What are the benefits of learning Vim

Question

As a programmer I spend a lot of hours at the keyboard and I ve been doing it for the last 12 years  more or less  If there s something I ve never gotten used to during all this time  it s these annoying and almost unconscious constant micro-interruptions I experience while coding  due to some of the most common code editing tasks  Things like a simple copy  amp  paste from a different line  or even the same line   or moving 1 or 2 lines up or down from the current position require too much typing or involve the use of the arrow keys    and it gets worse when I want to move further - I end up using the mouse  Now imagine this same scenario but on a laptop   I ve always considered learning VIM but the amount of time needed to master it has always made me want to step back   I d like to hear from people who have learnt it and if it ends up being one of those things you cannot live without   At work  I use VS2008  C  and R   which together make editing code a lot faster and easier than ever  but even so I think I could enjoy not having to use the mouse at all   And not even the arrow keys

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I use VIM pretty much exclusively now     I used to use Vim for editing and VS Editor for debugging   This probably seems a bit crazy  but I found the Vi paradigm  macros  home key based editing etc  such a boost to my productivity  that editing in VS was paintful   Thanks to Viemu  I don t even have to do the switching any more   It is not the perfect solution yet  code completion is sometimes not as elegant as in native vim and the macro recording isn t perfect   but it is much better than switching back and forth constantly   The learning curve for Vim is probably exaggerated   I think once you get into it  it is pretty intuitive

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I learned to like vi after watching someone who was very skilled with it navigate around to make edits at an insanely fast clip   You really can code quickly with it   Another reason I like it is that sometimes I find that mousing around in an IDE really hurts my hands after a while and vi provides a nice change   As others have mentioned it s also almost always available on unix systems and works well even over lousy connections   One thing that I haven t seen mentioned is that knowing vi has the added benefit of  geek cred  in some circles   I can think of at least a few people who chuckle when they see a new programmer fire up nedit to make some changes to a file

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I learned Vim   It wasn t too much effort   Now I absolutely love ci  ci  cw V s from to g

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You might want to learn vim because you might not be happy with the editors you re already using   You might want to learn vim because many people say it is cool  Just look how many answers you ve got to this question   I will provide an additional reason for learning vim  It has a reputation for the quality and the completeness of its docs  So you will find most answers to your questions in its help system as soon as you will manage to stick the proper keywords in your help queries

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Vim is definitely worth learning to partly summarize what has been stated previously here are the main reasons    Vi Vim can be found on most unix systems  Vim allows you to easily code without taking your hands off the keyboard  If you plan you configure anything in a unix based system likelihood is you going to be editing a fair few config files  therefore you ll want to learn a terminal based editor  of which vim is one of the best  sorry emacs   Vim compiles has precompiled binaries for almost every OS out there  No need to post  I need a textmate alternative for  insert OS    you ll have Vim instead  There are a lot of good plugins out there to add alot of functionality  such as in-editor cvs diffs  although some of these require a fair amount of tinkering    Also on a side note if you find you like the Vim key bindings  there are also IDEs which include vim bindings in their editors for simple commands  for example Komodo Edit   For help on learning Vim  try typing  vimtutor  into your terminal and follow the instructions  There is also a book which is particularly good Hacking Vim

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Yes  If you don t use and don t plan to use any IDE in future  And even if you use an IDE you will find yourself returning to it to do many things  In vim you van write scripts  do complex tasks like instead of individually editing 500 lines do it with a  slightly cryptic but easy to understand once you pick up  command  I initally found it difficult but later it has helped me lot  Even the best IDE s editor will lack the power of vim  Vim can work well with CVS  SVN  make  debuggers etc   No  If you will stick to IDEs like Eclipse or Netbeans  Or if you find that editors like Kate are enough for you  Infact Kate or Notepad   or jEdit have GUI and features you may miss in vim  e g  Kate s symbol viewer or Notepad   s huge menu bar

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Yes  definately take the time to learn at least a bit of  vi  and  vim   It travels very well   You ll never be stuck when you are faced with a customer Unix Linux Mac system that you don t have install capabilities for  Even on Windows  if you do have install capabilities   Vim  is free and easy to install   As opposed to investing your learning curve purely in something like UltraEdit  which although an excellent editor might not be available for you all the time       Learning vi can set you up for learning other tools like  sed   and regex in general  stuff that is generally transferable   Plus if you want to be a proper geek  you just simply need to know  vi m  or you ll look like a faker  -

