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Comment by kentt | Hacker News Reader

I've been interested in using vim and am not completely useless at using it, but I haven't quite been able to commit to it. The main reason is that I'm not sure it's any faster than using IntelliJs products well. Last time I mentioned to a coworker who is a vim user, that I was thinking if switching to it, he said he was thinking of switching to Idea after seeing me use it.

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Buried in my footnote is the real gist is: learn your editor, deeply.

IntelliJ is a great tool, too.

VIM'er here. I use IntelliJ-Pycharm when i'm really strappin in for a good DEV session. Plus you get the ideaVim plugin and i've got the same VIM magic I know and love. Plus all the fancy IDE stuff. Some will say you can upgrade VIM to IDE level (project tree, auto complete, other fancies) which is totally true. I dont got time for dat.

Other bonus for vi is that you are now capable of editing files on any unix server in the world.

spacemacs is a pretty well integrated, community sourced configuration of emacs that has a lot of sane defaults out of the box. add a few layers for your favorite languages and you are off and running. magit and org mode are both excellent reasons to use emacs. the vim bindings are some of the best i have seen in an emulator as well.

you can always learn vim stuff by using a plugin for your favorite editor. I'm frustrated quite a bit if I have to use an editor without basic vi shortcuts at the very least.

Thanks I'll start there. I keep feeling like I'm missing out on something by not being a Vim expert.

the basics of vim are easy... it's a language to manipulate text with mnemonic shortcuts for the most part and composeable actions.

`daw` is delete around a word(includes the ending space if there).

`ciw` is change inner word.(change the word under the cursor by deleting it and leaving you in insert mode to make changes).

`ci"` is change inside the double quotes.

p is put or paste

d is delete

c is change

f is find

a is insert [a]fter

first answer here[1] is a classic.

1. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-most...

I used standalone Vim for ~6 years and now use IdeaVIM with Jetbrains products for most of my work–it's a fantastic combination.

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