Beginner guide to started with vim without blowing your head off

Beginners guide to getting started with vim without blowing your head offRock vim without getting discouraged ( I hope !)Credit: https://github.com/kuator/Vim-memesHere is a link to my previous article if you are wondering why the hell you would learn …

Beginners guide to getting started with vim without blowing your head off

Rock vim without getting discouraged ( I hope !)

Credit: https://github.com/kuator/Vim-memes

Here is a link to my previous article if you are wondering why the hell you would learn vim.

First I will list some of the recipes for disaster :

  1. You read some articles on the internet that vim is awesome. Also, some cool dudes on youtube making coding videos, they are using vim.
  2. Being highly interested and motivated, you start looking for ways to get started in vim.
  3. You find an article or youtube video about how to set up vim as an IDE and use vim full time! ( It starts getting downhill at this point ).
  4. So now, instead of learning to love vim and realizing the necessity of vim first, you are installing hundreds of plugins, remapping like crazy, and getting overwhelmed trying to memorize keybindings and getting lost in dotfiles.
  5. You give up.

I have a couple of questions for you

  1. When you are interested in learning something new, say NodeJS, React what do you do?
  2. When one day you realize you need to take better care of your health and decide to go running, what do you do in the beginning?

For most people the answer to the first question is you start by learning the basics for javascript first. Write an API that returns HELLO WORLD. Write a react application that calls the API and renders HELLO WORLD. What will happen if you start by writing a chatting application (Of course writing it yourself not clone from some dude’s code from GitHub) skipping the basics? At the very least you will have a really hard time. And you can’t run 10 kilometers on the first day, right? You start slow, get used to running and after some time, you can easily run 10 kilometers. In both cases, you need at least a bit of dedication.

Vim is no exception. All your life you used the mouse as a primary way to navigate around the file and you are so acquainted with the modern UI and IDE. And then you start with vim in the terminal. Of course, you will be screwed.

Credit: https://www.pexels.com/@olly

Here is my recommendation:

Start with vimtutor

Most of the Unix and Linux system that has vim installed already has vimtutor. Just write vimtutor on the terminal. You can install it on Windows machines too. It’s the best place to start for beginners to get the basics and get a feel for why vim is awesome. Do the interactive tutorial 3–5 times or more. Depends on your patience and until you get the basics.

Install vim plugin in your favorite IDE

Most of the IDE that you most likely use day to day most probably has a vim plugin. Vscode and Intellij has one. Install that and start using vim on your day-to-day. It might be a bit annoying first but keep at it. In the beginning when you are really annoyed or need to do something quickly just disable the plugin do the stuff and enable the plugin back on. Take your time until you can do everything without disabling the plugin, and you feel that using vim day to day really improved your editing and it feels intuitive and you can’t help but fall in love with vim.

Demo vim plugin for intellij and vscode

Whenever you feel like something is annoying and difficult while using vim (Say copy to clipboard), search in Google, because there is always a better way. I used vim inside my IDE for 6 months before I moved to the next steps like using vim inside terminal like an IDE (Yes you can, and it’s soooooo worth it !).

Force yourself to use it for a week

As the title says force yourself to use vim for a week. If after that you don’t have any feeling or realization about vim and why you need it, then vim might not be for you. And at this point, you learned enough to get by without using vim full time.

Credit: https://github.com/kuator/Vim-memes

Watch this video

you can skip the plugins part after 22 minutes. This the the best video I found about mastering the vim language. If you have any other great suggestion let me know in the comments.

Now you are ready for the next step. At this point if you are still interested to learn more about vim that’s great! Since this article only covers the basics, I will not deep dive into advanced usage like using vim full time as an IDE with almost all the IDE features. It’s totally worth getting into because once you use that you will find IDE really slow.

Credit: https://github.com/kuator/Vim-memes

Some vim enthusiasts might not like this style and will be saying that you are not a hardcore vim user. In the end, you are learning new things to improve some aspect of your life, not to make someone else happy. You look for tools to improve and when you find a tool that suits you better, you switch to the other tool. vim is also one of those tools.

I wish you the best of luck on your journey. And my next article about vim I will share some of the awesome things you can do in vim without any additional configuration, that made me fall in love with vim.


Beginner guide to started with vim without blowing your head off was originally published in Level Up Coding on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


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» Beginner guide to started with vim without blowing your head off | Rajob Raihan | Sciencx | https://www.scien.cx/2022/02/06/beginner-guide-to-started-with-vim-without-blowing-your-head-off/ | 2024-03-29T11:36:27+00:00
https://github.com/addpipe/simple-recorderjs-demo