Mastering the Vim Language

[@aprameyanaganur2934]

The thing thats special about vim as a text editor is that people who use it hold entire meetups about it

[@strictnonconformist7369]

Is it just an incredible text editor or a software-based religion?

[@aprameyanaganur2934]

@@strictnonconformist7369 I would have said both, but vim is not so much a religion as it is a way of life

[@anson_chang]

@@aprameyanaganur2934 ah so a cult got it

[@johnyepthomi892]

vim is for consistency in your writing or editing process. Say what you want about it but it’s usefulness cannot be questioned.

[@aprameyanaganur2934]

@@johnyepthomi892 totally agree. I myself use vim as my text editor (well, neovim)

[@joshuarose20]

Even 8 years later, people are still finding great value in these videos. Cheers, Chris.

[@abhishes]

He matched his shirt with the VIM logo :)

[@azharsayyad8246]

Congratulations your mastered in vim😂

[@jagtenleo3551]

@@azharsayyad8246 haha

[@PREMChannel]

LOL

[@AnandRaj-pq4wu]

good observation

[@alex_steed8472]

You Vim does not edit text it edits users.

[@baovu4062]

4:35 the language (basics) 5:36 repeatable & undoable 6:48 verbs/operators in vim 8:21 nouns in vim - motions 9:05 nouns in vim - text objects 12:18 nouns in vim - parameterized text objects (find/search) 16:33 where to learn/read 18:35 tips for mastering the language 20:35 relative number 22:45 visual mode is a smell 24:18 custom operators (from plugins) 24:42 tpope/vim-surround 26:02 tpope/vim-commentary 26:48 vim-scripts/ReplaceWithRegister 27:41 christoomey/vim-titlecase 28:21 christoomey/sort-motion 28:57 christommey/system-copy 29:52 custom nouns (objects) 30:03 michaeljsmith/vim-indent-object 31:08 kana/vim-textobj-entire 30:30 kana/vim-textobj-line both requires kana/vim-textobj-user 32:15 ruby block 33:30 Finding more custom text objects

[@tuannvm]

thanks

[@StephenRayner]

Cheers

[@nzuckman]

Bless

[@Helionitial]

awesome!

[@jh0720]

My man

[@victormartins-software3912]

This talk was a huge break through for me: "Vim is a language where operators act on text objects." BOOOM thank you :D

[@richard11935]

I just woke up from a nap, left youtube on and now im learning a strange language.

[@Scrumpylungs]

24:20 "Now we get into the fun stuff" he says, 20+ mins into an incredibly fun talk! Already know by this point that I'm switching to vim full time 💯

[@hbirtt]

5 years later, and this is still great stuff, it's all still accurate and current, and I still learned something I didn't know. That's Vim, isn't it?

[@michaelthompson7217]

Harley Burton “it’s all still accurate and current” Well it’s like 20+ years old 😂

[@MmmBopsPops]

Been using vim for well over 7 years now and still learned a lot from this. Like he said - never reach the ceiling.

[@TonMachielsen]

I've been looking for a long time why I would have to learn vim and why people are so enthusiastic about it. This is the first video that explains exactly that instead of trying to convince me to use an archaic editor on my graphical OS. Very good video. Very clear. This makes learning vim a lot easier as well now that I understand this.

[@operandexpanse]

Same here. Although I felt that I liked Vim, I could never understand why people chose it over something like vscode. I suspected the reason people chose and bragged about using Vim was largely due to ego, but I am finally seeing a clearer explanation which makes more sense to me.

[@RT-eb6vo]

I actually pressed b to wind this video back... I vote youtube starts supporting Vi commands!

[@cMaXeJIJIo]

I actually lost count how many times I've watched this presentation! It's what got me into VIM, big time. So, thank you, Chris Toomey! You do some good work, too, haha! I have a little update on Tim Pope's Commentary plugin. It now uses a different syntax than when this video was made: g + c + l = comment out a line; g + c + j = comment one line down; gcgc = uncomment(Uncomments a whole block of text if it was commented out in one motion, a paragraph, for example) Many thanks for providing the presentation video, guys!

[@m.y.s4260]

same here~

[@cMaXeJIJIo]

@nerd bruh, this shit is eternal, haha!

