Re: Totally lost in learning Ruby

On 2/2/2011 3:14 PM, Stu wrote:
> My suggestion is to take a day( or two) and learn vim, a clone of vi.
> It is a fairly simple to learn editor which provides syntax
> highlighting and completion for ruby as well as many plugins to aid
> development for ruby on rails and give the editor ide-like
> capabilities.

I use vim every day for editing all manner of files on various
platforms.  I like it so much that I really hate other text editors and
anything without vim key bindings.  That said, I would never claim that
vim and vi are simple to learn by any stretch of the imagination.
They're great tools, but they operate so differently from other editors
that the learning curve is steep (almost vertical for many people ;-).

Aside from that, yes, vim has tons of plugins available to provide all
manner of functionality on top of a rich built-in set of features.  And
you can rest assured that either vim or vi are available for immediate
use on just about any Unix-like system you'll ever encounter.

I would recommend that you give vim (or even better, gvim) a try, but
don't spend too much time banging your head against it.  Try something
else if vim frustrates you too much for now.  You're here to learn Ruby
after all, and it would be a shame for you to be chased off by an
editor. :-)

-Jeremy