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Vim for Humans

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Re: Vim for Humans

#141

Post by joemi »

patrickdavey wrote: post #73
gbrown_ wrote: post #3

I've only skimmed this but there seems to be a focus on customizing and plugins from the get go. I think it's worth getting to know Vim "as is" before doing such things. Indeed there certainly some things that aren't the most useful or obvious but it's good to understand their original intent. Not to crap on the author of this but I'd recommend Drew Neil's Practical Vim over this (and pretty much every other Vim book…

Yip, practical vim is absolutely excellent, I'd highly recommend it. One other link I haven't seen mentioned here is the user-manual[0] or typing (:h user-manual), and of course typing `vimtutor` at the shell... [0] http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/usr_toc.html

Vimtutor was all it took to get me both hooked and proficient enough to not feel hopeless. That said, I get why it's not the same for everyone.

Re: Vim for Humans

#142

Post by jhbadger »

BurningFrog wrote: post #84

I continue to be baffled that software written 40+ years ago, to deal with constraints and realities that are long long gone keep being used by people on the cutting edge of technology change.

The thing is the "old" software hasn't stood still for 40 years. It's like jazz. Most jazz fans don't spend their time listening to early 1920s jazz but modern forms that evolved from it.

Re: Vim for Humans

#143

Post by Philipp__ »

gepoch wrote: post #129
Lio wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are superior platforms that implement the same interface I guess that depends on how well you know Vim. All of the Vi/Vim plugins and emulators I've tried fell in the "uncanny valley" where they were only superficially like Vim but sooner or latter departed from the expected behaviour.

Yeah, fair enough. That's a very good way of putting it, and I know exactly what you mean. I think the hardest part about implementing the Vim keybindings is that they're intrinsically linked to the way that Vim models text and operations. Commands are really statements about this internal model. Without the model, it gets difficult to reproduce the full palette of vim commands with very high fidelity. You kind of in…

I encourage you to try NeoVim. I did. And I never looked back. After 6 months of Emacs, looks like I'll be back to NeoVim, and I am happy about it.

Re: Vim for Humans

#144

Post by ifoundthetao »

bgribble wrote: post #135
ifoundthetao wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vim is very easy, I think it's just simple to get overwhelmed with it. There are a couple of tools which gamify Vim. I personally haven't used them. But some say they're pretty good. For me, what worked was just jumping in and going whole hog. I tried disabling the arrow keys in Normal Mode, so I would have to use hjkl for navigation. But my keyboard puts the arrow keys in easy reach (Kinesis Advantage), so it turned…

I wrote a shell toy to help me learn vim motions.. the idea is you can grab parts of the output of previous shell commands by passing vim motions. So like when you want to say "git checkout " you can do it :) git checkout $(lw 5kyiW) It's more of a toy than a power tool but I do use it somewhat regularly. https://github.com/bgribble/lw

Interesting, you may be interested in vi mode in bash.

http://www.catonmat.net/blog/bash-vi-editing-mode-cheat-shee...

Re: Vim for Humans

#145

Post by andypants »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #114
jtmarmon wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem with learning vim is that it's like learning to bike by biking to work. most people use vim when they code, and they code at work, so using vim is directly in the way of getting any productive work done. i was just one of the ones stupid enough to waste two weeks of productivity to learn a new tool lol

I managed to stack learning vim with normal on-boarding related slack by picking it up on my first day at my first coding job. IMO, one of the top ten decisions I've made in my life.

Same, using vim "full time" was what really made me learn and appreciate it. Before that it was just something I would occasionally use when making quick edits on a server.

Re: Vim for Humans

#146

Post by clifanatic »

joemi wrote: post #138
clifanatic wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that if I were ever to write a book on vim, I'd start with a thorough introduction to ed, followed by a thorough introduction to ex, finally followed by a thorough tutorial on all the features of plain-old vanilla vi, only then to introduce the vim parts and macros and graphics and things.

I can't tell if your comment is sarcastic or not, but I, too, would love to read that.

No, not sarcastic at all - I just didn't think anybody besides me would be crazy enough to want to read such a detailed treatment of an old text editor. Guess I'd better get started writing ;)

Re: Vim for Humans

#147

Post by amboar »

bgribble wrote: post #135
ifoundthetao wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vim is very easy, I think it's just simple to get overwhelmed with it. There are a couple of tools which gamify Vim. I personally haven't used them. But some say they're pretty good. For me, what worked was just jumping in and going whole hog. I tried disabling the arrow keys in Normal Mode, so I would have to use hjkl for navigation. But my keyboard puts the arrow keys in easy reach (Kinesis Advantage), so it turned…

I wrote a shell toy to help me learn vim motions.. the idea is you can grab parts of the output of previous shell commands by passing vim motions. So like when you want to say "git checkout " you can do it :) git checkout $(lw 5kyiW) It's more of a toy than a power tool but I do use it somewhat regularly. https://github.com/bgribble/lw

For bash or any other application using the readline library you can configure it for vi mode by adding 'set editing-mode vi' to your ~/.inputrc. Note for bash you can instead add 'set -o vi' to ~/.bashrc to avoid setting the mode for all readline applications

Re: Vim for Humans

#148

Post by htns »

BurningFrog wrote: post #122
ancarda wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use Vim because I have to due to limitations, I use it because it's a joy to use. What would you suggest people use instead?

I've been very happy with the IntelliJ, RubyMine, WebStorm family of IDEs. They have similar UIs to all the other modern software I use, doesn't require a learning curve to start typing, and have tons of features the vi/emacs people don't miss because they don't know they exist. I understand that it's hard for old timer to learn a new tool. I do not understand why they're still taught to beginner programmers.

IDEs are simply horrible at actually editing text. vi/emacs don't have much of a learning curve either if you use none of their features.

Re: Vim for Humans

#150

Post by Animats »

What Vim, and a lot of other programs, really need is a single plastic-covered card which tells you how to use the program. You can squeeze a summary of calculus on one such card. Is it too much to ask for software?

(I really, really want that for Blender. The Blender hotkey document is 9 pages and years out of date.)

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