stay productive and keep using it for long enough until you cross over the productivity threshold (where you're more productive than on a normal editor, even though you still have a lot more learning to do).
- raverbashing 12y ago
  Arrows are just another way of jumping, this is not Unix VI, this is VIM It's an editor, it should be as easy as possible. People (should) use VIM because it's powerful, not because it's different from other editors.
- IE6 12y ago
  Agreed - I use vim heavily and also use arrow keys (when I can) and when they do not work for whatever reason i fall back to HJKL. For me my main blocker was just purely not being able to use it for the absolute basic operations. I found that once I learned how to do the absolute basic (insert, copy, paste, move around, search, etc.) I was able to use vim. The next step was building my own vimrc with some very basic configurations that made vim much easier to use. Then whenever I need or want to do something complicated I just google for the command, plugin, or write my own plugin.
Supermighty 12y ago
I think disabling the arrow keys is a mistake for someone just coming to vim. The arrow keys can act as a warm blanket of familiarity while learning the harsh winter of vim. When a noob is making mistakes and getting frustrated having the arrow keys work like normal is a comforting reprieve. Once someone has a couple of months of vim under their belt then would I recommend disabling the arrow keys.

jumpwah 12y ago

But that was what Ornstein meant by cheatsheet. Anyways, why did you "want to learn Vim for a long time", did you feel limited by st?

delongshot 12y ago
Right, I thought I heard him mention it, but couldn't remember where. Looks like he mentions it in this post >> http://robots.thoughtbot.com/the-vim-learning-curve-is-a-myth http://robots.thoughtbot.com/the-vim-learning-curve-is-a-myt... And really, I wanted to learn so I could pair with other programmers remotely. I had heard that many were using tmux and Vim so I thought it was time.
- jumpwah 12y ago
  I don't remember where exactly either, but I think in multiple videos/talks of his, one of his top tips if you're new, is to make a list of your top 5 or so new commands you'd like to learn/focus on each week and keep using or referring back to them so that it starts becoming muscle memory. And fair enough, was just curious why you kept persisting. :p
briandear 12y ago
Vim is much more efficient. For example, within Tmux, one never needs to leave the terminal; with ST, there's a frequent switching cost which compounds over the course of a day. If one were to put Tim Pope up against an ST master, it's almost certain Pope would win.
- wyclif 12y ago
  I love the iTerm2 + tmux + vim + zsh environment. It takes a little time to figure out how to juggle the configuration for them, but once you do, it's super efficient.
  - joshfinnie 12y ago
    Are you dotfiles openly available? I have the same set of tools, but still find things are slightly off... would love to compare notes.

sgt101 12y ago

1) Having to because the environment only supported Vim and was locked down, and my job depended on it. 2) There is no 2 Because if there is no (1) then why would you?!!!

kornakiewicz 12y ago

Considering that learning Emacs is comparably hard as learning Vim I think that second advice is not always right, especially when the pet project is developed in language you're learning and not familiar with - which is often the case. It's often hard to learn new keybindings, new syntax, new workflow, new idioms and maybe even new paradigm. Sometimes it's simply too much for evening time, when I want to do something for pleasure.

stemc43 12y ago

I'm only using Vim for server-side config editing. And then a good full-fledged IDE for any large software development tasks.

desdiv 12y ago
The two aren't completely mutually exclusive. There are Vim emulators for pretty much every popular IDE out there.
- hoggle 12y ago
  That's also how I've been doing it for some time now - best of both worlds! Sometimes it can get a little flaky though as recently there were some glitches in the IdeaVim plugin and it hurt my productivity badly (I'm so much faster in Vim mode). The issues have fortunately been fixed by now. I had always been struggling with Vim for bigger projects because I had to waste many good hours over highly individual sets of dotfiles with plugins like Nerdtree and others (integrated debugging, jumping to function definitions etc) I could have been programming instead... IDEs like Xcode and RubyMine are tightly integrated with their domain out of the box so to me there is not much I could rationalize about in terms of using Vim (unfortunately). I even picked up WebStorm for node/js/html development recently, naturally with the IdeaVim plugin activated at all times :)

chestervonwinch 12y ago

Perhaps this is stating the obvious, but for me, the biggest thing was to not allow myself to fall back on my normal editor. Otherwise, the path of least resistance is easiest to follow.

mwfogleman 12y ago

I found Anki / spaced repetition helpful when learning (still learning, always learning) Emacs. I make cloze deletion cards for the commands and their explanations.