[@antoniodosreisfeitosaneto7553]

Vim is a great tool since .. ever. I woul add the 'z' core commands to the list of things I miss in every other editor I use. z puts the current line on the top of the screen. z- puts the current line as the last one of the screen. And z. scrolls the text so that the current line go the cneter of the screen. So useful for positioning text on the screen

[@picosdrivethru]

@FichDichInDemArsch dont forget z. = zz but in half the time since you can hit z. almost at once ;D

[@oredaze]

I didn't know there is a duplicate of zt(top) and zb(bottom), which does the same thing you described :)

[@antoniodosreisfeitosaneto7553]

@@oredaze these 3 commands are there since the AT&T Unix System V in the 80's z. z and z-. There were no zt or zb so these may have been added later for some reason.

[@zapy422]

I also learned new youtube shortcuts trying to apply the commands here

[@normalmighty]

This is so good as a tutorial! I had given up because no matter how many people swore by vim, I could never remember a single command. I think this if finally giving me the intro I need to understand the logic of these commands and get somewhere without staring at a cheat sheet!

[@lastmanstanding5423]

type _vimtutor_ in the terminal and repeat it 50 times until something sticks... that's what I did... :)

[@bingbong3221]

I've officially switched to (neo)vim this past week. My previous IDE of choice was IntelliJ IDEA so it was a huge jump and took me awhile to let go, but I finally did it and I'm so happy about it!

[@thp4983]

The ideavim plugin is great for IDEA. vim is great but its not an IDE, and sometimes you need an IDE.

[@mmlvx]

At 23:53 -- "Relative number's got you covered, absolutely" -- that made me laugh a lot. 😀

[@Baalzemor]

Not sure if you have found this out by now or not, but I seen you delete a character, then type its lowercase for an example. If you hover the character, and hit ~ it will invert the case. It's pretty useful in my opinion!

[@michaelbruce4987]

Nice!

[@ianpan0102]

Thanks for the tip! Very useful!

[@VictorRodriguez-zp2do]

Wow I hace being using gUl or gul, I didn't know there was a faster way of doing it

[@olegsergiyuk2219]

Also try to hover the number, any digit within it and type "Ctrl-a" or "Ctrl-x", this will increase or decrease entire number accordingly. I was thinking can also be a cool feature to hover over word "true" for example, and be able to convert it to "false" :).

[@isAif47]

U for uppercase or u for lowercase works too. :-)

[@digitus888]

Even after 8 years, this is still a great video (like the resources, Chris mentioned in the video). I‘ve watched it for about 4 times over the last year and every time it gives me some additional extra(I am using vim as my main editor for 14 years now). This is because it is packed so densely with information, it is almost impossible to get everything the first time. For a non native speaker, slowing down the video to 0.75 helps a lot 😉 Thanks Chris!

[@abhinavgujjar3841]

This talk really gets into the soul of vim. Thinking about repeatabilty made a lot of sense.

[@KeiranOLeary]

I reckon that this video is the best intro to vim I've found. It worked for me, and I've shared it numerous times, I believe it takes people from "interested" to "all in". So well done!!

[@ammarm7]

I love how passionate you are when explaining, thanks for the tutorial man

[@Psicoeducazione]

I've been using vim since 2012, and now, thanks to your presentation, I understand why.

[@SukSukulent]

I have used vim for something around a year and a half and I love it, I knew with the diw and dip operations, but the cs" ' blew my head right off!

[@WebLego]

Great talk! I learnt so much. At 31:53 we actually do have language for a line, its called `_`. `c_` is shorter than `cil` and doesn't require a plugin (works with dot repeat too).

[@MikeRosseel]

`cc` seems to work too

[@JanuszSp]

You can just use 'S' to substitute the entire line as opposed to small 's' that substitutes a character.

[@KensterInSilico]

Biggest takeaways were working with text objects and making commands repeatable. Great video. Thanks!

[@user26912]

You can find a second or nth instance of o with `2fo` or `fo`.

[@wogandmush]

@@ProfesorCafe number

[@4am4i]

What a great dive into a Zen of VIm. And relative numbers is something that i was missing for so long not knowing it was there all the time

[@serhiicho]

I came back to this video after 10 months to say that after I've watched this video I started using Vim as a plugin for VS Code. It was a pain for the first month. But now I can't work without it. It makes my life as a developer so easier. I'm sure I'll be using it for the rest of my life. Love Vim.

