How to switch to Vim
April 24, 2013
From time to time, I see people in my twitter stream attempting to switch to Vim. This is a good thing. The problem is that they appear to be viewing the switch as swapping out one tool for another.
This is not what switching to Vim means, nor is it a good reason to switch.
The reason to switch to Vim is to work better. I realize “better” is subjective, but whatever way you define it is what it means - code faster, edit text more easily, automate your workflow, whatever.
As such, switching to Vim is to throw out your old editor (or plan to) and replace it with a different tool that works differently and is, hopefully, better. Stop asking for “a plugin that does XXX like Sublime Text does things”. If Sublime Text has a plugin for what you want, you don’t need Vim. Vim might very well have a plugin that does whatever XXX is, but it’s more likely that you don’t need a plugin, or that Vim provides a way to accomplish your real goal much more efficiently.
Here’s how to make the move.