Review: Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was hands down one of the very best technical books I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. Drew Neil has found a way to organize the book into a tip format without making it lose focus or seem endlessly unimaginative. Rather, by organizing the tips into themes, he gives the editor itself structure where before there was only the grey void of endless features.
I was an intermediate vim user before this book. It was my primary editor, and I used navigation keys and some basic yank and put operations regularly. I knew how to jump to lines, zip between words, and some mediocre regular expressions. After having read this book, I don’t bother opening up gvim or macvim anymore. I’m so comfortable working without the mouse, I prefer to keep myself in the console all the time. My speed has increased dramatically, as has my confidence. I participated in vimgolf for the first time just last week.
If you are a vim user with a strong basic understanding, this book is for you. Don’t pick it up if you are brand new to the editor, though. Complete the vimtutor first and give it some time to sink in.
Wouldn’t you know it… Just this short review was incredibly painful to write since I’m not using my favorite text editor. What a snob I’ve become!