Reddit mentions of Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought (Pragmatic Programmers)

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Vim-Thought-Pragmatic-Programmers/dp/1934356980

> I have been using sublime for a while now. And I love it, it's intuitive and beautiful. But I feel like I should really vi or vim, for ssh sessions and so on. I know that there are ways to use sublime to edit codes over ssh, but I feel like I am not a real programmer if I don't know vi.

I'm pretty sure there are a lot of excellent programmers who don't know vim. Furthermore sublime is an excellent editor, if you like it there's no need to change.

BUT:

• Even if you stick with Sublime or use an IDE I would still highly recommend you learn vim. Sublime as well as many IDEs have plugins with which you can use the vim modal-editing commands. Starting out this will be a bit of a pain to use. But after a relatively short amount of time you will be editing faster than you ever did, and the speed only increases with time/learning. This is a huge benefit, even if you never use vim itself but only editors that support its commands.
  
  
• Just spoonfeed yourself the commands over time and really use them instead of trying to memorize heaps of them in a short timeframe. Start with the basics and add to that step by step. Make sure you continue to correct yourself and keep being aware of more efficient ways of doing things. It's about slowly/progressively building better habits.
  
  
• Text editing in 'modeless' editors will start to feel extremely frustrating once you get used to the ease and speed of vim. Not having to reach for the mouse, the modifier keys or the arrow keys all the time is an enormous advantage both on the speed of your coding as well as your hand health.
  
  
• Make sure you remap the capslock key to either 'esc' or 'control'. Better yet, map both to capslock at the same time ;) (xcape)
  
  
• You need to be able to touch type in order to benefit from vim, so if you can't already I suggest you learn to touch type before you start with vim. I found this to be a very good course.
  
  > Do any of you have resources that explain the why the keystrokes of vi the way they are so I can understand them? For example, why the hell "y" for copy. And any webpages that i can just ctrl-F to search for a command I want? I am planning to have this webpage open up on the side as I do my coding.
  
  

1. Vim doesn't use the 'normal' key commands because it works with different modes, most of the time you want to be in 'normal mode' to navigate and edit your text efficiently. Only enter insertion mode if you need to. Because there are different modes vim allows you to edit text with as little effort as possible because you don't have to use modifier keys all the time and text navigation becomes a breeze. ('y' is much easier on the hands than 'ctr-f') furthermore vim allows most of the commands to work together with other commands. This would be far more difficult if the modifiers had to be used all the time. For example: 'w' means navigate to the beginning of the next word' and 'd' means delete. Both can be used together so you get 'dw' wich means 'delete until the beginning of the next word. The way vim allows you to combine commands is a really powerful feature.
   
2. Begin by typing 'vimtutor' in the terminal and complete that tutorial.
   
3. There are many online resources, but I highly recommend the book Practical Vim both for the quality information it contains as well as how the book is layed out. Each chapter covers an important topic, starts with the basics and delves further and further into the material. So if you're starting out you can just read the start of each chapter, then as you progress you can "go deeper" and pick up more useful commands and tricks as you grow.
   
4. It's been mentioned already but I also quite liked Vim Adventures!
   
   

Don't overlook the included user manual. :help usr_toc will take you there. It is based on the book "Vi IMproved--Vim," which is also available free in PDF format on the Internet because it is published under the Open Publication License. The book is dated, but the manual is up-to-date and tracks with the book very closely.

Derek Wyatt's tutorial videos are good, but there is another vim video tutorial set at Vimcasts.

If you would rather read, but don't want to dig into a five-hundred page book, "A Byte of Vim" may be more manageable. Several of these resources are listed in this subreddit's sidebar.

Several books are now available that cover Vim nicely: "Learning the Vi and Vim Editors," "vi and Vim Editors Pocket Reference," "Hacking Vim 7.2," "Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought," and a brand new book: "Pro Vim," all available on Amazon.

Practical Vim - Edit Text at the Speed of Thought by Drew Neil is the best book I've found for going beyond the beginner stage.

