Dummkopf's guide to vim

[Wendell Cochran]

Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:53:39 +0300
From: "Willy K. Hamra" <w.hamra1987 at gmail.com>

Knapp:
>> . . . a VIM mode for Kate. . . .

>>> Dotan Cohen
>> . . . As a newbie I would type vim filename and then not have a
>> clue how to get back out or save what I did. . . .

Willy K. Hamra:
> the first time i used vim, i didn't know how to close it! X wasn't
> running, and i started vim to edit xorg.conf, had no clue how to
> work, or how to quit, . . . it's a gap in everybody's computer
> literacy to not know how to use vim.

Quite so.

1.  I've learned painfully: NEVER start a program unless I know how to
stop it.  Quit, ESCape, Exit, ^C . . .  

(Sadist coders appear to devise novel ways of keeping a user inside
their pet programs until in desperation the victim hits the Big Red
Switch.)


2.  Almost every introduction to vi(m) opens with a warning that the
program is anti-intuitive & forbidding -- that the learning curve is
nearly vertical.  What a way to teach!

The bugbears are wrong.  

Luckily for me, I learned the basics of vi before being told it was
impossibly difficult for my sort.  

(I used _Learning the vi Editor_ [1992 O'Reilly] by Linda Lamb.
The 6th edition is bloated to near inutility -- for beginners,
anyhow.)

Nor had anyone revealed that in vi mnemonic aids abound.  For example,
 a (the command for append), b[back up, c[hange operator, d[elete, e[nd,
f[ind, G[o to . . . .  


3.  Prospective users of vi should ignore invidious comparisons with
emacs.   At best they're trolls.  Instead  bear in mind Unix (& Linux)
philosophy, under which we use the tool that best fits the job at
hand.

Wendell Cochran
West Seattle