jmr0 12y ago
Agreed. Especially for the more advanced or less commonly used vim/ed shortcuts, adding them to my general Anki deck was invaluable. I went through "Practical Vim" by Drew Neil and added all the useful shortcuts to the deck, and whenever they would come up for review I would also try my best to put them to use that same day. The card format would be question/answer e.g. "how do you split a window vertically?" I also used this approach to familiarize myself with the various unix tools I don't necessarily use daily (sed, awk, etc)

snarfy 12y ago

Still relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2911930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2911930

muraiki 12y ago

The biggest thing that helped me to learn to use vim fluently by building up muscle memory (and making commands automatic) was playing Vim Adventures, a browser based adventure game that gradually teaches you vim commands: http://vim-adventures.com/ http://vim-adventures.com/ I haven't tried the full (paid) version yet, but the demo was enough to get me moving around text quickly. Now I finally understand why people use this crazy thing. :) Also, if you really want to fly through text, try out https://github.com/Lokaltog/vim-easymotion https://github.com/Lokaltog/vim-easymotion

organsnyder 12y ago
I sprung for the paid version, and have progressed part of the way through the last level. Compared to the demo, I think that it helped with some more advanced features, but mostly just made me aware of them rather than giving me the proficiency I learned with the basic commands. Perhaps if I repeated the game, I'd become more natural with them. Still, highly recommended. It's been a lot of fun to play, and it helped me to quickly become proficient.
hereonbusiness 12y ago
The biggest thing that helped me was when I realized that it actually all makes sense. Every time you use vim and catch yourself repeating a command over and over (x, dd, hjkl) take a moment and think about if there is a more efficient way to do it by combining the commands you know. Let's say you need to delete everything from you current cursor position to the next paren in the current line, ok you know that: t -> move till char x in the current line T -> move till previous char x in the current line d -> delete so you can combine that to: dt( -> delete everything till next ( in line Delete 10 lines, instead of 10 times "dd" you can just do: 10dd Go from line 0 to line 20, instead of pressing j 20 times: 20G Delete from current position to line 20: d20G These are all really simple examples, but once you get the hang of it you move on to more complex stuff in no time, and you probably won't even have to look it up, it will just make sense.
- muraiki 12y ago
  Yes, but there's a difference between "makes sense" and "I can do it without thinking, so it is a lot faster than pressing ctrl + right arrow a few times" which then leads to "maybe I'll use vim instead of Sublime Text after all." :)

cschmidt 12y ago

There is finally a good 'first' book about learning Vim, that just came out this week: Pro Vim www.amazon.com/Pro-Vim-Mark-McDonnell/dp/1484202511/ He sets you up with a reasonable .vimrc to start, which I think it key to get over the bad defaults. He starts at the beginning, and takes you well beyond what vimtutor covers. I'm working my way through it now. I'd also suggest vimcheatsheet.com, for something to hang on the wall. I just don't get the cheatsheets that have a keyboard, since I don't really think about the location of the keys I'm typing.

icantthinkofone 12y ago

Step one should be to get it out of your head that vim is hard or hard to learn. Sitting with my son, years ago, I got him doing simple editing of files for me proficiently in less than five minutes. Deleting words and lines and selecting whole paragraphs and sections. Copying and pasting. He was 15. vim is easy.

danso 12y ago

I've always wanted to learn vim, as so many great coders use it and swear by it, and it doesn't seem fundamentally harder than any other power-user skill. My biggest fear is that I work with novices (who are using something like Sublime) on a regular basis, and it's more friction than it's worth to switch between the two kinds of muscle memories. Also...maybe I don't write/edit enough code to justify learning vim? I mean, both measured in lines and in number of projects. I'd like to think I've advanced to the point where I'm spending 95% of my time thinking and 5% of my time actually typing in code...being able to quickly grep and navigate through Sublime Text is definitely a vital asset, but I'm not sure how much vim will add to my overall efficiency.

nkuttler 12y ago
If you have tools that work for you I don't see a reason to change. I use vim because it's a great editor, can run in a terminal, and is open source. I know the producer won't go out of business.
- danso 12y ago
  Ah yes...the ability to use in a terminal is a huge thing. That ubiquity was not important to me a year ago, but now I'm at a Unix shell so often that I most definitely feel the pain of doing quickie scripting via nano/pico. Hmm, I think you've convinced me :)
couchand 12y ago
I agree that an advanced developer spends very little time actually typing, and I think knowing some of the more advanced vim commands can help cement that. Visual block mode and command-limited search and replace in particular are vital features for a software developer, when so many of the code changes that need to be made are similar in multiple locations.

wyclif 12y ago

A more elegant solution than a notecard may be using a vim cheatsheet wallpaper, like this: http://vimfoo.com/2012/09/vim-shortcut-wallpaper/ http://vimfoo.com/2012/09/vim-shortcut-wallpaper/ The downside of that is that it isn't customizable, so I get why he likes the 3x5 card. But at least you can't lose this.

