Hear Ron rant on about vim...

So why do I think vim is so great? I write computer programs for a living, and have used dozens of editors during my career. You might say the choice of a good editor is more important to my profession than almost anything else, since I spend most of my workday using it.

A good editor can make ones' life much easier (and conversely, a bad editor can lead to premature aging and death. Well, maybe not death...)

My top reasons for choosing vim above all other editors:

• It is being actively developed (so bugs get fixed and features get added).
• It works the same on all the systems I use (Win95/98/NT, Linux, DOS).
• It is reasonably small, yet fast and very rich in features.
• The online help is excellent and abundant.
• It is extremely customizeable (and the same customizations can work on all the platforms I use).
• There is nothing I have tried to do with it that I couldn't find a way to do.
• The vim community is very helpful when one runs into difficulties.
• Features I particularly want or need get into the program.
• I can directly contribute to the project and make it better.

While it is true that using a vi clone takes getting used to at first, I found traversing the relatively steep learning curve well worthwhile.

Note that I didn't say that vim's main attractions to me were:

• being a vi clone (I didn't like vi)
• its long list of features (I just want to edit my code)

Last updated: 07/23/99 07:53:14 AM