From: Ryan Leavengood <mrcode@...>
Date: 2005-04-27T01:30:36+09:00
Subject: Re: Folding editor for ruby code browsing

Andrew Walrond wrote:
>
> I spent a few hours feeling like somebody had chopped my arms off,
> but now I'm getting to grips with vims modal system.

If it makes you feel any better, it doesn't take too long for the modal
system (and other aspects of Vim) to become second nature. I've been using
it as my editor of choice for about 7 years (wow, I've never really
thought about that.) Of course the crazy thing is if I read through the
help there is still new things I learn. But as usual the 80/20 rule
applies, and there is a relatively small subset of commands I use
regularly (so don't fret about having to learn the probably thousands of
commands/features that Vim has.)

Plus there is a certain power in knowing how to use any vi-like editor.
You will never feel helpless at a Unix shell, like a lot of people do.
Just the other day I had to help a coworker to just exit Vim, hehehe, and
he is an experienced developer in his late 40s :)

Also as you probably know Vim is ported to just about any modern OS you
would want to use (and many you wouldn't ;)

This is getting a bit off topic, but to conclude I would recommend you
look up the following commands in Vim's help, they are some of my
favorites:

<< and >>
V
Ctrl-V
=
gqap
:s
Ctrl-]

Ryan Leavengood