Venturing Into Vim

So I heard that there's this new code editor out, and it's been out for about three decades now... so I guess when I say new I mean new to me.

As an aspiring Ruby on Rails developer, I looked around to see what was the best code editor I can/should use for handling the development of a RoR web application. The vote went almost unanimously to Vim - a minimalist as (according to its veterans) extremely powerful code editor.

So this week I took a journey into Vim land to see what all the buzz was about and boy was it a rough one. Vim is not Notepad++, Komodo Edit or any other code editor that you've used before, and that's a key concept to remember when learning to use Vim, because operating as you did in your previous editors will send you into a mad swirling fit of rage and confusion.

Vim is it's own beast. The fact that you have to press a key before entering text and press another key when you've finished entering text should tell you a lot.

After a week of use, though, I must say that I chose wisely in the investment of my time and I would like to encourage my fellow coders to do the same. Get in the know with this great (yet sometimes frustrating) piece of software; it's powerful, simple and fast.

There isn't an opinion of Vim that wasn't stated by Jeffrey Way over at his blog, so I'll leave it up to you do some further reading.

Happy Vimming!