Popular Dotfile Options

I loves a bit of dotfile spelunkin’:

I downloaded 155 .vimrc files from the net (mostly from dotfiles.org and github.com), and wrote a little script which counts the number of times an option has been set. Since most options come in normal- and shortcut form, I mapped the shortcuts to the long version whenever I recognized them.

Comparing the popular options against your own .vimrc may yield useful insights. For example, I noticed I don't use the following:

• whichwrap: Make left/right keys wrap at the start/end of a line
• hlsearch: Highlight all search matches
• showcmd: Show information about the last command. This can show extra information for things like visual selections
• smartcase: Ignore case when searches are typed

It’s interesting that some of the popular options that I don’t use make Vim behave more like an IDE.