What is the best way to force yourself to master v

Question

A good while ago, I read an article by the creator of viemu, clearing up a lot of the misconceptions about vi, as well as explaining why it's a good idea (and why it's been very popular for the last 30 years+). The same guy also has a great set of graphical cheat sheets that teach the basics a few bits at a time.

I'm convinced.

I've been convinced for the past 2 years in fact. But I still really haven't gotten around to force myself to learn vi as my primary editor, the learning curve is just too high. When I get down to work, acceptable but immediate productivity (using my current editor) has so far won over tremendous productivity farther down the line (using vi).

Does anybody have any good tips to help get past the learning curve? It can be straight out tips, some other tutorial or article, whatever.

Edit: Note that I'm aware of the vim/gVim, Cream and MacVim (etc.) variants of vi. I kept my question about vi to refer to the vi family as a whole. Thanks for all the great answers.

Update (April 2009)

I've been using Vim (more precisely, MacVim) in my day to day professional life since last December. I'm not going back :-)

Good luck to everyone in their Vim mastery.

Answer 1

You should start with vim (Vi IMproved) and especially its GUI - gVim. The GUI has menus and on Windows you can use the copy, cut and paste shortcuts, so you can replace Notepad immediately. And since the menus display the shortcuts (vim commands) you could learn a lot.

Another thing that you should do from the beginning is to configure vi for your needs. For example, you can transform vim into a Python IDE. By doing this, you'll have no excuse for using another editor, because vi will offer you everything you need.

Answer 2

Write down all the short-cuts and features that you use in your current editor while you're using it at work. Then sit down on Saturday morning and using Google and stack overflow find out how to do each one of those in vi. Probably best if you use a sheet (or sheets) of paper for this.

Now disable/delete the other editors at work so that it'll take you longer to find and re-install them than look at your comparison sheet and do it in vi - i.e. you have no choice.

Lastly, publish your list of crossover shortcuts from your old editor to your new one on your blog.

Good luck!

Answer 3

delete all other text editor apps.

Then you will have to learn it.

Answer 4

My suggestion: start small. Just start by memorizing a small set of most useful commands. When I started vi, these were my top 10:

• (Esc) to return to command mode (most important!)
• a to add text after cursor
• A to add text at end of current line
• x to delete 1 character
• dd to delete 1 line
• R to replace text (overwrite)
• u to undo
• :q! (Enter) to quit without saving
• :w (Enter) to save
• ZZ to save and quit

A lot of basic editing can be done using only these commands. Once you get comfortable, the rest don't look too difficult.

BTW, I'd like to add that I used to rely on vi for my primary text editor, but now only if I have to. In my case, productivity is better when I use tools like Emacs or Visual Studio (please note: "in my case"). Try more than one tool and choose the one that helps your productivity the most. Good luck!

Answer 5

It's easy to write out a big list of commands/shortcuts, but it's difficult to remember them all without practice.

Focus on one new command at a time. When it becomes automatic, say after using it for a week or two, add another to your repertoire.

You'll be taking the long way around to accomplish certain things in the short term - these are obvious opportunities for new shortcuts to learn.

In my experience it was easier when I tried not to take on too much at once.

Answer 6

Step 0: learn to touch type. Seriously - if your fingers don't know where the keys are then vim is going to be a pain. And even if you reject vim, touch typing will improve your programming (ask Steve Yegge ) by making the mind to monitor link friction free. There is a lot of software that can help you improve your typing.

Step 1: use vimtutor to get you started. It is in gvim (under the help menu I think) or you can just type 'vimtutor' at the command line. It will take 30-45 minutes of your time and then your fingers will know the basics of vi/vim and you should be able to edit files without wanting to hurl your keyboard out of the window.

Step 2: use vim everywhere. See this question for tips and links for using vim and vi key bindings at the command line, from your web browser, for composing emails, in your IDE ... You need to use vim to embed the key bindings in your muscle memory.

Step 3: learn more about vim. You will only have scratched the surface with vimtutor. You can watch this video or read this article (both about the "Seven habits of effective text editing". You can read about tips and tricks on StackOverflow. You can browse vimtips. Learn a litle often would be my advice - there is so much out there that sticking to bite-size chunks will be the best way to make the knowledge stick.

Step 4: Profit :)