Vim: Resources

A few of the resources that have helped me learn Vim along the way.

Vim Help

Vim’s help system is tremendously useful. It can be daunting at first, I avoided it for many years myself, but when I finally took the time to learn how to navigate it, along with actually reading what was available, my mastery of Vim accelerated. My notes on Vim’s help system might help.

Books

These books were the most influential for me.

Learning the vi and Vim Editors, 8th Edition, by Robbins and Hannah
https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/learning-the-vi/9781492078791/.\ This book covers the basics well. Orginally published in 1986, it has been regularly updated with the 8th edition published November 2021.

Practical Vim, 2nd Edition, by Drew Neil
https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/practical-vim-2nd/9781680501629/
After you have the basics down, this book helps you learn how to perform common editing tasks in an efficient manner. It’s a gentle way to gain experience with some of Vim’s advanced features without being overwhelmed. It’s set up as a series of recipies which allows you to work through them in bite-sized chunks.

Modern Vim, by Drew Neil
https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/modern-vim/9781680506006/
This is mostly a book about extending Vim with Plugins, but it also covers some advanced Vim features like the Quickfix List. It really opened my eyes to what’s possible with Vim and got me exploring Vimscript (although this is not a book on Vimscript). Similar to Practical Vim, this is a recipie style book and you can tackle the sections as you have the time, energy, and motivation.

Learn Vimscript the hard way, by Steve Losh
https://learnvimscriptthehardway.stevelosh.com/
This was the book where I actually learned what my vimrc file was doing and got it, more or less, organized. I have not attempted my own plugin yet, but based on what I learned in this book I’m reasonably confident I could muddle my way there. It’s free online and there are also purchasing options (I did spring $8 for the epub version from leanpub).

Internet

vimcasts.org

http://vimcasts.org/
A series of short sreen casts that go deep into areas of Vim functionality. Very useful when you are working with Vim functionlaity for the first time or simply need a refresher. Vimcasts is by Drew Neil who also wrote a couple of books on the above list.

Stack Exchange

https://vi.stackexchange.com/
When you have a very specific problem to solve stackexchange almost always delivers. I am astounded at the technical depth you find here and it is educational to read through debates on different approaches to solving a problem (and with Vim, there is always more than one way).

Google Search

https://www.google.com/
Google is a great place to start when you have a how do I ___? type of question. Within a couple of clicks you usually have a path forward (just be careful not to spend the next two hours in an Internet wasteland).