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I m in the same situation as you  and as a beginner to Vim I originally found it a little daunting - the learning curve seems steep  From what I ve learned in just a few hours I m already feeling like I won t be able to live without it   Here are a few links that I ve found for useful Vim screencasts to show you what it s capable of   A good bit of advice that Bram Moolenaar  benevolent dictator of Vim  gave in that last link is that it would be inefficient to try to learn every single command and function  just figure out what it is that you re doing that isn t working very well  look for a way to make it more efficient and then make it a habit

User · Answer

Firstly good vi m  knowledge will save you the time you have to hustle to do emergency editing of config files on a server under seige  It can hold up on a laggy ssh connection   Admin stuff aside vim s input method will be your best defence against carpal tunnel if you use it effectively with an ergonomic keyboard   The best way to see the point of vim is to start a casual project at home  unplug your mouse and tape over your arrow keys    And read the help

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An investment in learning VIM  my preference  or EMACS will pay off     I suggest visiting Derek Wyatt s site  running through the VIM Tutor  and checking out the Steve Oualine PDF book   Vim helps me move around and edit quicker than other editors I ve used   My work IDEs are quite limited in what they allow one to do and are typically devoted to a particular environment   There are tasks that still require me to revisit the IDE  such as debuggers which are a compiled part of the IDE

User · Answer

It depends what you want to do with VIM  It doesn t make sense to learn it only because many people cannot live without it   When I was working a lot on UNIX environments  I couldn t live without it  Even when VIM was not installed on a UNIX machine  I could at least use vi  You could always count on it -- even if the machine is not yours  that from the customer    Now I program in C  and mostly work on windows environment  I have installed VIM on my PC     and I don t need it   Evaluate if you really need VIM and if it supports you in your  flow of work   Try it out  Play with it  If you think you need it  stick to it     the learning curve is very steep

User · Answer

The amazing ubiquity of Vim  and the even more amazing ubiquity of Vi-clones in general  on Unix systems alone is enough to make it worth learning   Besides that  the whole Vi-style thinking is something that I really think has made me a bit more productive  For a person not used to modes such as the command mode and insert mode  it seems a bit excessive to have to enter a mode just to insert text  But  when one has been using Vim for a few months  and has learned quite a few tips and tricks  Vim seems to be an asset that seems to be worth it   Of course  the Emacs crowd says the same thing regarding Emacs-style thinking  but I gave up on learning Emacs because Vim was simpler and did the job for me

User · Answer

I think it s definitely worth the time and effort to learn vim   To me  it makes typing and navigating around text so efficient  it s hard to imagine going back to emacs or ctrl shift alt meta key combos   Don t get intimidated by all the fancy features of vim   Once you ve used it enough  you ll figure out which commands you use the most  and you ll figure out which things you can forget about

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You can get good functionality out of vim by learning the meanings of only 16 keys  ijkdbw9 q  s nNEsc  You can do the bare bones with just i wqEsc   The first two keys you need to know are  Esc takes you to command mode  the mode you start in   and i takes you to insert mode  normal typing      To save you need to   get out of typing mode  Esc  type a colon   type lowercase w then Enter   To save-and-quit you need to   get out of typing mode  Esc  type a colon   type lowercase wq then Enter   To not-save-and-force-quit you need to   get out of typing mode  Esc  type a colon   type lowercase q  then Enter     To learn more you can run vimtutor at the command line  It s a medium-length  well-structured lesson   Beyond i and Esc  you can replicate or surpass some MS Word functionality with only jkwbd3  s nN    b takes you back a word  Ctrl  larr   w takes you forward a word  Ctrl  rarr   9w takes you forward nine words db deletes the preceding word  Ctrl Backspace  d3b deletes three preceding words 9j moves down 9 lines   ornithopter Enter takes you to the next instance of the word  ornithopter   then n and N to the next and previous occurrence of  ornithopter  respectively    s confounded dangfangled  Enter substitutes every  confounded  with  dangfangled   like find and replace all in MS Word    Any of those should be run in  command  mode  Esc   not insert mode  i

User · Answer

No   Learning vim is worth more than the effort

User · Answer

My job forced me to pick up vim and it has quickly become second nature  Now my complaints are about IDE s that do not have vim emulation or plugins  I do notice that the esc key has become my enemy outside of vim    I did find several emulators for vi within Visual Studio    http   code google com p vim-visual-studio

