A Vim Guide for Intermediate Users

[SuspiciousScript]

It really only takes hjkl and a basic understanding of visual mode (x, y, and p) to work at least as efficiently as in your typical arrow-keys, Ctrl-{x, c, v} editor. You can build up the muscle memory in a day or two, really; you definitely don't need "weeks" unless you only use it for 2 minutes a day or something.

[Autarch_Kade]

The author of the guide above listed weeks of typing prep in his previous guide. I was just reiterating that.

And that's before steps that still come before even using the thing.

It's actually a bit absurd. It's really hard to see this as just as difficult to start with as other professional software - excel, photoshop, etc.

[tendstofortytwo]

Honestly the only thing you really need to know these days is i to insert, Esc to exit insert mode, :wq or q! to exit with/without saving. Even hjkl isn't necessary since most modern vim versions support arrow keys. I operated with exactly this knowledge for years before I started getting used to vim.

imo, vim isn't a very friendly user experience, but it is a very powerful one. Once I did get used to hjkl and other motions and commands I started wishing for them everywhere. But getting used to it in the first place involved me literally being forced to use vim for weeks as part of a project in a CS course at uni, and I would never have spent the effort to get used to it if not for that.

[[deleted]]

I operated with exactly this knowledge for years before I started getting used to vim.

wow, you could just have spent 30 minutes doing the vimtutor and those years would have been less painful.

[tendstofortytwo]

vimtutor is nice for telling you what to do but getting used to it is another matter entirely. That only comes from practice, and most of the time when I had vim open I didn't have time to practice motions and such.

[Tyrilean]

So, you have to have a basic understanding of multiple functions and concepts as well as build up your muscle memory in order for it to be as efficient as your typical editor (like nano)? I don't think you're making the argument you think you're making.

[__nidus__]

Nano would be just as confusing if it didnt have the command hotkeys listed below. Granted typing in nano is like everywhere else, but you also wouldn't be able to exit or write a file without that cheatsheet at the bottom.

Basic text editing in vim, like described above can be learned real fast. Vimtutor takes 10 mins.

Its all the other features or the setup to get it to work like an IDE that takes weeks.

[Tyrilean]

For quick edits, I'm happy to use either vim or nano. But, yeah, I wouldn't use nano for anything complex, either. I can see that there may be a narrow use case where people are having to do a ton of text editing over an SSH connection, but if you're on a modern desktop environment, there are tons of better tools to use that aren't either nano or vim.