Sessions

Vim - precision editing at the speed of thought

Wednesday 10.00 - 10.50 in: Double Rainbow

Vim's modal editing model was conceived to meet the constraints of computing in the 1970s. The arrival of the mouse made intuitive point-and-click user interfaces the norm. While this was a boon for the novice computer user, it was a backward step for the power user. For a touch typist, there is no quicker way of editing text than with the keyboard.

This session won't teach you much in the way of practical hands-on advice - for that, see my Vim masterclass. Instead, it will challenge your preconceptions about Vim, and inspire you to give it a second look. We'll draw analogies with the mechanics of video games such as Quake and Street Fighter II. We'll look at patterns in the game of chess, and see how they relate to the task of editing text. And we'll learn what Vim users have in common with Scrabble players.

Tags: Hands on Hard Core Mastery Tools

Vim masterclass

Tuesday 8.30 - 12.30 in: Double Rainbow

In Vim, we can duplicate a line from normal mode, insert mode, or with an Ex command. But which is best?

In this masterclass, we’ll work through a series of exercises, finding at least two solutions to every problem. In response to the question “which is best?” we’ll see that the answer is always: “it depends”.

Vim is optimized for repetition. We’ll study a few examples of how to use the dot command to repeat the last change. Then we’ll develop a strategy for composing repeatable changes, and meet the optimal Dot Formula: a two step solution with a thousand uses. We'll also study best practices for creating robust macros, and learn how to execute them either in series or in parallel.

To level the playing field, we’ll be using bare Vim (not vi - we’re not savages). You’ll be asked to leave your .vimrc at the door.

Tags: Hands on Hard Core Mastery Tools