VIM

After that I decided to learn at least absolute basics of the Vim to be able to do the most important work. As you are probably guessing it was switching to the insert mode (i), back (esc), saving the changes (:w) and exit the editor (:q, :q!). It was what I was using next few years and never was imagining use ever more. I was more then happy with the Midnight Commander’s internal editor and when the machine did not have the mc installed I used Vim just as the very last instance.About a year ago I had to be working on a server with no mc installed and with no chance to install it there, so I started learning other basics. Somehow I have not realized there is the visual mode but anyway it was starting make sense to me. I found the initially “unpredictable” behaviour of the editor more and more logical and when I finally found somewhere the visual mode I finally started love it.

You can find here a few references which have helped me a lot from the very beginning. I would not be able work with Vim without it or at least it would be much more difficult.

Just one more thing … if you are struggling with Regexp. Trust me, after start using the Vim you will learn them quickly (at least basic usage) because it’s on the the basic keys which makes life with Vim really effective.

Quite interesting seems to me that the initial target platform for Vim (Vi Imitation) was Amiga OS, which I loved as the Amiga Shell/Amiga OS was my first touch of the Unix philosophy in scripting. For those who don’t know it was a powerful OS which could be described as very simplified unix-like system without user management and text mode. Even console was displayed in a GUI/window. Usage of shared libraries, inter-program communication, preemptive multitasking and many more hi-end features made from it really powerful OS. At those time Amiga Computers used advanced customized chips architecture so even by using old Motorola 680×0 CPU family it was fast and highly responsive OS. It’s because of good architecture and also lack of a memory protection. Even it lead to some instability and famous “Guru Meditation” error…

Here is a few links which helped me to learn Vim.

Quick list of the very basic commands:

  • Esc – go to the command mode
    • dd – delete line
    • x – delete character under cursor
    • :q – quit vim
    • :w – save the file
    • :wq – save and quit
    • :w filename – save under the given name
  • i – switch to the insert mode
  • a – switch to the append mode
    • p – paste from buffer
  • v – switch to visual mode
    • c – cut to buffer
    • y – copy to buffer
  • crtl+w – go to next TAB
  • vim -o file1 file2 – opens both files in tabs

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