Vim is known for having a very high skill gap. People that use it are seen as keyboard wizards that 10x their development. Its like they are typing some magic spell on the keyboard. Its a skill that every developer dreams of having. I am that developer that wants to have that skill.
For the next week I will be using exclusively Vim. So here is how it went.
Now here are the rules for this challenge:
- I will write this article in Vim.
- I will write and execute code.
- I will use it for a whole week.
The Start
This challenge doesn't sound very hard at first but I was in for a rude awakening. I booted up Nixos and low and behold there was no Vim. I have always heard that vim is installed by default but it wasn't. This was the first roadblock of many.
After installing Vim I got to work. I knew Vim was bare but I didn't know it was, THIS bare. It lacked a lot of features that I became a custom to with VS Code. I had to learn a whole new system. I didn't feel fast like the 10x developers, I felt like I was going at a snails pace. Productivity was hard and the keybinds were even harder to master. If I didn't hit the right combo I didn't get to do what I wanted.
Opening Vim was just so hard. I didn't want to work on anything if it wasn't on VS Code.
NeoVim
Trying to stay consistent with Vim is the hardest thing I have done. But yet NeoVim came to the rescue. NeoVim is a fork of Vim and it is basically an IDE. I decided to use LazyVim and it changed my life.
Syntax Highlighting, cool look, keybind helper, and spell check, these are the things that I need out of the box. This has helped me feel like I know what I am doing and it makes vim easier. I am able to see what keybinds I can use at a given moment so that I am able to hit the right combo every single time. I don't need a mouse anymore, my keyboard is all I need to do the work.
I even found out you can install plugins like in VS Code. I can make this as bare or as complicated as possible. I was also able to install plugins for LaTex and have some pretty good support for that.
Writing
Now that I got my environment set up to my liking. Writing code is now the focus. I had two task that I needed to update my resume in LaTex so this was the perfect task for the job. I have already installed the necessary tools needed for the job.
Writing was not that hard. The experience was just me trying to get use to Vim Motions. But deleting things felt amazing. If I didn't like a line dd. Oh I don't like the rest of the sentence I am writing d$. I need to go to the top of the page to import a new module gg.
Moving the cursor felt great. Most importantly FAST. I tell it where to go at all times. I became the wizard that I have seen or at least a novice one.
Takeaway
I have finally joined the church of Vim. As you can see I was able to post this article all using Vim. I like the power that this gives me. It was hard but I think with more time I will be only using vim into my workflow. Like with my Nixos With time I can see myself using these tools more and more. I am one step closer to being a 10x developer.
I am still new to this and I can use some help learning new things. If you have any tips or tricks please let me know in the comments below.
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