tyrmored

Port 22 Port 443

When your muscle memory develops to a certain point, using Vim becomes a subconscious thing. You don't have to think about how to copy all the text in between two quotes and paste it at the end of the document; there are already words in Vim's vocabulary for doing that, so you just do it. You don't need to build mental steps because it becomes completely natural, as easy as typing natural English; and just like in natural language, the more words you know well, the more likely you are to be able to use the right word at the right time, using language effectively.

Equally valuable: Vim takes the repetition out of everything. A technically versed creative mind is wasted on any repetitive task. You should never, ever have to do anything more than twice in development. You should be able to repeat and automate tasks and scarcely think about it. In Vim, this need is met by skilful use of . to repeat actions and q to record macros.

When you edit text optimally, you can concentrate on the task at hand, and the editor stays out of your way and does exactly what you need it to. You don't need to build the "subtask" of making your editor do what you want; you can just do it. I think that people who focus on the time Vim does or doesn't save you are missing the point.

    :Vex

    a
    I'm with you!
    .
    quit
    ?
    exit
    ?
    q
    ?
    q

Using Meebo's code base to make their own application might have been preferable to rebranding it in this case.

Besides, anything you want to do outside of choosing files to edit in your editor should be done in a shell: http://blog.sanctum.geek.nz/unix-as-ide-editing/

You don't have to learn it at work either. I find it's helpful to make Vim the only text editor you ever use with a dark background. The visual cue seems enough to put you in "Vim mode" so you press i before you start writing. When the background is white in your whizbang C# IDE or a Hacker News comment box, you just use your old editing habits.

Nowadays I do load a few plugins myself on the machines where I do a lot of coding or writing, but the only one that's useful every single day without fail is Tim Pope's Surround [1]. It's so useful so often that I've often thought Bram should simply ask to make it part of Vim's core to supplement the very cool idea of text objects [2]. Even if you're a crotchety old raw-Vim man, I really would say that you've got to try this out.

There are other very good plugins out there. Fugitive [3], also by Tim Pope, comes to mind if you do a lot of Git work and care about crafting really nice commits.

[1]: https://github.com/tpope/vim-surround

[2]: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/motion.html

[3]: https://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive

Admittedly I wouldn't personally recommend those mappings, because both already correspond to commands I use quite frequently. By default Y is synonym for yy, to yank a whole line, and T<char> moves back to the nearest instance of <char> on the current line. The first one I think people could live without, but the latter is kind of important for good vi.

I'll write and post it sometime in the next week or so, if you're still interested by then. Thanks for the suggestion.

In retrospect this probably wasn't wise of me; I don't use it myself, and I still run into the occasional Vim guru online who doesn't either.

I've edited the post with a clarifying note and given you a footnote. Thanks.

"Window groups" would have been a far more accurate though potentially less familiar name for the feature, in my opinion.

I don't actually use tabs much, personally. I seldom have more than three or four files open at a time.