[@serhiicho]

And now I'm starting slowly transition from VSCode to real Vim with bunch of plugins.

[@tyafizi]

@@serhiicho Have you switched from vscode to vim? And if so, what did you get from it?

[@serhiicho]

@@tyafizi I didn't, still using VSCode with VIM plugin. It's easier for me

[@umohibomette4850]

This is gold! Vi is almost 50 years old and still absolutely amazing. Object oriented editing! What!?!🎆

[@angela_jx]

I think any talk can never really do vim justice. You can’t know how powerful the commands can be unless you use them. That’s why I think anyone serious about programming should give vim a couple weeks of try. Vim is really different from any other text editor so you’re not going to be a pro on it in a day. In fact you’re probably not even gonna be able to move around probably for a couple hours at best but that’s fine. Just like you said, the effort really does pay off in the end

[@nicholasreid5005]

I'm getting into managing Linux and open-source software so tutorials like this are invaluable.

[@jamesharland3727]

Really useful. I'm a linguist not a programmer and I use vim every day. I really like the idea here of vim as a language, and realized that's how I learn(ed) it - I think "change two words" and type 2cw automatically. I see the point about using text objects rather than movements though for the sake of repeatability - that's my big take-home from this video. Thank you!

[@okuno54]

+James Harland Huh, I didn't expect 2cw to work, but it does; I always use c2w

[@jamesharland3727]

Yup, both work. I read somewhere about the logic being different, but they both lead to the same result.

[@jamesharland3727]

@nerd Hey, yep, every day.

[@willd0g]

@@okuno54thank goodness thats much inline semantically with how i say it mentally in my head so i will definitely not be forgetting this. Ta

[@teeew-fp2ty]

"Typing is not the bottleneck." I discovered this just recently. I've been focusing on speed, but in hindsight I didn't solve problems faster, but introduced bugs faster only to spend more time trying to solve them. Vim had me somehow realize this. After 20+ years of computers and now switching to Linux, these tools (vim, the terminal, cli tools, basically Linux in general) opens a new way to experience computers. Funny is I realized why do I need a dedicated IDE? Linux IS an IDE you configure entierly yourself.

[@luckyboy20021]

I watch it every months, and still have something to learn.

[@josephmbimbi]

just wow ! I've been using vim very casually here and there. I knew there was more under the hood but i wouldn't have thought that much. Time to practice to learn and incorporate those !

[@ianpan0102]

Such a great speaker -- very calming and straight to the point.

[@varunrao2931]

So clearly explained, very smooth presentation, talks about best practices, and core principles of vim

[@faraonch]

Been a Frontend dev for 12 years, today is the day i start with VIM. the change-inner-tag feels like my birthday and christmas together.

[@freddy02575]

7 years after your video It is still crazy useful. Thanks !!!!!!

[@SaHaRaSquad]

Wow, I knew about "inner" only in combination with brackets etc., but didn't imagine it working with words and paragraphs. He is right indeed, there's no ceiling.

[@ArchitecturalAesthetics2046]

didn't know about the indent, entire custom text objects, was suprised to find out it works out of the box with vscodevim. thanks for this talk.

[@sh1pme2themune9]

I think I’ve watched this four times now, and I learn something new each time.

[@sealwithawkwardness3951]

I use vim on vscode using an extension, it’s got the power of search and editing from vim as well as all the capabilities of vscode. Haven’t looked back since

[@atmeshwarsingh]

Same here ✋🏼

[@SisiraSomaratne]

I lean his indentation so much easy. Before I used to select the part and use > . But now in any part of the line just > and j or 3j (if need to indent 3 lines). Thank you!

[@Usertrappedindatabase]

i'm getting little shots of dopamine and 'ah ha!' moments constantly while watching this. I'm going to commit to VIM, I love the idea of just thinking through stuff and not having to get distracted by bells and whistles, just pure efficiency...

[@marvin674]

Great dude! Nice talk. Been using vim inside VSCode for a while now and didn't know about the dot operator. That is game changing

[@Nik-rx9rj]

Yeah, I’ll be using that one a lot

[@olivierdulac]

a great one is * which go to the next occurence of the word you are in. great to follow a variable, or function

[@chromosundrift]

The + register is the system clipboard, so you can paste from it into vim "+p or yank an inner paragraph into it with "+yip

[@dev2bhai]

Great talk man, I am vim user but I rediscovered power of vim by knowing vim better. Thanks buddy. NOTE: I was so into the language I had tried to use some of them by mistake while typing this language. ;-)

[@tempsanity]

Great video. Going back to neovim after a break (I mainly use it for keeping a journal now) in 2023 and this helped me remember some of the commands. Thanks!

