Vim quick start

Why you should consider using Vim?

Normally nobody cares about the tools you use for development. I don’t either, but for some reason you visited this page. So I present you the benefits of using Vim (compared to your favourite IDE™):

• it’s lightweight and fast
• protects your privacy: no “telemetry data”
• available everywhere: can be found in every UNIX-like system
• open source: not just open core, it’s actually usable without big tech
• compliments terminal workflow: use tools that are not integrated to your IDE, but available in the OS
• for the curious: why is this line underlined with red?
• minimalist
• edgy

If you care about the things above (and you have all the time in the world), Vim might be for you.

the Unix philosophy “is the idea that the power of a system comes more from the relationships among programs than from the programs themselves.”

Now some opinion: Most of those fancy IDE features are done by language servers. Autocomplete is overrated, it’s the automations that will save you time.

Here is a good article on the history of Vim.

I started Vi and nothing works

help compatible
set nocompatible

Navigation

The excellent vimtutor is a good starting point. Tells you how to navigate within a file, switch modes and do some basic editing tasks.

My favourites:

• Join lines
• Open a new line and enter insert mode
• Find closing braces
• Fold reduce, fold more, fold reduce all
• Delete till character
• Change word
• Jump to matching brace (%), start/end of function ([,{)

Insert mode

^H: Backspace
^W: Delete word
^U: Delete line

Reading terminal output

ls -ail | vim -

Now check how we can use the % command-line range specifier.

:help :%

You can also use Linux commands to modify buffer content.

sort; grep; cut

Don’t forget to trim before cut!

Now insert the date in the current line.

:help :.

:.!date

Do the json lookup

https://pokeapi.co

Working with multiple files and windows

Do some buffer magic here: bn, bp, ls, bd

save layout: :mksession then start with vim -S

Single repeats

Simple changes can be repeated with the . command.

Global search and replace? Nah, search and repeat with dot.

Multiple repeats

Keep lines that contain string

:v/keeeep/d

Compare upstream and edited version of file in split

:% !git show main:my-file.txt

Then reload file that was edited outside of vim

Macro

q as in quote?

GDB???

Yes pls.

Termdebug

Quickfix

:e $VIMRUNTIME/compiler/<Tab>

My .vimrc

I try to live without plugins, but:

• base16-colors - match colors with my terminal color scheme
• buftabline - I don’t use tablines so let’s just display the buffers there.
• vim-lsp
• tagbar - Universal ctags
• ctrl-p
• slime - <c-c>v, <c-c><c-c>, <c-k><c-k>
• scroll back terminal <c-v>n

Read more

• Practical Vim

Happy editing!