Learn Vim Fast: Useful Plug-ins

Now that we've learned quite a bit about Vim, from the basics to movement and editing, it's time to really put Vim to work for us by extending it with some very useful plug-ins. Vim is an extensible editor, and a vast array of plug-ins are available to make Vim even more powerful for editing code quickly and efficiently. We'll take a look at some of the most useful plug-ins and how they can accelerate your coding even further, but first we need a way to efficiently manage all of these new plug-ins. Not surprisingly, a plug-in manager is available for just this purpose.

Learn Vim Fast: Editing at Speed

So far we've learned some absolute basics of using Vim, customized Vim to make it a little better for everyday coding, and gotten comfortable moving around quickly in a file. If you've stuck it out and practiced the movement and editing commands we've covered so far, you are probably starting to get a sense of the potential that Vim has. With a small set of one letter commands, you can get an awful lot done, and if you've practiced enough to make your use of the commands automatic, you can get stuff done wickedly fast.

It's time to shift into high gear and round out our Vim skills with a more complete set of editing functions. We don't want to always have to enter Insert Mode to make changes to our code. Sometimes we need to move large chunks of code around, change a bunch of variable names, or delete irrelevant code. These code editing tasks would be painful if we had to do them all in Insert Mode, but they can be positively trivial with Vim's powerful editing commands.

Learn Vim Fast: Moving In and Getting Around

If you started learning Vim with my last post, and you've been practicing the handful of commands we covered, then you're probably pretty tired of how you have to move around and edit things with only those rudimentary commands. It's time to expand our command set and crank up our efficiency in getting things done with Vim, but before we do that, let's take a look at how to make Vim a bit more comfortable to look at.

Learn Vim Fast: Quick Start Guide

I use a lot of different text editors for the various programming languages I write in. When doing embedded C/C++ programming, the IDE is almost always Eclipse based. When doing Python scripting, Python(x,y) with Spyder is a solid choice. When doing C# Windows programming, Visual Studio is almost a must. But my default editor when I need to knock out a quick little program, bring up some code for a second to check something, or work in Ruby or Javascript for any amount of time is Vim.

Every editor has its strengths, its weaknesses, and its warts. Vim is no exception. Its spartan interface is nearly impenetrable to the beginner, and it has a killer learning curve. I remember the first time I encountered Vim while in college. I was an intern at a small integrated circuit design company, and I was looking over someone's shoulder as he quickly jumped in and out of files from a Linux shell, darting around the files and making crazy edits without ever lifting his hands from the keyboard to reach for the mouse.

"What the hell kind of editor is that?!" I asked in awe.
"Oh, that's vi," he responded. "You don't want to use it. It's archaic and has a killer learning curve. You'll be happier with a modern editor."