The Vim Learning Curve is a Myth (2024)

I’ve been speaking about and teaching people vim for several years now, and I’venoticed a surprising pattern: people are literally afraid of learning theeditor.

Over the years, the popular mythology around vim has become that it’s insanelydifficult to learn; a task to be attempted by only those with the thickest ofneck-beards. I’ve heard dozens of times from folks who are convinced it willtake them months to reach proficiency.

These beliefs are false. Here’s what’s true:

You can learn to use vim in 30 minutes

Go to your shell and type vimtutor. The tutorial that’s presented is excellentand you’ll be through it in no time. Once you’re done, you’ll have the rudimentsneeded to get your work done. You won’t be fast yet, no; but you’ll becompetent. And even after those 30 minutes, you’re going to start grasping theideas that make vim so amazing: the brilliant design decision that is modalediting, the composability of commands, the clever mnemonic naming of commands.These will be enough to make you want to learn more.

Learning vim is fun because it’s game-like

No one ever says “I’d love to learn Street Fighter 2, but there are just so manycombos!” People don’t say this because learning a game is enjoyable. You startoff with just the basic kicks and punches, and those get you by. Later, youlearn more advanced moves, maybe even by accident.

Learning vim is like this. At first, you do everything as simply as possible.Then you start to wonder if there are faster ways to get things done, and thereare! If you chain those commands together they just work! You bump into thingsaccidentally, or maybe you spend some time in the extensive help files. Overtime, you burn a few advanced tricks into your muscle memory.

Soon, you realize there are many ways to accomplish your edits, and you striveto do them in as few keystrokes as possible. This can be incredibly satisfying,particularly to us technical-types that seem to have a higher-than-averageappreciation for efficiency. It may be hard to believe that trimming onekeystroke off a command will one day trigger a dopamine response, but I swearit’s true. Just ask these guys.

You’ll be faster than your old editor in two weeks

If you use vim all day and make an effort to use it well, you’ll be editing codefaster than you did in your old editor within two weeks. A couple tips to helpyou on your way: keep a cheat sheet of commands you’re trying to commit tomemory, find a friend that’s an experienced vim user for the many questions thatyou’ll have in the beginning (ask in #vim if you haveno such friend), and pay attention to things you do that feel inefficient(there’s almost definitely a better way). If none of that works, reach out tome on twitter and I’ll try to help you out.

It’s effing worth it

There’s a reason everyone at thoughtbot is using a 20-year-old text editor.There’s a reason I’ve flown to other countries to try to convert more vim users.There’s a reason people love this editor. Maybe you should find out why.

Good luck! And happy vimming.

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The Vim Learning Curve is a Myth (2024)

FAQs

Is vim worth learning 2022? ›

If you're a new programmer, novelist, or blogger in 2022 you may be wondering if VIM is worth learning and using. In short, the answer is yes. VIM is considered the “programmer's editor.” It's lightweight, fast, and installed on many linux systems. It's likely you will HAVE to use it if you're a programmer.

How hard is it to learn Vim? ›

You can learn to use vim in 30 minutes

You won't be fast yet, no; but you'll be competent. And even after those 30 minutes, you're going to start grasping the ideas that make vim so amazing: the brilliant design decision that is modal editing, the composability of commands, the clever mnemonic naming of commands.

Is it worth it to learn Vim? ›

Most people who use vim say that it's worth learning as it improves your productivity. Tasks that usually require arrow keys to move around, such as copying and pasting lines of code from a few lines above, are much easier in vim.

How can I learn vim fast? ›

The best way to learn is practice. Take a few minutes to try Vim out. If you're on a Linux system right now, open up a terminal and type vim filename. Enter insert mode and type a bit (or copy some of the text from this article into Vim) and then hit Escape to start practicing movement around the file.

Does anyone actually use Vim? ›

Love it or hate it, Vim still reigns as one of the most beloved editors to this day and has the ultimate scoreboard taunt: Is the text editor you use entering its fourth decade? In technology, nothing sticks around for long. Vim has been a useful tool for a literal human generation.

What percentage of programmers use Vim? ›

If we look at the StackOverflow survey for 2019 about the most popular development environments, Vim is still there on the 5th place, with around 25% of Web Developers using it.

Why Vim is the best? ›

Vim has a small footprint, low latency, fast startup, allows for more screen space, customizable and most importantly, once the muscle-memory has been ingrained, it's nearly impossible to switch to something else.