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I am maintaining a very big linux project on the remote computer  There is no choise to use Eclipse or similar GTK based IDE  I ve been working there for 3 years  And I set my vim just for this project  And still tweaking   Now I can do any thing from the Vim  source control  sql  debug  compile  browsing - really fast browsing over 1Gb source code   Visual Studio or Eclipse couldn t handle all of this  And If I had a choice I would n change Vim to other editor or IDE

User · Answer

I learnt vi because I had to    My crazy teacher forced us to learn to program in C using a terminal to an AIX system   It was a real pain  but worth it   Today  I only use vi for quick edits or small programs    When I have to go for a project  I rather use and IDE  In my case IntelliJ idea is very good at the task  because I can code for hours without grabbing the mouse     I don t know how much shortcuts does VS2008 has  but if they are as discoverable as Eclipse  I think you are in trouble go for vi   If you DON T edit code outside the IDE and your IDE has good shortcuts  you better learn those  and then  go and learn vi anyway

User · Answer

Two advantages of vi vim    it is very light-weight it is installed on almost every  NIX system

User · Answer

I was happy at my textpad and ecplise world until i had to start working with servers running under linux  Remote scripting and set up of config files was needed    It was hard at the begining but now i can easily set up and tune up my servers

User · Answer

Running through vimtutor only took me 30 minutes  which was enough to get familiar with vim  It was worth every second of it

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If you re a programmer who edits a lot of text  then it s important to learn an A Serious Text Editor   Which Serious Text Editor you learn is not terribly important and is largely dependent on the types of environments you expect to be editing in   The reason is that these editors are highly optimized to perform the kinds of tasks that you will be doing a lot   For example  consider adding the same bit of text to the end of every line   This is trivial in A Serious Text Editor  but ridiculously cumbersome otherwise   Usually vim s killer features are considered  A  that it s available on pretty much every Unix you ll ever encounter and B  your fingers very rarely have to leave the home row  which means you ll be able to edit text very  very quickly   It s also usually very fast and lightweight even when editing huge files   There are plenty of alternatives  however   Emacs is the most common example  of course  and it s much more than just an advanced text editor if you really dig into it   I m personally a very happy TextMate user now after years of using vim gvim     The trick to switching to any of these is to force yourself to use them the way they were intended   For example  in vim  if you re manually performing every step in a multi-step process or if you re using the arrow keys or the mouse then there s probably a better way to do it   Stop what you re doing and look it up   If you do nothing else  learn the basic navigation controls for both vim and Emacs since they pop up all over the place   For example  you can use Emacs-style controls in any text input field in Mac OS  in most Unix shells  in Eclipse  etc   You can use vim-style controls in the less 1  command  on Slashdot  on gmail  etc   Have fun

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I recently switched to VIM  and I think it s worth it  If you need to  just get something done   you can always stay in insert mode  where vim is  mostly  like a normal text editor   I ve noticed that things that didn t use to bother me  like reaching for the arrow keys  now feel wrong and too much effort  It s definitely decreased my hand motion and usage of the mouse  which is good for both ergonomics and productivity

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I ve been using vi and vim also for some 20 years  and I m still learning new things   David Rayner s Best of Vim Tips site is an excellent list  though it s probably more useful once you have some familiarity with vim   I also want to mention the ViEmu site which has some great info on vi vim tips and especially the article Why  oh WHY  do those nutheads use vi   archived version

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Learning something new is always worth the effort  IMHO   I suggest you print out a cheat sheet and force yourself to use it day-in and day-out

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It s definitely worth learning either vim or emacs   It s also worth learning to touch-type   In both cases the reasons are the same  your thinking is no longer interrupted by the mechanical process of getting your code onto the screen   As to how to start  just dive in and start using vim for everything   P S  The emacs-vs-vi debate is endless   I ve been using emacs for 26 years   If I started again today I d learn vim because  a  it s gotten better and  b  there are many fewer modifier keys  Ctl-Alt-V  anyone  and vim users seem to get much less typing injury

User · Answer

Could I live without it   Easily   Is it useful   Yes   Reasons for Learning   vi is guaranteed to exist on all Unix systems and exists on most Linux ones as well   That kind of broad coverage makes learning it worth it  It s much quicker to use vi for a sudo edit     sudo vi  Also  GMail uses vi-ish commands for selecting  amp  moving emails around    You don t have to be a master     Just learn    The basics    How to switch from command mode to insert mode i How to switch from insert mode to command mode Esc How to navigate up a line in command mode k How to navigate down a line in command mode j How to navigate left a character in command mode h How to navigate right a character l How to save a file  wEnter  write  How to exit without saving  in command mode   q Enter How to Undo u How to Redo Ctrl r You can combine writing and quitting  in command mode    wqEnter   From there the rest will just make you faster

