Learning Vim: What I Wish I Knew

Vim. Three letters that strike fear in the hearts of millions. By chance, I stumbled upon Vim (Vi-Improved) a couple of months ago. It was love at first sight. I proceeded to devour every article I could find on the mythical beast. This post is the advice I wish I would have found in an article when I was first starting out.

# Build Your Own .vimrc

At first, I started out by downloading one of the pre-configured Vim distros — the Ultimate Configuration. It was exciting, but I didn’t have the first idea how to do anything. I had a tricked out machine gun, but didn’t have the slightest clue on how to take off the safety. This seems to be a common problem when starting out with someone else’s configuration. So, while intimidating, it is recommended to start from scratch. The best way to get up and running is to follow this guide. It will coach you through setting up your initial configuration. One of the cooler aspects of this process is that you’ll start to understand how personal your config is. Your .vimrc, or init.vim — for Neovimmers, really becomes and extension of who you are as a programmer. It will reflect what you care about and how you spend your time. The journey of going from 50 lines to 500, or 5,000, is riveting. Plus, it is one of the best ways to help yourself grok Vim, both in philosophy and usage.