Here is a program that will not improve your efficient but greatly impeds it. Greatly impeds until you bother to climb the very steep learning curve. Even after that, you may question, why bother.
I started looking at Vim many years ago and attempted a few times to climb
the learning curve. But each time I slipped back down and so left it on the
backburner. This time I got far enough to use it sufficiently and discover why some diehards swear by it.
Here’s my adventure into Vim.
Vim is a text editor. But it is not a WYSIWYG text editor, nor was it like Notepad. In fact, it doesn’t even look or work like any Windows-based editor you have ever used. Vim has its root in unix - the arcane operating system that does everything through commands typed into a huge black screen.
Read how the developer of Vim explain it in 6 kilobytes.
Vim really isn’t for the normal casual users, it is for programmers. It is a tool, like a swiss army knife for programmers. But it probably finds no believer among Windows programmers, even for unix users, some do not appreciate it.
I wanted to try Vim because I worked on the unix command line frequently. When connected over the internet, simple editors like pico can be real slow for editing anything more than just a few words. Nevertheless, I tolerated pico for many years, proving the power of resisting change.
Vim, which incidentally means an improved Vi, enables editing with a full arsenal of keyboard commands. In today’s environment of GUI, mouse and menu, this is an alien concept. But keyboard commands are godsend on the textmode command line. It speeds up editing considerably (provided you remembered all the commands).
It helps that there is a Windows version of Vim which I using as a training pad. Then the skills learned are put to practice on the unix server. There are plenty of pitfalls and gotcha. But there are also heaps of infomation and resource on using Vim. Taken in the spirit of learning, it was fun journey.
I do not recommend Vim for the faint of heart. But for those that are advanturous, give it a try. Who knows, you may find typing commands much at home than mouse clicking.
What I like about ?
- syntax coloring available for every conceivable language
- super quick editing, especially repetitive tasks
- trains my memory
- geek factor
It always impresses your programmer peers when they know you use Vim
Room for improvement
- None, but I wish there never was command line and the need for Vim
Where to get it?
Current version: 6.3
Function: Text editor
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