Learning vim (a short adventure)

I’m grudgingly learning to use vim.

It’s modal. There are two modes: insert and normal. The process begins in normal mode.

To switch from normal to insert, hit i. To switch from insert to normal, hit Esc.

To navigate, use hjkl, which correspond to left, down, up, right. It also seems to respond to the arrow keys in the same way.

One advantage of the arrow keys is that they work in insert mode.

You can move forwards and backwards in words by using w (forward one word) and b (back one word).

These skip to the starts of words.

You can use e to skip to the end of the word.

As is traditional, the cursor sits between characters and the visual block highlights the character after the cursor.

It’s pretty annoying when you don’t remember which mode you’re in. The display is not obvious enough. I assume in the worst case you accidentally issue commands which do arbitrary things.

You can do something n times by preceding the command with the number, e.g. 10b will skip back 10 words.

The escape key is annoyingly far away.

You can do (1 0 i f o o Esc) to insert “foo” ten times at the cursor.

It’s not clear how this works. The i here acts rather differently than if you just hit i.

When you start typing the number, there’s no visual output! It’s pretty easy to get lost in what you’ve just typed.

The skipping commands to go to end of word don’t actually put the cursor at the end of the word! They put it one character before that

The characters f and F find things. Actually, they just find characters, not substrings, which is kinda useless.

When a paren (or analogous) is highlighted, use % to jump to the matching other one. This is useful.

0 jumps to beginning of line. To jump to the end, use $, like regex.

and hash # jump to the next/prev occurence of the word under cursor.

The cursor seems incapable of sitting at the end of a line in normal mode! This is INFURIATING!

I’ve had enough

This is the stupidest flaw ever

bye vim:wq

Tagged #vim, #design, #programming.

More by Jim

What does the dot do in JavaScript?

foo.bar, foo.bar(), or foo.bar = baz - what do they mean? A deep dive into prototypical inheritance and getters/setters. 2020-11-01

Smear phishing: a new Android vulnerability

Trick Android to display an SMS as coming from any contact. Convincing phishing vuln, but still unpatched. 2020-08-06

A probabilistic pub quiz for nerds

A “true or false” quiz where you respond with your confidence level, and the optimal strategy is to report your true belief. 2020-04-26

Time is running out to catch COVID-19

Simulation shows it’s rational to deliberately infect yourself with COVID-19 early on to get treatment, but after healthcare capacity is exceeded, it’s better to avoid infection. Includes interactive parameters and visualizations. 2020-03-14

The inception bar: a new phishing method

A new phishing technique that displays a fake URL bar in Chrome for mobile. A key innovation is the “scroll jail” that traps the user in a fake browser. 2019-04-27

The hacker hype cycle

I got started with simple web development, but because enamored with increasingly esoteric programming concepts, leading to a “trough of hipster technologies” before returning to more productive work. 2019-03-23

Project C-43: the lost origins of asymmetric crypto

Bob invents asymmetric cryptography by playing loud white noise to obscure Alice’s message, which he can cancel out but an eavesdropper cannot. This idea, published in 1944 by Walter Koenig Jr., is the forgotten origin of asymmetric crypto. 2019-02-16

How Hacker News stays interesting

Hacker News buried my post on conspiracy theories in my family due to overheated discussion, not censorship. Moderation keeps the site focused on interesting technical content. 2019-01-26

My parents are Flat-Earthers

For decades, my parents have been working up to Flat-Earther beliefs. From Egyptology to Jehovah’s Witnesses to theories that human built the Moon billions of years in the future. Surprisingly, it doesn’t affect their successful lives very much. For me, it’s a fun family pastime. 2019-01-20

The dots do matter: how to scam a Gmail user

Gmail’s “dots don’t matter” feature lets scammers create an account on, say, Netflix, with your email address but different dots. Results in convincing phishing emails. 2018-04-07

The sorry state of OpenSSL usability

OpenSSL’s inadequate documentation, confusing key formats, and deprecated interfaces make it difficult to use, despite its importance. 2017-12-02

I hate telephones

I hate telephones. Some rational reasons: lack of authentication, no spam filtering, forced synchronous communication. But also just a visceral fear. 2017-11-08

The Three Ts of Time, Thought and Typing: measuring cost on the web

Businesses often tout “free” services, but the real costs come in terms of time, thought, and typing required from users. Reducing these “Three Ts” is key to improving sign-up flows and increasing conversions. 2017-10-26

Granddad died today

Granddad died. The unspoken practice of death-by-dehydration in the NHS. The Liverpool Care Pathway. Assisted dying in the UK. The importance of planning in end-of-life care. 2017-05-19

How do I call a program in C, setting up standard pipes?

A C function to create a new process, set up its standard input/output/error pipes, and return a struct containing the process ID and pipe file descriptors. 2017-02-17

Your syntax highlighter is wrong

Syntax highlighters make value judgments about code. Most highlighters judge that comments are cruft, and try to hide them. Most diff viewers judge that code deletions are bad. 2014-05-11

Want to build a fantastic product using LLMs? I work at Granola where we're building the future IDE for knowledge work. Come and work with us! Read more or get in touch!

This page copyright James Fisher 2016. Content is not associated with my employer. Found an error? Edit this page.

Learning vim (a short adventure)

Similar posts

More by Jim