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Shreyan Ghosh
Shreyan Ghosh

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So I Decided to Learn Vim… and I Kinda Get the Hype Now?

Alright, let me be honest right out the gate: I always thought Vim was just some arcane flex tool for terminal nerds.

You know — the kind ThePrimeagen uses at lightspeed while yelling "LET'S GO!" on stream. It looked cool. It sounded fast. But it also looked like a keyboard-induced migraine.

Still… I was curious. So I decided to see what the hype was all about.

First Impressions: What Even Is This?

Day 1 with Vim felt like:

"How do I quit?" "Why can't I type?" "Oh cool, I deleted the entire line again."

It was confusing. It was rigid. It felt like Vim was a gatekeeper, not a helper.

I legit thought,

"This is just a thing YouTubers use to feel cool."

And maybe it is — a little. But I kept going.

What Shifted for Me

Somewhere around day 3 or 4, I stopped trying to fight Vim.

I started noticing that:

  • The modal editing wasn't stupid — it was intentional
  • The weird keyboard shortcuts were actually muscle memory training
  • I didn't need to reach for the mouse — at all
  • I was slowly becoming… faster?

That's when I made a cheat sheet — because tabs, splits, buffers, visual modes, and motions were still bouncing around in my brain like uncompiled code.

My Cheat Sheet (Still Growing)

This helped me survive the learning curve.

📎 https://github.com/Zenoguy/Vim---For-Normal-PPL/blob/main/VimCheatSheet.pdf

A little example:

MODES
-----
Normal Mode     : Esc       -> Navigate & issue commands
Insert Mode     : i, a      -> Enter text
Visual Mode     : v, V      -> Select text (char/line/block)
Command-line    : :         -> Run commands like save, quit
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

It's a mix of:

  • Navigation basics
  • Buffer/tab/split management
  • Yank/paste/undo/redo rituals
  • My most-used search + replace tricks

Feel free to steal or remix it.

Where I'm At Now

I'm not a Vim god yet. I'm still figuring things out. I still reach for VSCode when i have some real work to get done.

But here's the thing:

I finally get why people stick with Vim.

  • It's about intentional motion
  • It's about speed you earn (not speed handed to you)
  • It's about building habits that scale across editors and environments

What's Next?

I want to try some cool Vim plugins. Stuff that'll make the workflow a little more modern, a little more fun.

If you've got any: 👉 Drop them in the comments.

Also, if you've just started with Vim too — let me know how your journey's going. We can swap cheat sheets and pain points.

TL;DR

  • I thought Vim was dumb
  • It is — until you start understanding it
  • Then it becomes surprisingly powerful
  • And maybe… worth the hype?

Top comments (5)

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xwero profile image
david duymelinck

I'm still using an IDE on the computer because of the multiple tools in one interface.

I learned VIm to do changes on servers. Vim, or Vi if you are not that lucky, is the most stable editor. I had nano wrangling configuration settings which took servers down. i never had that problem with Vim.

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zenoguy profile image
Shreyan Ghosh

RIP bru,
when i justswtiched to linux for the first time and was using nano to write some configs, i deleted my sound driver Lol, probably messed some dnf and deleted some system drivers

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rsteadman profile image
R Steadman

Can you be more specific on the 'nano wrangling configuration settings which took servers down' part? I don't see that happening, unless you made a mistake in your commands. I'm not pro nano or pro vim, it just sounds like a 'my cousin had a laptop of brand x, and it broke out of nowhere, so brand x sucks' kind of statement.

Same for @zenoguy, probably even more so if you manage to delete drivers.

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zenoguy profile image
Shreyan Ghosh

idr man ,i was starting out on linux and i was trying to setup my bluetooth with chatgpt, it cud have been a simple blacklist or disable but i didnt understand shit then so reinstalling ubuntu was an easier option lol

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xwero profile image
david duymelinck • Edited

To tell you the truth I don't remember the exact command, but I used it in the most basic form. open a file, edit text and save it.

I don't know what I have done but for some reason not every edited line was saved. And this happened on two servers. So after two servers I just quit using the editor.

It is not out of the realm of possibilities I did something wrong.