[@mixcocam]

Title case is a move in a nice direction. Using VIM as a word processor for prose or LATEX is very nice and there are few plugins for this type of use.

[@t33can]

+Rodrigo Camacho yeah, I think my days on Texmaker are counted.

[@jeromejargot1063]

I have been using Vim for many years and I have learnt things here Thx!

[@NiallsSongs]

Talking on this subject, you have all the passion and enthusiasm and sincerity of a great artist talking about art.

[@tjbihh]

Awesome talk: thank you! I've been using Vim for a few years and still learnt a bunch of stuff from this

[@finan2249]

Wow this presentation changed my life! I was using vim for quite bit but i never realized how powerful vim truly is. And this power doesn't come from fancy plugins no its actually from mastering basic movements and commands. Awesome!!!

[@Kittana1498]

This is a great talk. The way you described what makes it worth learning is so spot on. It applies to use of emacs as well!

[@mehboob_h]

Excellent overview with demonstrations. I have been using vim for about 2 years but learnt a lot of cool ideas. Thanks for sharing your experience

[@Komsomol1979]

What a convoluted, counter-intuitive way to edit a text! Vim: exchange your sanity for allegedly faster selection of words, and allegedly faster replacement of symbols (the stuff you can do in Visual Studio by double-clicking a mouse or pressing "Find&replace").

[@joshhoover1202]

Yeah, that is how I feel. I use vs code most of the time these days by default. So many projects have integrations and settings already setup for vs code which has basically made it the de facto choice. Fwiw I don't feel I lose out on efficiency either. It is not like many of these shortcuts don't exist on vscode, but you can easily use it without them and pick them up over time by spending a little bit of time here and there to learn them.

[@dsaboo7654]

wow, this is a super cool and easy-to-follow learner friendly introduction to the basics of Vim. Really thank you! Clap, clap, clap!

[@meleu-dev]

- 4:35 the language (basics) - 5:36 repeatable & undoable - 6:48 verbs/operators in vim - 8:21 nouns in vim - motions - 9:05 nouns in vim - text objects - 12:18 nouns in vim - parameterized text objects (find/search) - 16:33 where to learn/read - 18:35 tips for mastering the language - 20:35 relative number - 22:45 visual mode is a smell - 24:18 custom operators (from plugins) - 24:42 tpope/vim-surround - 26:02 tpope/vim-commentary - 26:48 vim-scripts/ReplaceWithRegister - 27:41 christoomey/vim-titlecase - 28:21 christoomey/sort-motion - 28:57 christommey/system-copy - 29:52 custom nouns (objects) - 30:03 michaeljsmith/vim-indent-object - 31:08 kana/vim-textobj-entire - 30:30 kana/vim-textobj-line - both requires kana/vim-textobj-user - 32:15 ruby block - 33:30 Finding more custom text objects

[@qianghuang7835]

Thank you! The "dot" command is magic!

[@paultwocock5421]

Vim, if u you're absolutely beginner This book "vim from wtf to omg" will be useful for you

[@jizhang2407]

Thanks, Chris. "It's a good day", as you put, to learn what you've shared on the vim language and its syntax.

[@deric916]

Best beginner vim video I've seen on KZbin

[@tripathi26]

Started with VIM today. This is very informative. Thank you!

[@MrPolyphonicpoi]

still the best (long-form) introduction to the philosophy of Vim in my opinion

[@aftak]

very good talk. Good advice on sticking to the basics and going crazy on plugins

[@mohamedyamani8502]

Is it a coincidence that Chris wore a shirt that's "a sortie" with Vim's logo? xD

[@LucGeurts61]

Still one of the best videos I ever saw on Vim

[@jw1ck]

This dude sold me on Vim. Gonna learn to use it!!!

[@toomasvendelin]

For me, the best Vim presentation so far. Thumbs up!

