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Comment by namelosw | Hacker News Reader

- So, how did you learn Vim? I heard there's quite a learning curve.

- I just open it, but I couldn't figure out how to quit. Then I have been using it for three years already.

(Same applies to Emacs.)

The accepted answer here [1] is what got me to see the light. Once I realized how composable the main commands are, vi became kind of fun.

I still prefer Emacs because of macros and org-mode, but I no longer fear vi when I'm doing a quick edit, editing a huge file, or on a emacsless new machine.

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-mos...

That was my way into learning Vi(m), too, and I also stayed with Emacs, but using Evil mode. I struggle with vanilla Emacs nowadays, tbh.

What do you do if you need more entropy? Open vim and ask a graphic designer to exit.

Emacs prompts you to use the tutorial on startup if you haven't configured it.

So does ViM :)

I have tried to start using vim so many times and failed. Even this year I thought to start using vim. Daily I open vim once try to do something new with it. Although I don't have much of hope that I will start using it an soon.

As a sysadmin, not a programmer, what I found helpful for learning Vim was not to try something new each day, but to find one or two commands that were valuable enough that I would at least open Vim somewhat regularly. The two that did it for me are delete line (dd), and change inner word (ciw), both extremely helpful for config file editing, especially when combined with repeat command (.)

After learning these first simple commands, it was enough to get me to open Vim at least a few times a day, which then motivated me to start learning more of the commands and it just snowballed along. I still only know probably 25% of Vim, but I feel incredibly comfortable in it now and rarely run into trouble when doing beginner to intermediate editing tasks.

As a fellow sysadmin, I would advise to learn vi properly then switch to Vim because the former is pretty much everywhere, and for example you could mess the file with cursor keys in Insert mode instead of using hjkl in it.

That's good advice, but in all practical situations I have been able to use Vim directly or know enough vi to get by, though I am much less comfortable with it.

I don't touch type, so hjkl, even though I understand the benefits, has never been my preference. Perhaps it's the gamer in me, I've never had trouble using the arrow keys :)

As far as I know, hjkl was first introduced in games and later used in vim because we don't have to move our hands far away from the keys.

Feel free to correct me If I'm wrong.

https://catonmat.net/why-vim-uses-hjkl-as-arrow-keys

One neat thing this misses is that in ASCII, H is left, CTRL-H is backspace (which goes left while doing a thing); J is down, CTRL-J is linefeed (which goes down while doing a thing, sorta). It ends there, unfortunately - I don't see a good connection between vertical tab and up or formfeed and right.

The idea behind trying something new every day is just that I know what are the thing that are possible not to learn it by heart.

For example, Now I know if I need to go to the next instance of the word under the cursror. There's a command for it.

I finally started using Vim sort of by force, and am already becoming proficient with it after a few hours (and liking it). The reason was that my ISP sent me a cheap Chromebook for free, and I've started using it for coding during my commute (and relegating my old laptop to my music studio). A few days ago there was a ChromeOS update that seems to have killed the ability to connect to code-server (a VS Code server) from the browser, no matter what I tried, and then I tried my old trusty Emacs and I can't get MELPA to detect go-mode at all.

Infuriated by all of the above I found a nice tutorial on how to set up Vim for Go development, used vimtutor, and now I've been able to do non-trivial amount of work while on the train. I actually rather enjoy vim now.

You might want to check out https://vim-adventures.com/

I very much enjoyed the first level. Already quite proficient in vim, I balked at the cost of the full game - but it might well be worth it in your situation.

I'm not sure if I should mention it here, but in case some people are not familiar -- these lines make using vim a very easy experience for those used to CUA editing interfaces:

  set nocompatible
  source $VIMRUNTIME/mswin.vim
  behave mswin

It doesn't really change the command mode if you're used to traditional vim, but you can use shift-arrow keys to select text in VISUAL mode, use CUA commands like C-c, C-x and C-v, etc. Keys like Home, End, C-insert, and S-delete also work.

I first used vi / vim about 30 years back. There are other editors that provide fancy features and I do use them routinely but there is no day I have not started (and exited) vim. Get used to it.

I've made quasi-regular attempts to get truly comfortable with both Emacs and Vim at various points over the... last two decades, honestly. Strangely, I was always a little more comfortable in Vim, even though the other editors I've been comfortable with through the years have been modeless. Last year, though, Vim actually took for me, and I think there were three reasons:

(1) Buying the book Practical Vim from the Pragmatic Programmers, which is aimed at people who kinda-sorta know Vim but don't know much of Vim. I still haven't truly internalized a lot of what I've read, but just understanding the magic of ":find", "." and a slightly greater number of the Ten Thousand Ways to Select has been amazing.

(2) Trying to do as much as possible with "native" commands rather than plugins, then adding a smaller number of considered plugins back in.

(3) Having a real project -- of sorts -- to work on and sticking with Vim for that project. In this case, the project was going through the entire Pragmatic Studio course on Rails 6. (It's good.)

I'm pretty sure these same three steps would work for learning Emacs, too. (Obviously with a good book on Emacs in step 1, not Vim, yes, yes.) But I'm actually pretty happy with Vim.

Also, the proper way to quit MacVim is clearly to select "Force Quit" from the Apple menu.

Thanks for the book suggestion. I will definitely check it out.

I learned the 2nd point the hard. The first time I tried vim, I added as much plugin as I can end. In the end, it was a giant mess.

One day several years ago I found a ~15 year old laptop on the side of the road and wondered what I'd do with it. 300MHz processor, "what's Ethernet?", and I didn't have the little pile of flaky USB Wi-Fi dongles I have now.

And it was only through attempting to actually install from the Slackware CDs I'd burnt several years earlier that I discovered the scratches on them were unfortunately not just decorative scars.

So: gcc, corrupt. g++, corrupt. Python, corrupt. Perl, corrupt. sed, ...not corrupt. grep, also not corrupt.

I love working on little projects. At one point I noticed that installing specific packages quickly and easily wasn't straightforward because I couldn't see what was already installed.

dialog was among the uncorrupted, and I wondered if I might use this to show installed and uninstalled packages side by side.

That was when I discovered the info pages were also intact, and that sed and grep both had excellent info documentation.

Unfortunately I deliberately gave up working on the project after a few days, as I developed headaches from staring at multiple ~5-6 line (ie, ~480 char) monster regexes over the course of a week or so. (Imagine multiple blocks of modem line noise each 2-4 times longer than http://bash.org/?464385 and you're in the ballpark.)

I do plan to finish that script at some point though (when I regain access to that laptop's HDD). It was only 5 sed commands and 4 grep commands...

I'm in the same boat. Somehow, neither vim nor emacs have ever made a compelling case for me to switch from nano which "just works"

Spacevim is very user-friendly. Or at least as close as vim gets.

> - So, how did you learn Vim? I heard there's quite a learning curve.

You can go through the interactive vimtutor.

Type :help tutor

Or you can just type :help and find the link to the vimtutor. If you are using gVim, then it should be one of the menu items ( maybe under help? ).

My suggestion is to just search for basic vim cheat sheet if you are getting started. There are also youtube tutorials online. Sometimes watching someone work with vim can help you get over the hump.

> - I just open it, but I couldn't figure out how to quit.

:q to quit.

:q! to quit without saving.

Remember to hit ESC to get back to the normal mode first if you are in other modes.

When you are comfortable with Vim then you can go on to some of the advanced vim topics. Also, in the beginning you might have to ddg/google/etc a bit. Good luck.

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