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Comment by RevRal | Hacker News Reader

Vim is actually next my list of productivity tools to learn -- I just got done learning the Colemak keyboard layout.

How painful can I expect this experience to be? Vim doesn't seem fun at all.

Going through all of "vimtutor" and then asking for help on the #vim channel on the freenode irc network should make learning vim as painless as possible.

There is a lot to learn, and vim certainly isn't the most intuitively designed editor on the planet; but it is one of the most powerful editors. So the work you put in to learning it will be well rewarded in productivity gains and sheer number of things that can be done in it that most other editors couldn't even dream of doing.

And once you learn it, vim is actually quite fun to use; and you might find that going back to using more traditional editors is painful, because of their inefficiency and lack of features compared to vim.

Every symbol and every letter (upper- and lowercase) on your keyboard has a specific meaning. Spend an hour trying out what all (80 or so) do - that's fun!

Then do some actual editing and try to navigate as efficiently as possible - make it a sport. Try to use as many different commands as possible.

There are some two letter commands (e.g. ZZ, gg, zt) but not that much. There are some CTRL-key commands, but few important ones. And there are tons of command-mode functions (e.g. substitution), but there are few that you really need to know.

Only "some" 2-letter commands? Try looking through ':help z' and ':help g'.

Ctrl-key commands become really important in insert and command-line modes.

And not to nitpick, but when you speak of "command-mode functions (e.g. substitution)", I think you really mean command-line mode. Command mode is another name for normal mode. Please try not to confuse the new/prospective users.

This vim cheat sheet should help you do just that:

http://www.viemu.com/vi-vim-cheat-sheet.gif

More here:

http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial...

But I still recommend "vimtutor" as a more structured approach to learning vim.

http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/usr_01.html#01.3

Thanks for all the helpful information. It all actually got me going on the process, which is the hardest part for me.

Don't jump in the deep end. Do it in bite-sized lessons. It makes it a lot easier. These are the lessons I used:

http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial...

The Colemak layout is wonderful but not so much for Vim where probably the most used key is the colon. Colemak moves this to a less accessible position, one row up, making it more painful to use constantly, as you pretty much have to in Vim.

I figured something like this would come up. I might end up remapping some keys.

my personal reason for using vim is that i love the modal editing. You drop into edit mode, do a single edit, then hop back into command mode and flip around to whatever is next. This singular edit becomes most exciting when you need to undo or redo. Rather than wait for each little keystroke to undo, your edits become singular chunks. If you hop in and out of command mode with each edit in concert with how you think about the changes you are making, then undoing (something i do alot..) becomes streamlined.

there is a nice tutorial, if you are too lazy to follow the lessons just print the cheat sheet and place right near your keyboard. Vim isn't difficould but just needs some time at the beginning but ... once you get used to it you'll miss it when you can't have it :)

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