Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

VIM Master

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 123 posts

Re: VIM Master

#21

Post by zeke »

soperj wrote: post #16
benjaminclauss wrote: post #9

These little tutorials and games are great. I played VIM Adventures. However, one thing I really struggle with is learning when I can be doing something more efficiently. I rarely use markers, anything beyond default registers, commands, and so on. I'm giving Neovim a try for my systems course trying to get better but I do wish these sorts of games pushed me to get better at these more advanced usage tricks.

Oh man, I use markers all the time. ma y'a mark a spot, then yank or delete everything to that line. Way easier to do it accurately rather than 13yy or however many lines you're yanking.

You can use v then move to your start line and type y or d. This way you see the text marked before yanking or deleting. v is similar. And gv will reselect the marked area.

Re: VIM Master

#24

Post by _diyar »

nickandbro wrote: post #22

Very cool site! Working on my own similar project: https://vimgolf.ai To learn new vim motions. Have since gotten distracted by life, but need to actually finish it.

Neat idea! Nit: maybe offer the first few exercises without requiring a login, that way I can get a feel for it before deciding to sign up.

Re: VIM Master

#25

Post by dwater »

zeke wrote: post #21
soperj wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, I use markers all the time. ma y'a mark a spot, then yank or delete everything to that line. Way easier to do it accurately rather than 13yy or however many lines you're yanking.

You can use v then move to your start line and type y or d. This way you see the text marked before yanking or deleting. v is similar. And gv will reselect the marked area.

And if you have line numbering on you can y123G. I learned enough Vim 25 years ago to be good enough and I'm happy I did. When I was writing code every day I picked up a little more but I've lost most of it, and what I'd want people to know who are considering it is you never need to be a Vim Master. You can learn enough Vim in 30 minutes to make it beneficial to you for the rest of your life.

Re: VIM Master

#26

Post by ramses0 »

soperj wrote: post #16
benjaminclauss wrote: post #9

These little tutorials and games are great. I played VIM Adventures. However, one thing I really struggle with is learning when I can be doing something more efficiently. I rarely use markers, anything beyond default registers, commands, and so on. I'm giving Neovim a try for my systems course trying to get better but I do wish these sorts of games pushed me to get better at these more advanced usage tricks.

Oh man, I use markers all the time. ma y'a mark a spot, then yank or delete everything to that line. Way easier to do it accurately rather than 13yy or however many lines you're yanking.

ma, mb, mc => 'a, 'b, 'c => ...just being able to "tag" each of the three functions you're working with (comparing, copying, moving code, whatever) it's eventually worth it to get them into your muscle memory. And once you "get" marks, then you "get" registers "for free".

Re: VIM Master

#27

Post by nunez »

cramsession wrote: post #15

I'm surprised they don't even mention vimtutor. It's preinstalled on every machine with vim (to the best of my knowledge). This seems like a cool project, but might as well give a shout-out to the original concept.

vimtutor is to Babbel what this is to duolingo. Many will prefer learning through a game but some want a more textbook approach. Honestly, anything to get more people on vim and emacs is a good thing in my book!

Re: VIM Master

#28

Post by merelysounds »

nomilk wrote: post #17
ixwt wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this one asks you to pay for it after a bit. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just felt bad about getting a little bit in, and then being hit with a decent pay wall.

I paid for it, was worth it for me. Reason: I did vimtutor 4 times and was learning but found it super painful/boring, but really wanted to learn vim keybindings. Vim adventures made learning keybindings and muscle memory just tolerable that I could do 1h in the evening even after a long/busy/tedious day. I probably would have persisted learning vim keybindings without it, but it definitely made doing so less painful…

A free alternative for learning just hjkl, nethack supports this way of moving[1]. Remember to keep your index finger on ‘j’ (don’t shift your hand to ‘h’), to build the muscle memory.

[1]: https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Direction

Re: VIM Master

#29

Post by jama211 »

Even though I don’t have much use for vim, and I have opinions on tools like this going beyond a certain level of efficiency because IMO the true bottleneck is usually decision/design based not implementation based, this just kinda looks fun and the appeal of vim as just a thing that feels cool to use when you have mastery of it sounds cool.

Kinda like how it feels good to play an instrument when you’re good at it, or something.

I might give it a try!

Post reply on HN