intro-to-vim/slide-notes.markdown

Intro to Vim

Intro to Vim

Why I use Vim

• Was using too many tools
  • Sublime Text 2 for editing
  • Putty for SSH
  • git bash for git
  • Cygwin for Rubt commands
• Can mostly be done in ST2, but with time invested. Restart with Vim
  • "nerd cred"
  • More importantly, server administration
    • Vim (or vi) works everywhere, no matter how broken the machine is
    • (emacs does not)
  • Repetitive Strain injury - vim helps enforce better habbits
  • After 20 years, people are still using it
• You have to decide what works for you

Everyone's first Vim session

• Bash.org joke

But how can we avoid this

• vimtutor - 30-45 minutes is enough to gain usability
• VIM Adventures - game that finally pushed me into learning
• Cheat Sheet - I still keep one printed off on a wall
• Focus on a small set - I picked five that I wrote down and learned each week
  • and still do from time to time

You will still struggle

• Some of the things I struggled with
  • Copy and paste - very different idea, more later (and more advanced)
  • Not using a mouse - if you don't plan on this, Vim is not for you
  • Getting to the end of the line example
    • I used shift+A instead of $ for months

Vim is a modal editor

• TODO

You can move around

• Focus on home row. h, l to go left and right, j, k to go up and down
  • Arrow keys are bad. Require awkward hand movements.
• Variants can get you around the screen faster.
  • Screen: H, M, L
  • Document: gg, G, :50

And do things

• insert is a complete mode switch to let you type text, leave with
• delete, change, yank act on things
• All of them put affected text into a place that can be pasted from

On objects

• Everything is an object in Vim.
• Learning to utilize these is the key to effective vim use

That can be modified

• inside - excludes the surrounding part of the object
• around - includes the surrounding part of the object
• till - from cursor to the specific character
• find - the same as till except for including the specific character

And finally combined into a language

• das - includes the spaces. dis would not include the space after

Example stuff TBD

Other Talks

• Ben Orenstein - one of my favorite speakers. more intermediate than beginner
  • Note comment on saving keystrokes
• Damian Conway - More advanced and neat plugins
• Chris Hunt - Shows basics of using Vim in combination with Tmux
  • I do this

Other

• Slides along with sample configuration available on Github