How to Learn Vi / Vim


reading time 3 min

A coworker was amazed at my use of Vim, especially that I was able to navigate around files so quickly.

Here’s my advice:

Learn vim one command per day

Find a “vim keyboard command cheatsheet” and print it out.

Every day teach yourself the next command. Start at the top, move to the next command each day.

Use that command a few times to get used to it. Then force yourself to use it throughout the day.

Over the course of a few weeks, you’ll be a much better Vim user.

For example, I never used to use the { and } keystrokes. Yes, they go previous and next paragraph, but I figured I write code, not text, so it wouldn’t be useful.

Then those keystrokes came up on the cheatsheet so I forced myself to try it.

It turns out “paragraphs” are separated by groups blank lines. { and } are a great way to rapidly move up or down a long file.

If you can move, you can delete/change/yank

Here’s another thing. Now that you know a new way to move around a file, you’ll discover that many commands accept a “movement” option.

For example, d followed by a “movement” deletes in that direction. c changes the text (deletes it, then goes into input mode), and y yanks (copies) text in that direction.

  • You already know that h by itself moves one char to the left. dh deletes that char.
  • You already know that j by itself moves one line down. dj deletes the current and next line.

Now that you know } moves to the next blank line…

  • d} deletes from the current line to the next blank line.

Also, since 3} moves 3 paragraphs (you can use any integer), d3} deletes from the current line to the next time 3 groups of blank lines are found.

This works for other commands, such as c (change). Try cw to change the next word… technically from where the cursor is until the end of the current word)

Maybe you knew that % does a pretty cool thing when on any of (){}[] chars. What do you think c% does? (Your guess is probably right!)

How did I discover this?

True story: The summer before my senior year of college I had an internship at AT&T. I spent a lot of time in my manager’s office waiting for her to give me something to do. She had a “VI Cheat Sheet” on her cubicle wall. While I was waiting for her, I’d memorize the next command.

Ready, set, go!

Now do a search for vim cheat sheet and get started.




Tom Limoncelli

Tom Limoncelli

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