couchand 12y ago
Notably that only features the movement commands. But by limiting the scope it allows for a remarkably intuitive layout that helps put everything in context. Thanks for the link!
to3m 12y ago
"Awesome! With my vim cheat sheet wallpaper I will never forget anything! This time next year, Rodney..." <opens large vim window> "Oh..."
- bencollier49 12y ago
  +5 points for using that reference on Hacker News.
- Zardoz84 12y ago
  Konsole with transparent background or set the wallpaper as background...

userbinator 12y ago

Vim is a huge editor but I don't think the subset of commands that are absolutely necessary to do any editing at all is difficult to memorise; from memory, these are the ones I started with: hjkl i Esc or ^[ :w :q :q! :wq

cosarara97 12y ago
Also, if you want to learn hjkl you just have to play some NetHack ;)

heyts 12y ago

I have been meaning to learn Vim for a while but everytime I was trying I ended up being overwhelmed by the number of command (and also frankly, the weird syntax of .vimrc). I finally took a step by step approach and started with a very minimal .vimrc and worked my way up from there, solving real problems I ran into. I think the key is to choose your battle. Also this helped me understand the core concepts of how Vim operates: https://pragprog.com/book/dnvim/practical-vim https://pragprog.com/book/dnvim/practical-vim

wyclif 12y ago
That is the way to do it, because I think it's a mistake to copy another user's ~/.vimrc especially if you aren't aware of why those settings are in use. You'll learn more, faster, if you start with a blank ~/.vimrc and build it up yourself. Another tip to advance up the learning curve is to start using vim for everything, not just code. Write email, todo's, documentation, and everything else with it and pretty soon the learning curve doesn't feel so steep anymore.
couchand 12y ago
One thing to remember about your .vimrc file is that it's just a list of commands. What's the command to expand tabs? :set et. And the corresponding .vimrc setting? set et. One fun thing to do to a friend is echo q >> ~/.vimrc.

gnuvince 12y ago

[Two steps, eh?](http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/572078-how-to-draw-an-owl http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/572078-how-to-draw-an-owl)

samuell 12y ago

For me, what finally worked, after many other attempts, was: 1. Run through vimtutor thoroughly [~30 mins]. 2. While doing that, memorize the 10-15 commands in the tutorial that stick. Leave the rest (for a later time). 3. Start using vim full-time from now on. Worked perfect!

vegabook 12y ago

For me, mapped caps lock to escape and thereafter never looked back. I found reaching to the top left of my keyboard was breaking my concentration. Especially given I touch type. Also visualbell is almost mandatory otherwise "beep mode" was enough to drive me crazy.

MrBuddyCasino 12y ago

Time and again, these "how to coerce yourself into learning this hostile tool called vim" posts appear. I read them, and it sparks my interest. But usually, whats missing is part 2, which goes: "... and this is why it was so totally worth it". An no, just because it works over SSH and is installed on every server is not quite sufficient. Also, are you programming in a script language or a .NET or JVM behemoth?

Kurtz79 12y ago
"... and this is why it was so totally worth it". This is something that is difficult to explain, but absolutely clear to you once you have achieved some degree of efficiency. Muscle memory makes the editor disappear and let you focus, not on the keyboard, not on the menus, but on code itself. I suggest you watch some live-coding videos of people very experienced in the editor to get an idea (in this case the programmer uses emacs, but the concept is the same): https://www.youtube.com/user/handmadeheroarchive https://www.youtube.com/user/handmadeheroarchive
- rballonline 12y ago
  Do you know what is the guy using within VS here? Is this an Emacs extension or something added on top. He seems to be going full screen and switching files very quickly. I've seen this before on someone's machine but didn't ask about it. I don't know anything about emacs myself.
  - Kurtz79 12y ago
    I'm a vim guy, but the strength of emacs is that is basically running on its own lisp, so it's completely programmable. He's likely to be running a customized version.
DEinspanjer 12y ago
I first saw Vim in use back in 2000. I was working at NuMega (Compuware lab at the time) and I was a Windows only user that was just starting to get very comfortable with the DOS prompt and I used Notepad for any editing that wasn't done in Visual Studio. I had some huge file in which I had to do a bunch of refactoring. Some search and replace, and some reorganization. I had been plodding away, copying, pasting, and repetitively hitting the arrow keys and typing a few characters in each place for about 5 minutes when a friend came over and saw what I was doing. He was an absolute *nix expert. After a few moments, he told me that he could finish all those changes in just a minute. I had seen him code in Vim before, and was impressed, but it seemed like magic at the time. I saved the file and went over to his desk and asked him to walk me through exactly what he was going to do. He loaded the file up in Vim and started with a quick regex that knocked out 80% of the work. He then recorded a macro that yanked the current counter number into a buffer, searched for the next edit position, pasted in the counter number, incremented it, then shifted position to the next code block and updated that reference as well. He then asked me about how many sections there were. I said about a hundred, so he typed 99@q and poof! There were a few more, so he did a :g/<some keyword>/p to see how many lines there were and then did that many more macro invocations and the file was done. I was hooked at that point. He set me up with gVim and some tutorials and taught me the most basic fundamentals and told me that it didn't matter if I couldn't make vimgolf par for the first year or so. If I used it and every once in a while picked up a new motion or command, after a few years, it would change my coding life. He was right.