Preview here.

My recommendations are:

1. Watch vimcasts
   
2. Get the Practical Vim book. It really improved my vimming dramatically.
   
3. Map <Esc> to something easier. I use jk (inoremap jk <Esc>) because it's a sequence that you rarely type when programming. If you don't like that, you could use <C-c> (which is a default binding) if you map Caps-lock to CTRL (I recommend doing this regardless, but it needs to be done at the OS level).
   
4. Don't use the arrow keys.

Practical Vim is a fantastic book for boosting your vim-fu, it's written in such a way that you can pick it up and read as little or as much as you like, and still get something out of it. I bought it on the strength of the Amazon reviews after having used Vim for 12 years but never really mastering it, and I now edit a lot quicker than I did before.

I'm doing almost no web stuff, but it always feels like a lot of people use vim for html/css/js, so I guess it can be a good fit. Since a compiled language like java/c++ usually requires ide features to use or debug(debugger, auto completion, type hierarchy, go to definition, refactor, etc.), it can be a bit of a ride to configure vim to be up to the task(usually a lot of plugins). Not the same for something like html/css, which is usually debugged/developed through the browser anyways.

Also, when I code in vim, its usually more of a mix of vim and commandline: ctrl+z out to do some grepping/git stuff, fg back to vim, close vim and open in a different directory, etc. Since you said you are working under windows, your workflow will probably differ a lot.

My suggestion would be: See how far you can get with vim. If it feels uncomfortable compared to your usual IDE, try pushing it a little further, and see if you can't find a solution. But, in the end, be honest with yourself: If the IDE feels better and lets you work faster and more comfortable, you have to accept that. Maybe vim is not the right tool for this task, doesn't mean you have to forsake it completely or anything. In case you find yourself in vim-wonderland and every other IDE/Texteditor can't stand up to vim anymore, then thats fine too. Or it might be a combination of the two. But you won't know that until you try. Just go for it and be honest with the result.

Also, as a side note, always remember your employer is the one paying you. So if you are being payed per hour(instead of per-project for example), he or she will probably expect you to work at an acceptable speed, and not for you to spend your time configuring vim, if you could be using something "proven" and mainstream just as well. But that completely depends or your employer. For the same reason, consider buying http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Vim-Thought-Pragmatic-Programmers/dp/1934356980/ if you haven't already. I used to own a copy(until I lost it), and it helped me a lot. Especially if you are already familiar with vim, it has huge potential.

Recapture: just try it out and be honest with the result; remember that your workflow might consist of other tools as well(not just editor/ide); don't waste your employer's money; consider buying practical vim(really!)

Since I don't really do web stuff, I can't say which plugins are really useful, so maybe somebody else will be able to help you out there.

Good luck! ;)

I love Safari. The only book they haven't had that I've wanted is Practical Vim. But, the book is well worth the price.

The built in tutorial will get you started.

Practical Vim http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Vim-Thought-Pragmatic-Programmers/dp/1934356980/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414952123&sr=8-1&keywords=practical+vim is what really got me to understand how it works, and was far more effective than looking at various online tutorials. It goes much more into how one can actually use the various tools effectively. Vim is very personal, with many ways to skin a cat. This goes through examples of several ways to deal with the same problem, and really lets you understand how the tools fit together.

I found both Learning the vi Editor and Practical Vim to be excellent learning resources. In addition, of course, to browsing the docs and using, using, using the editor.

Try gvim (vim-gtk, vim-gnome). I use it on Windows and Linux. You can remap the CTRL commands to the Windows equivalent, see Superuser question here: "How to make cut/copy/paste in GVim on Ubuntu work with Ctrl+X,Ctrl+C,Ctrl+V?"

Vim is made for touch-typists; you are definitely at a disadvantage when you can't touch type. That's true for every kind of editor but with vim the speed difference between a touch typists and a non-touch typists is even bigger.

Book recommendation: Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought