Thanks to a few YouTube videos by Ben Awad on the topic, I quickly discovered that a Vim extension existed for VSCode (it does for most popular IDEs also). I was in for a long ride of configuration and having to learn a ton of other commands from other plugins (tmux, etc), while I was just touching the tip of the iceberg with Vim. Being used to VSCode, I discovered how Neovim, an hyperextension of Vim, could be configured to match most of the same features, but without ever touching a mouse.

At some point, I felt ready to start coding for real. I abandoned it for a while, and then a few months later, I decided to commit to it for a few weeks and soon enough I was like Jimi Hend… That guy with the chipped Yamaha at the metro station.Īll my practice took place inside the default Vim editor of my Linux machine. I was witnessing all the potential, even though I was still very slow. Eventually, by practicing methodically like I used to do with my guitar, it started to feel a bit more fluid. My colleague lost his smile and went back to his desk scratching his chin and questioning his life decisions…įast forward a couple months later, I gave it a first try. That being said, my initial comment was: “but aren’t we just looking and thinking about code without typing like 80% of the time? Are you saving that much effort, given all the time it most certainly took to learn this stuff?”. It is included as 'vi' with most UNIX systems and with Apple OS X.” You can use its Insert mode to type as usual, or switch to Command mode, which makes your whole keyboard commands, instead of just the usual few like Ctrl-Something.Īfter watching my colleague show off his favorite commands to do complex, swift and chirurgical text editing, without ever touching his mouse, I was quite impressed. For those who are not familiar, Vim is a “highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient.

A while ago, I was introduced by an enthusiastic senior colleague to the world of Vim.

Vim visual studio