User · Answer

I ve used vi vim for 25  years  If you already know some command-line editor  then maybe you don t need to learn vi vim  But if you don t know any other command-line editors very well  it s worth learning it  It s pretty easy to be productive in vi vim with little effort

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Personally   I find many of these terminal text editors incapable at times  Would I invest time picking one up  Absolutely  I would continue to learning one along side a IDE  Of course in the end  it really comes down to preference

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I too put off learning vi or vim for many years   Matter of fact  I use to make fun of the  vi guys  who always seemed to be doing finger aerobics   Then  as I moved away from Windows and over to Linux as my primary  OS  I had to become more familiar with vim   It was a learning curve and it still is   After 9 years of using vim on a daily basis I still find myself learning new and faster ways of doing things   What I use to think of as  finger aerobics  actually turned out to be an extremely efficient way of being productive   I can now do a whole lot more code development in a whole lot less time and effort than I ever did prior to vim   And as I m sure you know vim runs on about every platform out there so you always have it when you need it   Also  if you like GUI s they have GUI versions for most platforms   Personally  just like the mouse  I don t want to see a menu bar  scroll bars  etc  cluttering up my editing window s    If you decide to give vim a whirl I would highly recommend the O Reilly  vi Editor Pocket Reference  book   It s cheap and it s great if you re just learning vi  vim    The full blown vim books are also good but the pocket reference gives you all the basics to be productive quickly

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It s definitely worth the effort   There s one obvious reason that anyone who uses Vi m  will tell you  and two others that people never seem to mention   Here s the obvious one    vi is at once ubiquitous and incredibly powerful  and by learning it once  you gain the ability to exercise that power on pretty much any computer that has a keyboard    And these are the lesser known reasons to learn Vim    It s not half as much effort as you think it s going to be  Run through the Vim tutor once  vimtutor at a shell  or in Windows run it from the Vim folder in the Start Menu   and you ll already be well on your way to competence  and it s all downhill from there  I was up to the level where I could use Vim at work without taking any noticeable productivity hit within less than a week s worth of lunchtimes  It s fun  Editing text is like a game to me now  I actively enjoy it--which is pretty ridiculous  when you think about it    There s also two good reasons not to learn Vim    It s addictive  and you ll find yourself wishing you could use Vim commands in all your computing  and cursing whenever you can t  Fortunately  at least for some situations  there s ways to get around this  Again  it s addictive  and although you won t lose any productivity from actually using Vim  you will waste hours searching for good tips to make your Vim experience even better  and reading the Vim tag on Stack Overflow

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To learn vi m  fast one must first understand the whole design   Vim has a great set of cursor-movement commands  check a few  X is a character    a digit    j k enter arrows  0    w W b B  ctrolD crtolU  ctrolE ctrolY  H M L  fX FX tX TX          gg G  n N  mX  X      and many more it would be boring to enumerate  Many of these support a count before the command  like 4j to move 4 lines up    Now  back to the design  you type a command like d for delete followed by a cursor movement and the command applies to the piece of text from the cursor position till the movement end  For example H moves to the top of the screen  dH deletes to the top of the screen and cH changes  replaces  to the top of the screen    This design is quite powerful  It also reduces  or organizes  what you need to learn   Definitively the first step is to learn a few cursor movement commands  Say 8 or 10 at first  Then you are almost done

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I d say vim is definitely worth learning  I picked it up last summer  and it is now my editor of choice for just about everything  java is a stretch  but doable when I don t need extensive analysis support   As everyone has already affirmed  it is a wonderfully efficient tool   For what it s worth  I only learned a fairly small subset of vim s features  which took a day or two  from a graphical tutorial  and a few odds and ends from here  long read   and the search and replace functionality  and I was hooked  I ve learned things since then  but at my leisure  I d say the learning curve flattens out at this point  but then  I was using it pretty heavily and was surrounded by others who were  too

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Don t be scared off by the number of commands  I ve not met anyone who used more than a couple dozen at most   I find it indispensable  because when I m thinking about code I m thinking about text  moving to thinking about mice just messes me up   The big tricks  I think  are to learn it a little at a time  and don t be hesitant to play around - the undo features is great for exploring its behaviors   Also  if you get deeply into it  vim is scriptable   The possibilities are literally endless    Yes  all of this applies to emacs too

[vim] What are the benefits of learning Vim?

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