[@haxpor]

So clever for relative line number. Set these two lines in .vimrc set relativenumber " show relative line number set number " show current actual line number

[@SqAtx]

I also have those lines in my .vimrc: " Show absolute numbers when in insert mode or losing focus :augroup numbertoggle : autocmd! : autocmd BufEnter,FocusGained,InsertLeave * set relativenumber : autocmd BufLeave,FocusLost,InsertEnter * set norelativenumber :augroup END I think it's a nice addition :) I only need relative numbers in the file I'm currently working on

[@rban123]

Things you need to know INSERT:enter text editing mode ESC: exit text editing mode :wq save and edit to cmd

[@godnyx117]

What is cmd?

[@KevinJohnMulligan]

@@godnyx117 command line or ternknal depending on the OS

[@joshhoover1202]

Imo this is all you need to know. It is only for when your git editor variable is accidentally set to vim.

[@asadsalehumar1011]

I just commited my heart to learn Vim, thanks Chris

[@internetperson2]

Me : The last thing I need in my life is one more tool to learn, I should focus on solving problems, Sigh and clicks anyway. Chris : 2000 commands memorizing 30 intuitive things Me : Aight keep talking

[@dawid_dahl]

As a new Vim user I loved this video, thank you!

[@danieldosen5260]

great talk! you made me realize I was using visual mode as a huge crutch!

[@ALulzyApprentice]

This is how people learn complex aerobics routines. I am determined learn and use Vim. thanks. Great talk/tutorial.

[@haxpor]

Very great technique and talk! It will be most effective if viewers are already familair and work with vim in day to day, this talk will refresh, recall, and make the foundation of vim for us much better.

[@lenickramone]

amazing! i could 24h of this content in a row

[@adriansrfr]

Best vim presentation I've com across yet!

[@DubsDavid]

Funnily enough the 1st example is incorrect..."dw" does not stand for delete a word but for delete till next word. It means that if the cursor is not placed at the beginning of the word to delete it won't work (the 1st part of the word will remain). Use "daw" to delete a word with the cursor placed anywhere in the word to delete.

[@anonwasm3704]

When you love Vim so much you choose your fashion aesthetics around it

[@WebLego]

mnemonic: f/F -> Find, t/T -> Til (goes up unTil the thing it finds)

[@davidkeys4284]

Good way to remember

[@faizunisajazadi8732]

Great video, good to know about visual mode smell

[@BowlineDandy]

inner word ====== mind blown

[@ricardorien]

So powerful. Thanks for this talk!

[@kennadelaney5134]

Could please anyone tell me the font and theme he used in this video? Thanks!

[@CommNet.InfoSec.CyberSec]

Oh! man, you +1 the guy into the realm of Vi(m), so +1 to your video, and to your SUBSCRIBE. Your video is the reason, now that I've decided to take this editor along through my career. SEEMS GREAT. THANKS a lot. With all the wide variety of user-friendly text-editor tools available, this Vi(m) thing intimidated me so intensely that it almost scared me away. All thanks to you man, now I'm into the Vi(m) group.

[@kenwood7195]

Hope Apple is donating some of their mega profits to Vim charities seeing their users are getting Vim for the same price as people who use Linux.

[@BrutusPalmeira]

That is a great MiC, here I was thinking oh boy, we gonna hear the big gulp when he was about to drink his water, but ...nothing..... no gulp noise. Ok back to VIM

[@michaelthompson7217]

BrutusPalmeira it wasnt a mic attached to his body which prob helped

[@thoughtbot]

Good mic, good editor, whatevs 🤷‍♀️

[@ShakespeareCafe]

For further reference and readings: 16:30

[@TuringMachine001]

Simple and effective. This video totally blew my mind.

[@fabiena1787]

Very interesting, and everything said here makes sense... if you are fluent enough in English (to the point to start thinking in English). It's probably a given for a lot of people in the programming field, yet it doesn't make the shortcuts *so* obvious for a lot of people. Anyway, I liked this video very much, and it certainly helped me.

[@KayOScode]

You're right, typing is not really a bottleneck once you hit a decent typing speed like 100 wpm, however, I think repeated edits is one.

[@jackfrosterton2530]

There's a 7 hour course about vim for beginners on udemy and it is fantastic imo. a recommendation for any noobs

[@henrypercy2688]

Thanks for the help. I should have been able to grok most of these useful editing features myself, but never did.

[@nelovishk]

This was very useful, thanks Chris!

[@kafanakodtome]

I love the fact that his shirt matches the Vim colors.