cjjuice 12y ago

The most important thing I would say to anybody that wants to use vim is relax! Here are some steps I think will be helpful: 1 ) Install vim with janus and use gvim/macvim. This will allow you to use vim pretty close to your previous editor. 2) Learn hjkl movement and how to move between insert/movement/visual modes. 3) Try to use them as much as possible. It's ok if you use arrow keys or mouse from time to time. 4) Introduce no more than one additional feature a week. 5) Have fun! There is no "right way" to use vim. Use it how you see fit.

joshfinnie 12y ago
I am still on the fence about the usefulness of Janus as someone starting with Vim. Sure it gets you closer to ST, but is that really the end goal? Why not still use ST?

sophacles 12y ago

I've been using vim pretty much full time since around 2000. The one important thing to accept about it: you'll never know all of it. It's just huge. (but you'll never know all of any big dev environment - such is the life of a software dev). To get really good with it, after the basics, I just kept (and still do) in mind that "there's probably a better/easier/faster way to do this". Then roughly once a quarter I'll spend an afternoon figuring out how to do something new, and consciously focus on incorporating it into my workflow. Just like I would with any other tool or technique. Just because it's "old school stuff like vim" doesn't mean it isn't worth learning. I don't know how it's viewed so differently than say, learning how to use containers, or learning how to do event based programming, or any other concept that slows you down for a little before making you more productive.

cellover 12y ago

Interesting post! I found another way to improve my vim skills and memory was to simply write a wiki page with all the shortcuts / key strokes I learned or used. It has a big benefit for me of anchoring things in my memory. Always having it open when in vim, referring to it often, adding things, moving things, reorganizing categories was a huge benefit for me. Here is a screenshot of my wiki page index: http://imgur.com/my7lJJG http://imgur.com/my7lJJG Also, having ones' dotfiles synced on github can be highly beneficial as your vim env / plugins will be consistent between desktop / laptop / office / friends' place. [Edit] - cosmetics

quickpost 12y ago
Would you be willing to share the HTML for your wiki page? Just looking at the table of contents, it seems really useful for those of us trying to learn vim compared to the normal cheat sheet that looks like a periodic table...
- cellover 12y ago
  Sure! Here it is: http://pastebin.com/BbJv6sWX http://pastebin.com/BbJv6sWX It's raw HTML, sorry for the format :) Note that I have the same kind of stuff for everything linux related: http://imgur.com/fI12YY5 http://imgur.com/fI12YY5
  - quickpost 12y ago
    Great, thanks!

kev6168 12y ago

Vim's usefulness comes from the combined effects of many Vim commands, also the benefit of a unique way of doing things. Sadly this combination is hardly available after only a few hours or a day's study. Knowing only a few commands won't give you much reward, and without immediate reward, people often lose motivation to continue. IMHO a good approach is to devote one or two months' available time, make yourself super focused, just read, memorize and practice, whenever and wherever you can. Also try not to use Vim for actual work in this stage. Practice a lot with small scripts. After a month or two of violently focused study/practice, you will either stop for whatever reason (that's OK because the knowledge gained will be useful for the rest of your career), or you have become good at 30 or 40 Vim commands/options/tricks, the combination of them actually make you more productive than before. The reward is sweeeet, so the learning goes on, probably for many more years.

somehnreader 12y ago

I used vim for a long time on servers, and only there to make quick edits and wasn't very good at it. I bought a new laptop recently and just didn't install any text editors. I had a deadline a month away and a project where I was familiar with the existing technologies. That motivated me enough. Add a bit of vimgolf and a lot of googling and here I am using vim for everything, everywhere. I occasionally catch myself writing emails in vim and then just copying them into Mail before I fire them off.

cnp 12y ago

I went the flashcard route, but used Wunderlist instead. I would look at it at night before bed, and in the morning right after I woke up. Using this technique I felt totally proficient after about a month, with the ability to get work done after about a week.

larrybolt 12y ago

What made the difference for me was a Vim version with a project/file drawler, like the one by alloy: https://github.com/alloy/macvim https://github.com/alloy/macvim After a while I got fluent enough with vim to switch to NERDTree. Btw, such a shame vimR (http://vimr.org/ http://vimr.org/) wasn't around back when I started using vim, it looks awesome to learn vim-motions but still be able sometimes to use insert-mode and mouse if you have to get something done quickly.