Vim SGI binaries

Autocorrect conversion

"vimrc" files

Links

• The home of vim
• Sven Guckes' vim pages
• The VI Lovers Home Page
• Greg Poulos sells vim mugs (about $10 per mug)

Tutorials and references

• Copy tutor.txt to your current working directory, then type vim tutor.txt, then follow the instructions. (An older version of this file is probably in you vim installation under /usr/local/vim/tutor/tutor)
  This will take about 30 minutes and teaches you about 80% of the commands you'll need during daily programming life.

• A very short introduction (5 minutes) is at VIM Virtuosity. It tells you the 7 most basic commands, which will enable you to edit a file.

• Two books for Vi and clones (Vim is one) are Learning the VI Editor (review) and vi Editor Pocket Reference (review).

• A very concise reference guide is the VIM 5.6 Reference Guide.

Emacs vs Vim

First, I should begin by making clear that there are situations/preferences for which vim is not the editor of choice:

1. Don't focus so much on counting key strokes, because then you quickly get into discussing whether to count $ as one keystroke or two.

2. If you really want a tool that is "all-in-one", i.e., which has an editor, a mail reader, a news reader, a browser, etc., then emcas is your choice.
   ("Emacs wouldn't be such a bad operating system, if only it had a decent editor" -- ok ok, this was a little bit polemic, it's just one of those jokes about emacs which seemed in order ;-)

3. If you need an editor for writing letters and other "prose", then Word or something similar is probably best.

0. vim is upward compatible to vi.
   So if you master vim you can edit with vi. vi is on every unix box, even on the most "naked" ones.
   In addition, vi runs on practically any terminal and any connection, even when logged in from half around the world through several "hops". (I'm typing this on an old Ampex terminal (vt 100 like) via a 9600 Baud connection.)

1. vim works like you think.
   Many commands are "mnemonic". In a recent post, Randy has put it quite nicely:

   As I said earlier, vi works like I think. I think "replace this word with that one;" "delete this line;" "yank this paragraph and put it down there;" "move there and insert a word;" "format this paragraph." Vi provides commands that map to how I think. Some of the time I'm just typing in text without editing it, but normally I'm editing text. I tend to write something, then go back and make it perfect. I prefer to copy something that is already there and then modify it to be what I need. This expresses very well what I believe has been a major design goal of vi!

2. Now for the modal/modeless controversy.
   If you really think about it, it boils down to the following: it's a matter of how you define "modal"/"modeless"; in other words: if vim is modal, so is emacs - if emacs is modeless, so is vim.
   The reason: in emcas you are by default in "insert" mode; you have to type "ctrl-m ..." to issue an editor command; so "ctrl-m" is actually a switch to command mode). In vim, you are by default in command mode; when in insert mode, you type <esc> and then some command, and then i to get into insert mode again.
   While programming, you are at least half of the time in command mode (if you are an Emacs user you might not be aware of that because nobody calls it like like that). The difference between Vim and Emacs is that most most Vim commands are mnemonic and need much less modifier keys, such as Ctrl, Alt, etc.

3. I believe that modal editors are more efficient for programming (and similar tasks, like writing latex).
   This is because I find myself much more often editing text which is already there, rather than producing new text which hasn't been there before.
   This goes well with the observation, which someone reported in the comp.editors news group about joint strain. I almost get joint strain myself when I see emacs users holding down the ctrl or alt key all the time with their pinky or thumb ;-) ...

4. I'm not sure what the reason is, but I've never seen emacs users who actually used all those feature which emacs-the-editor offers. (At the office, I'm surrounded by emacs and nedit users ;-) I mean features like marks, tags, jumping up/down paragraph-wise, jumping to the beginning/end of a function, searching identifiers in all include files, etc....
   I suspect, this is because it's simply just too difficult to remember all those ctrl-alt chords. :) [no offense intended!]

5. Speed: CPU-wise, vim is still by far more efficient than emacs.
   I can tell, because my office-mate uses emacs :) Try running emacs on an SGI Indy! Or on a PC/486!

6. Links related to this discussion: http://www.linuxcare.com/products/prodmore.epl?PRODUCT_GROUP=Text+Editors , http://www.csn.net/~bediger/perfect.editor.html

Should you experience any problem with downloading,
or should you have any suggestions or comments,
then please let me know by email to zach in.tu-clausthal.de.