The first time I encountered vim was during a Linux System Administrator course I attended a while ago.
Didn't really know much about Linux back then. It just sounded quite fancy.
During the course, the lecturer often typed in that 3 word command
vim
and edited some stuff.
"Gee, that looks cool", I thought!
So, determined to look cool myself, I got back home, opened a terminal, typed in the magic words and voila! - I was inside vim.
So, with a great wish to write my first
Hello World
txt file in vim, I started hitting keys on my keyboard. And nothing was happening.
Some strange beeps started coming out of nowhere and I felt utterly frustrated!
So, my goal quickly shifted from typing anything, to exiting
vim
. Yeah, you probably know what follows.
A key-hitting berserk got me while doing everything I can to exit
vim
. Finally, after failing my first clash with the editor, I was so thankful to have the X key at the top right of my terminal emulator.
Now, this story should sound pretty familiar if you ever tried using
vim
. Well, eventually you learn how to exit it, and you learn how to type in symbols.
But there is so much more to it. The endless sets of key-combos can leave you wondering what the heck you did after accidentally hitting a key.
Nowadays,
vim
is the most popular text editor out there. Even some Windows users tend to use it although being an indigenous Unix utility.
But what's the point? There are so many IDEs out there. Why would anyone bother poisoning his life with an endless vim frustration, when he can just install the first Javascript IDE google suggests.
Well, although it is probably not suitable for any project, there are some great benefits in sticking with vim at least for a while.
The greatest one being the user interface. However, the focus of this article is not that. Many articles can be found on the subject and perhaps I will make one in the future.
Today, we will explore the much less highlighted merits of the vim editor.
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