Original state
I once watched a violinist strumming his strings with great passion, and I had this thought: Maybe I put as many brain cells into my text editor as he did into playing his favorite instrument. I also have a strange imagination. When he is playing solo, the MRI image in his brain may not be too different from the image of me manipulating the code in Vim, right?
For some thought if you will, here's a clip of Vimmer's learning journey.
The Long, Hard Road to Vim Nirvana
Monday
"Eclipse is certainly clean and functional."
"But some weird bearded guy at work seems to use vim really fast, I should give it a try."
"Okay! I made Gvim, it doesn't look too bad, it even has a menu interface!"
"Wait, what? Where did my text go? Wait a minute, undo, don't!"
“:help”
“:q!!!!!”
……
For the rest of the day, get back to Eclipse with its addictive autocompletion boilerplate.
Tuesday
"Okay Vim, it's a new day, this is a new opportunity to sharpen myself and learn new things, I'm not such a person who gives up easily!"
"Why can't I stay in insert mode all the time? FJDSAKLFJDALSKJKLDF (crazy typing)..."
"Wait, you're telling me I have to press Esc-Shift-:-w-Enter to save? That's bullshit."
"After spending 2 hours on the tutorial, basically all I understand is that the ddp command can swap two lines, what a pain in the ass."
a week later
"Wow, Vim is everywhere, which means that all the hard work will pay off, for example, when I ssh into the host computer and change some configurations."
"That's cool, hey guys, check out this all-dark color scheme, my new toolchain looks pretty cozy on the surface."
"Oh shit, my .vimrc isn't in my remote host, and when I ssh in to edit some configuration, all my cool stuff is gone."
two months later
HJKL's way of moving becomes natural, and you mysteriously lose the ability to use the mouse.
"I will always use these 400 plugins I just downloaded! Especially this one that folds latex syntax, oh man."
"Using the little arrow keys is self-torture."
"Goodbye, Caps Lock key."
"That's it. This is the limit of patience. Vim can't even wrap text properly. I'm going back to edit.com."
one year later
Less talking out loud.
Install the command-T plugin and save hundreds of keystrokes every day.
Use a macro to try to impress someone behind your shoulder, just by mixing case and doping the entire file with ROT13 ciphers (Rotate Thirteen-Digit Encryption).
Finally, one miraculous day, I learned to use ctrl+[ in muscle memory to delay the onset of wrist inflammation.
Learned to move the cursor, use visual mode and the * key - which means there is no going back.
"Vim doesn't support interactive caching? 20 years? Well, being a hacker, I decided to add it."
Check out the Vim codebase and go crazy and get it to work in the opposite direction.
"Anyone needs a console inside an editor!!! That's the unix philosophy."
Can't stand the "Vim is just an edit mode merged into a real editor" notion around.
Your friends on IRC ended up quarantining you for your annoying reply ":w" in the chat room.
two years later
Vim scripting is an abhorrence of God.
I kind of feel that the command mode of emacs from beginning to end is a bit like heaven.
"I had a nightmare last night about how I never learned to split windows vertically on a widescreen monitor, so goddamn nervous about it."
Take a sneak peek around, bind ctrl+s to save the action, and allow yourself a quiet breath of relief.
Realized that HJKL search positioning is not enough to be the ultimate time saving tool, found: python script , built a lot of customization functions to its heyday, bind the <Leader> key, until your keyboard is a bit like a NASA command center control panel Ridiculously feature-packed, it feels a little bad.
"Hey everyone who can hear me come over here, I'm controlling computers, blogging, checking email, running tests, debugging programs, browsing hackernews
All within Vim's cozy, super-customizable matrix. Why don't you guys do a few backflips to celebrate?"
blurred and after a long time
Lost a few friends after the talk "The Clear Advantage of Modals in Text Editing".
In the joy of sharing your config in github.com/me/vimfiles (not yet), force yourself to write about how to install syntax checking, lint tools, autocompletion, quick documentation, tons of killers in a maverick way Level abbreviation, plugins for every file type in the world that make Vim approach a real IDE in terms of efficiency for every function. Boot time logs are written to the server, subconsciously using nano to edit configuration files. Wouldn't be deeply ashamed of not updating all config files with plugins and more syntax in vimrc.
Become very calm, repetitive editing tasks no longer bother you, no longer participate in the emacs and Vim debates about who is good and who is bad.
...this is the final state of your brain when you use Vim. For more Linux information, please check: https://www.linuxprobe.com
