[TUHS] diving into vi (nvi) - some observations from a slow learner

[Scot Jenkins via TUHS]

Will Senn <will.senn at gmail.com> wrote:

> vim stands as an excellent example of just how far you can take a 
> product that works, keeping its core, but expanding it in all 
> directions. 

vim has a *lot* of knobs to twist, all of which must be in just the
right position for it to be comfortably usable, in my opinion.  I got
annoyed with many of the default features, like the auto indenting and 
getting stuck in comment mode.  Start a comment in vim and try to get
out of that mode.  I found I spent too much time trying to figure out 
how to turn off these things so I generally went back to straight vi 
as my daily editor.  I use ed(1) a lot too for quick edits.  vim is 
great for the syntax highlighting when coding or editing HTML though.  
It makes it easy to spot errors.



> Off to figure out tags!! Arg, seems like it oughtta be really useful in 
> my work with source code, why can't I figure it out?! Sheesh.

I think the best way to learn vi/vim features is from watching someone
else use it.  You pick up a lot of useful tricks.  Mike Shah has many 
great videos; here are a couple vi/vim related ones.  

1. Why I'm Still using Vim in 2024 - A Brief Introduction and Demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4E6nQpd7Xs

This is a good quick into to using vi/vim.


2. [Dlang Episode 31] D Language - ctags with dscanner for VIM
   (and ctags with phobos demonstration)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMF7NxF_HFY

While he uses the D programming language for this video, it is a
great demo of how to use ctags.  The principle is the same for other
programming languages, ctags supports many, run:
"ctags --list-languages" to view the full list.

scot