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posted by martyb on Tuesday October 24 2017, @07:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the what-about-emacs? dept.

It's an old article, but if you use vi/m it's always good to read a refresher. I've been using the editor for almost 30 years and always learn something new:

If you spend a lot of time typing plain text, writing programs or HTML, you can save much of that time by using a good editor and using it effectively. This paper will present guidelines and hints for doing your work more quickly and with fewer mistakes.

The open source text editor Vim (Vi IMproved) will be used here to present the ideas about effective editing, but they apply to other editors just as well. Choosing the right editor is actually the first step towards effective editing. The discussion about which editor is the best for you would take too much room and is avoided. If you don't know which editor to use or are dissatisfied with what you are currently using, give Vim a try; you won't be disappointed.

[...] The point is that you need to get to know these commands. You might object that you can't possibly learn all these commands - there are hundreds of different movement commands, some simple, some very clever - and it would take weeks of training to learn them all. Well, you don't need to; instead realize what your specific way of editing is, and learn only those commands that make your editing more effective.

There are three basic steps:

        1. While you are editing, keep an eye out for actions you repeat and/or spend quite a bit of time on.
        2. Find out if there is an editor command that will do this action quicker. Read the documentation, ask a friend, or look at how others do this.
        3. Train using the command. Do this until your fingers type it without thinking.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 24 2017, @10:20PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday October 24 2017, @10:20PM (#587144)

    It's possible to run vim's binary within emacs and vice versa. That to me is the perfect demonstration of their flexibility.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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