Introduction to Vim. Presented 2019-12-03 at devTalk-Kokkola in Raisoft offices in Kokkola, Finland

1. The Joy of Vim
Johan Jansson / Oy Raisoft Ltd
devTalk Kokkola 3.12.2019

2. Raisoft intro
• Founded year 2000 in Kokkola
• 50+ employees – offices in Kokkola and Jyväskylä + remote contractors
• Revenue in the 7 figures range
Products
• RAIsoft.net (web based SaaS & On Premise solution)
A comprehensive software solution for measuring functional performance
and health status, as well as quality and effectiveness of care.
– Market: Finland, Switzerland, Spain, Singapore, Australia, …
• Smart Break: 3 minute workplace wellness solution

3. Personal background
Early editing
• First editor experience: edlin (late -80s)
Advanced editing
• Emacs (late -90s)
• “Vi is standardized in POSIX, so it’s available on almost all platforms”
• Easy to achieve hero status at the university
• Vi < Vim
Today
• CTO at Raisoft & part-time researcher
• Use Vim daily for code, config files, commit messages, log viewing, documents, email, data munging,
etc.

4. The Joy of Vim
Part I

5. The Joy of Vi
Bill Joy, the creator of the Vi editor
Vi was released in 1976
Joy was influential in other projects as well
• BSD UNIX
• NFS
• Java

6. The Joy of Vim
Bram Moolenaar, the creator of Vim
Released Vim in 1991
Fun fact:
Initially a vi-clone based on
another vi-clone ported to the Amiga.

7. The Joy of Vim
Part II

8. Vim intro
• Highly configurable text editor
• Available as GUI and in the console
• Rock stable, actively maintained
• Extensive plugin system
• Support for hundreds of programming languages and file formats
• Powerful macros, and search/replace
• Integrates well with many tools
• It’s a modal editor.
• It has a very powerful command system.
• There are other editors. I’m happy for you if you’ve found a good one.

9. Vim intro - modes
Normal Visual
Cmdline
Insert

10. We choose to learn Vim.
Not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.
https://lucasfcosta.com/2016/09/25/How-I-Learned-to-Stop-Worrying-and-Love-vIM.html

11. We choose to learn Vim.
Not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard efficient.
https://lucasfcosta.com/2016/09/25/How-I-Learned-to-Stop-Worrying-and-Love-vIM.html

12. COMPOSITION
n. com·po·si·tion
The combining of distinct
parts or elements to form a whole.

13. COMPOSITION

14. Composing edit commands
Vim command: ACTION x TEXT OBJECT
ACTIONs:
• cut, delete, copy, paste
• autoformat/indent
• change case: upper/lower/invert
• search/replace
• increment/decrement
• select (=> visual mode)
• etc.
TEXT OBJECTs:
• text: char, word, line, sentence, paragraph
• blocks: ”...”, (...), [...], {...}, <...>
• code: xml/html tags
• range of lines
• cursor motion from current position:
– to start/end of text objects
– to next/previous search match
– to next/previous occurrence of character

15. Composing edit commands - examples
Vim command: ACTION x TEXT OBJECT
diw delete inside word
yi) copy inside ( ) parens
=a} auto-indent around { } braces
CHALLENGE:
Learn 10 actions, and 10 text objects:
you’ll be able to compose 100 commands.

16. Composing macros
Vim macro: recorded keyboard input.
=> Compose macros of multiple commands.
1. Start recording: q{name}
– qa records macro a
2. Edit, using re-usable commands (avoid using mouse input, use motion commands to move)
3. End macro: q
4. Replay macro:@a
You can record many different macros: registers a-z

17. DEMO: macros
DEMO 1:
convert for (var property in object) {…}
into object.forEach((property) => {…});
wwwwwdwNPa.<ESC>elsEach<ESC>wwdwi(<ESC>elct{) => <ESC>l%A);<ESC>
• 22 commands in total.
• Composed of a set of 7 actions x 6 text objects:
– Actions: d, P, a, s, i, c, A
– Text objects/motions: w, N, e, l, t, %

18. Macros & The Multiplication Principle of Combinatorics
So, you learnt 10 actions & 10 text objects.
you are able to compose 100 distinct commands.
How many 22-command macros can you create?
10022 = 100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
(100 tredecillions)
Your imagination is the limit.

19. Other useful features
• Screen layout – split screen windows & tabs
• Spell check
• Auto-completion (text from files, dictionary, code
identifiers, file names, etc.)
• Edit files over scp
• Regex (search/replace)
• Vimdiff
• Auto-commands
• Shell integration
• Vimscript
• Registers
• Extensive plugin system
• Customizable key mappings
• Auto-formatting/highlighting
• Filters (process text with external program)
• Dot command . repeats last command in normal
mode
• Built-in-grep
• Compiler integration
• Comprehensive help system
• Built-in terminal
• File browser

20. DEMO composing features:
edit your file system with shell integration and vimdiff
DEMO 2: Clean up build server
• 3-way diff of directories on Jenkins build server
• Shell integration :r !<command> will read command output into vim buffer
• Split screen into multiple windows
• Diff windows with :windo diffthis
DEMO 3: Remove extra artifact directories
• Macros may execute shell commands
• Shell integration :!<command> will execute a shell command

21. CONCLUSION
• Composition is a powerful concept.
• Learn your editor well.
• Practice makes perfect.
• Learning curve = compound interest efficiency!
• My vim config: https://github.com/jupj/vimconfig
• Take the challenge!
• Start with 5 x 5.

22. Thank you!
Q & A?