Hey Devs! đź‘‹
I wanted to share my ongoing journey into using vim, a transition inspired by a few key motivations: embracing a minimalist coding environment, reducing mouse use to prevent wrist pain (here's an article about mouse-related wrist pain), and ultimately boosting my speed in navigating files.
Where I Started
I began my coding journey with Sublime Text and later explored RubyMine, Atom, and VSCode. These editors served me well, but I always found myself seeking something more streamlined. Today, I primarily use RubyMine with the IdeaVim plugin and Fuzzier for work. My simple config can be found here. For my personal projects, I’ve opted for neovim with the LazyVim starter and a few tweaks. In the next few articles, I'll dive deeper into my journey of setting up neovim from scratch. I'll be sharing my step-by-step process, configurations, and tips that have helped me make neovim my go-to for side projects. Stay tuned if you're curious about building a minimalist, powerful editing environment!
Why the Shift?
My role involves frequent code reviews, branch comparisons, and commit diffs, and I absolutely love RubyMine’s diff tool (which is great across JetBrains products). For a potential vim alternative, I’ve come across diffview.nvim I haven't tried it yet, but it looks promising! At home, I use LazyGit, which is great but occasionally leaves me wishing for more robust features.
Keyboarding for Comfort
Another key part of my shift is reducing strain from my current small mechanical keyboard and gaming mouse. Ergonomic options are on my radar for the future. Less mouse usage + ergonomic setup = happier wrists!
Vim Joys
What keeps me coming back to Vim? Quick text replacements using search (/text) and n to jump, followed by cgn to edit is such a delight! Navigating with f and ,, ; to jump around characters is another favorite. I also love the efficiency of ciw (change inner word) and caw (change a whole word, including whitespace) for rapid edits. Moving instantly to the top of a file with gg or to the end with G saves so much scrolling time, and the zz command centers the screen on the current line, keeping my focus exactly where I need it. Vim truly turns text editing into a fluid experience!
I'm still learning, experimenting, and making adjustments along the way.
I'd love to hear your experiences with vim or any recommendations you might have!
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