What is so good about Vim? ›

What is Vim? Vim is a text editor for Unix that comes with Linux, BSD, and macOS. It is known to be fast and powerful, partly because it is a small program that can run in a terminal (although it has a graphical interface). It is mainly because it can be managed entirely without menus or a mouse with a keyboard.

Do professional developers use Vim? ›

From my experience looking at the industry, some people use vim, some people use emacs, some people use sublime but a lot of people use eclipse, visual studio, netbeans, and lots of other IDEs. Use whatever tools you feel helps you the best.

Is Vim still being developed? ›

Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient. It is included as "vi" with most UNIX systems and with Apple OS X. Vim is rock stable and is continuously being developed to become even better.

Is Emacs easier than Vim? ›

Emacs is easier to learn since it has a more natural interface (for users familiar with GUI-based text editors). Since Vim has different editing modes, beginners find it a little harder to learn.

Is 3 months enough to learn JavaScript? ›

However, unlike CSS and HTML, JavaScript is not something that can be aced in just two weeks. But, it can be done in just three months! Most employers will be happy to hire you as their web developers if you just master some of the JavaScript basics. Of course, learning never stops.

Is 6 months enough to learn JavaScript? ›

Here's the short answer: most programmers agree that it takes six to nine months to develop a working proficiency in JavaScript. And even then, you'll spend years learning new skills and developing your understanding of it.

Does Linus Torvalds use Vim? ›

What editor and mail reader does Linus use? Linus deftly avoids the most persistent religious war in the hacker community by using neither Emacs nor vi. He uses MicroEmacs.

Why do people like Vim? ›

But I will tell you why it's worth a try, vim helps you setup always learning mentality, you are always finding a better way of doing things and there is a great satisfaction that comes with it, you can use the same skill and keybinding in almost every editor you can imagine, on your cousins mac, directly in servers to ...

Is there anything better than Vim? ›

Emacs, Neovim, Atom, Notepad++, and Sublime Text are the most popular alternatives and competitors to Vim.

Do data scientists use Vim? ›

And, if you are comfortable enough with the Vim key binding and shell commands, you can use Vim to do almost everything you need to do as a data scientist. For instance, data scientists can easily use Vim to edit CSV files, or to run multiple shell commands on a server for data analysis at one time.

Do competitive programmers use Vim? ›

Many people ask for the best text editor for the programming contest. So, according to me vim is a great tool for competitive programming. It is not very comfortable to use it at first but after some time you will feel it is the best text editor ever made.

Why is it hard to exit Vim? ›

You cannot exit Vim when you are in input mode. You need to be sure that you are in the Command mode. To do that, simply press the Esc key.

How do I save in Vim without quitting? ›

The command to save a file in Vim is :w . To save the file without exiting the editor, switch back to normal mode by pressing Esc , type :w and hit Enter . There is also an update command :up , which writes the buffer to the file only if there are unsaved changes.

Why is Vim called Vim? ›

At the time of its first release, the name "Vim" was an acronym for "Vi IMitation", but this changed to "'Vi IMproved" late in 1993.

Why is Vim different? ›

Some of the features that are in vim but not in vi are windows splitting and tabs, code highlighting, macros, undo and redo multiple times, command line history, pattern matching, and word completion. All these features help developers and writers boost their productivity.

Is Vim the most powerful editor? ›

Vim is extremely flexible and powerful. You can start simple and use it to edit configuration files quickly.

Do people use Vim for C++? ›

Vim C++ is a powerful text editor that is popular among system administrators and programmers. While it is not a full-featured word processor, nor a complete IDE for code development, it makes up for this with improved speed and performance.

Why is Vscode better than Vim? ›

"Comes by default in most unix systems (remote editing)", "Fast" and "Highly configurable" are the key factors why developers consider Vim; whereas "Powerful multilanguage IDE", "Fast" and "Front-end develop out of the box" are the primary reasons why Visual Studio Code is favored.

Is Vim the most efficient? ›

What distinguishes vim from other editors? It's a modal editor that makes it so efficient. Unlike any other editors, that only have one mode which is insertion mode, you are constantly typing and streaming text into the buffer.

Who invented Vim? ›

Bram Moolenaar (born 1961, Lisse) is a Dutch computer programmer and an active member of the open-source software community. He is the original author, maintainer, release manager, and benevolent dictator for life of Vim, a vi-derivative text editor that is very popular among programmers and power users.

Is Sublime or Vim better? ›

"Lightweight", "Plugins" and "Super fast" are the key factors why developers consider Sublime Text; whereas "Comes by default in most unix systems (remote editing)", "Fast" and "Highly configurable" are the primary reasons why Vim is favored.

