100 Vim commands every programmer should know

http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/web-development/100-vim-commands-every-programmer-should-know-11

by nickb • 18 years ago

57 33 18 years ago

catswhocode.com

0x44• 18 years ago

Zl snibevgr vf ttITt?

silentbicycle• 18 years ago

I'm shocked that this doesn't cover keyboard macro recording.

If you press q and then some letter, then do something, and press q again, it will record that as an action. For instance, qadWElpbq ("Start recording this in register a: cut next word, move to end of next word, forward char, paste, backward to beginning of that word. Done recording.". Basically, move the word under the cursor ahead one word.) under a (the qa) at the beginning, and then to repeat it you can just type @a. This is frequently straightforward for things that would be awkward with regex find-and-replace.

This works with the numeric prefixes, too; you could then type 10@a to shift a word ahead ten words, or double-space the next 200 lines, or what have you. Note, though, that vim's . repeat operator doesn't see the macro as one unit, so to repeat it you have to specify quantity.

Once your fingers learn this, you will use it all the time.

You can do this in basic vi, but as far as I know you have to manually stuff the macro into the character register* by writing it out and deleting it into a register, e.g. "ad$ (that's "a for into-register a, d$ for delete-to end-of-line). This feels more awkward than just hitting q (register) to start recording, but it's still useful. (* In BSD's nvi, at least.)

(The same thing in Emacs is C-x ( to start recording, C-x ) to stop recording, and C-x e to execute the last macro. There are commands to name and save your keyboard macros in a more permanent fashion, but I don't remember what they're called. Anything that isn't a throwaway macro I tend to just write in elisp anyway.)

matstc• 18 years ago

> I'm shocked that this doesn't contain keyboard macro recording.

Yes. And maps (e.g. :map <F12> :w<cr> to save with F12). And block mode (Ctrl-V) and text objects (e.g. ci" deletes the inside of parentheses and goes to insert mode) and a slew of others.

I find the idea that there are 100 vim commands every programmer should know a but ludicrous though.

fallintothis• 18 years ago

ci" deletes the inside of parentheses

I think you mean inside quotes, by the way.

I find the idea that there are 100 vim commands every programmer should know a but ludicrous though.

Especially considering that the "100" commands were all compositions of simpler vim commands anyways. I don't think this is actually that great a submission, for this reason. How many ways are there to rehash some really specific example -- say, counting both ":set syntax [on|off]"? Vim is so much more general than that. It seems inaccurate -- even discourteous -- to treat this as some laundry list of commands in your bag of tricks (except in the case of, say, muscle memory). From my experience, you don't memorize some long string of letters as a command; you think of what each tiny bit does in and of itself, then compose that into whatever you want to accomplish. Rather than commit the string "ggguG" to your brain, vim users think of it as "go to the beginning of the file (gg), then uppercase (gu) to the end of the the file (G)". Granted, vim gets more complicated as you delve into the realm of motions, .vimrc level configurations, ex command line, etc.

Also, it seems that vim users would be the real ones who need to know such things, not every programmer altogether. The title feels cheap / sensationalized that way.

If there were some REAL list of vim commands "every programmer should know" (well, vim-user), I'd at least start by recommending the alphabet...

Jasber• 18 years ago

I frequently use:

set pastetoggle=<F11>

This toggles paste mode which allows you to paste without indention getting screwed up.

BrandonM8• 18 years ago

Note, though, that vim's . repeat operator doesn't see the macro as one unit, so to repeat it you have to specify quantity.

True, but @@ repeats the last keyboard macro.

graywh• 18 years ago

And @: repeats the last Ex command.

And wow, this list of commands is awful. Just use "vimtutor" instead.

jamongkad• 18 years ago

This is nice and all but where are the commands for macros?

jdale27• 18 years ago

I hope that 100 is in base 2...

teedex• 18 years ago

Why should every programmer know these ? Sensationalistic blogging ?

undees• 18 years ago

The one I keep forgetting is ":q!" (really!). I think it's some kind of brain defect on my part.

zenspider2• 18 years ago

as an emacs user, that's the only one I'm required to know. :)

Actually I'm competent in vi, so I can pair with others, but man I don't like it.

BrandonM8• 18 years ago

I started off using Xemacs during my undergrad, but I never really learned how to use it efficiently. When I later returned to Unix, I picked up vim and started using it for everything. When I later returned to emacs, even having learned some keybindings (thanks to GNU readline in gnome-terminal), I just felt handcuffed in my movement abilities.

The thing that makes vim great is the many (confusing for initial users, perhaps) different ways of moving around in the file, entering Insert mode, etc. Once you get the hang of that, you'll find yourself cursing any editor that doesn't have an easy way to move to the end of the 3rd word from the current location.

That said, I think I'll eventually find myself using emacs in viper-mode, especially if I ever get around to migrating to Lisp (from mainly Python).

Tichy6• 18 years ago

I guess I am simply too lazy for Vim.

BrandonM8• 18 years ago

So because you're lazy, you'd rather use more keystrokes to accomplish the same task? (I voted you up because I didn't see any need for you to get -1 karma for that comment.)

Tichy6• 18 years ago

Not sure, many of the tasks never really seem to come up. When I used emacs, I used the macro recording facility a lot, for example to change larger chunks of code.

Eventually I had to switch to Eclipse, and didn't really need the Macros anymore, because of the refactoring functionality that comes with Eclipse. For example, in Emacs I used a macro to quickly generate getters and setters for my class variables (Java - I know...). Eclipse has a Source->Generate Getters and Setters Menu item, so I don't need to fumble around with Macros anymore.

Not saying that Eclipse is better, but I simply don't seem to be the kind of person who can remember 100 key combinations. I couldn't for emacs, either, even though sometimes I tried to learn new Emacs tricks.

I didn't learn that many keyboard shortcuts for Eclipse, either, even though I keep telling myself that I should. But I can only remember the most important ones, and I learn them because the menu items display a keyboard shortcut.

By the way, I seem to remember a quote by some Apple employee who said that in experiments using the GUI was actually faster than keyboard shortcuts. Keyboard shortcut people thought they were faster, but they weren't. Not sure if it is true - hard to believe, but still.

blackman• 18 years ago

Isn't a patch on http://rayninfo.co.uk/vimtips.html. Looks like most of it has been taken from here anyway. Is it really necessary for a programmer to rot13 his code??

davidw• 18 years ago

:q!

dkasper• 18 years ago

:q!

heal wounds

emacs &

st3fan• 18 years ago

And they say emacs is complex ...

100 Vim commands every programmer should know

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