Why nano is better than Vim? ›

Nano is simple and easy to use. Vim is powerful and challenging to use. Nano is a modeless editor and works in a single mode. Vim is a mode-based editor.

Does Vim make you code faster? ›

8 Vim tips to edit your files faster.

Vim is a text editor that in the hands of a skilled user, can enable blazing fast edits closer to the speed of thought — much faster than what's usually achievable with a traditional text editor.

What is the hardest programming language? ›

Haskell is polymorphically statically typed and it is built on the lambda calculus. This is a programming language that is named after a mathematician called Haskell B Curry. It is hard to learn and explore as it follows a 100% functional paradigm and involves intense use of jargon which might seem hard for beginners.

Is JS easier than Python? ›

The answer: JavaScript is more difficult to master than Python. Python is usually the beginners-choice, especially for those who do not have any prior programming experience. Python code is notorious for being more readable, meaning that it is easier to understand (and write).

Why is C programming so hard? ›

It is hard to learn because: It is an unconventional language, its data structures are unlike other programming languages. It requires an unreasonably competent compiler. It forces the programmer to think hard about their logic upfront.

Is C++ easier than JavaScript? ›

Even despite readability, ultimately C++ is also harder than JavaScript to learn because there are many more aspects of the language that you need to master. The syntax needs to be more precise, you have to write more code, you need to understand static type systems, garbage collection, and much more.

Can I learn JavaScript in 2 days? ›

If you are coming from another programming language background, You will complete JS basics within 2 – 3 Days if you are busy. You might take one week to understand the basics if you are a beginner.

Which is harder Java or JavaScript? ›

FAQs. Q: Is JavaScript easier than Java? A: Yes, JavaScript is easier than Java as it requires less tools and prior knowledge of development kits. You need just a text editor, and programming knowledge to start writing the code for web development.

Is it worth it to learn Visual Basic in 2022? ›

Yes, absolutely! VBA is certainly not the most modern programming language, but due to the huge prevalence of Microsoft Office it is still a very relevant language in the year 2022.

Is it worth learning Visual Basic in 2022? ›

Is VBA Worth Learning in 2022? Yes, VBA is worth learning in 2022. It's a broad programming language that encompasses several topics of data analytics. VBA's usefulness lies in its simple to advanced applications, such as analytics projects, binary codes, and Microsoft Office scripts.

Is Vim used professionally? ›

I would also argue that majority of Vim users are indeed professionals. There's no data for me to use to back this opinion up, but you don't learn a fairly complex editor to get better at editing code just because. And yes, I too use Vim exclusively and professionally for more than a decade now.

What is the easiest tech job to learn? ›

What is the easiest tech job to get? The easiest tech job to get depends on your skills, but web design and development are considered to be easy tech jobs. You can learn the skills you need through online courses or coding bootcamps in just a few weeks.

Do people still code in Basic? ›

BASIC continues to be widely used because it can be learned quickly, its statements are easy to read by other programmers, and support is available on most operating systems (OS). BASIC's documentation has been translated into many national languages. It often comes with sound and graphics support.

How hard is Visual Basic? ›

Visual Basic is the most widely used programming language for creating Windows applications. It is easy to learn and does not require you to memorize difficult commands like other programming languages.

Do professionals use Visual Basic? ›

Although Visual Basic is no longer a popular choice for software developers in many industries, some companies still rely on computer applications that were built using the Visual Basic programming language.

Should I learn VBA or python? ›

Python is easier to learn and master, unlike Excel, which includes a personalized language known as VBA that is complex to master and execute. Transitioning from Excel to Python enables users to enjoy various benefits, such as an open-source coding platform, many volunteer contributors, and free libraries.

Is python better than Visual Basic? ›

Python Vs Visual Basic - Career Opportunities

Python continues to attract new users because it can be used to develop small applications to scale well to permit the development of large programs. Considering VB and VB.NET, this language has become mostly irrelevant.

Will VBA be discontinued? ›

Microsoft plans to start blocking VBA macros obtained from the Internet in Office by default in early April 2022, and the new default behavior will roll out first to Microsoft 365 subscribers in the Current Channel (Preview).

Why do people prefer Vim? ›

Vim has a small footprint, low latency, fast startup, allows for more screen space, customizable and most importantly, once the muscle-memory has been ingrained, it's nearly impossible to switch to something else.

Why is Vim so powerful? ›

All the power Vim provides allows you to do things quickly. You can even make complex edits fairly quick and easily, once you know how Vim works. Just some powerful features include macros, registers, command repetition, auto-completion, text objects, searching, filters, and global substitution.

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