Remember the Lex tool that we used in college days?

Ever wondered who wrote it? It was Eric Schmidt, along with Mike Lesk.

That’s right, the CEO of Google.

I can imagine the CTO of a company to have such a background, but I never would have expected the CEO.

But then again, it’s Google. They can do anything.

Being a fan of Steve Yegge, I was randomly reading some of his older writings and eventually chanced upon his post on “Effective Emacs”. Being a Vim guy, I wondered whether some of the tips he presents are useful for the Vim world as well.

Note: This is not a Vim vs Emacs thing, it is simply a porting of tips for Emacs to see whether the tips are useful for Vim users as well.

So here goes:

10 Specific Ways to Improve Your Productivity With Emacs, ported to Vim:

Item 1: Swap Caps-Lock and Control

This is a desktop-specific customization. However, I don’t think it is required for Vim users, but it can be useful.

Update: After using for a couple of days, I’m really starting to like this!

Item 2: Invoke M-x without the Alt key

Not relevant for Vim. Not a good start, first two tips are out…

Item 3: Prefer backward-kill-word over Backspace

This is a good tip. Normally, I would use bdw to achieve the same. To map backspace to this command in normal mode, put this in your vimrc: :map <bs> bdw.

To make it work in insert mode you can put :imap <bs> <esc>bdwa. I’m sure there’s a better way to use just one command to do this, please leave a comment if you know of a better way.

Update: You can also use ctrl-w in insert mode (see :help i_CTRL-W), thanks to pimaniac.

Item 4: Use incremental search for Navigation

Use :set incsearch.
Press n to search forward and N to search backward.

Item 5: Use Temp Buffers

Run :new to get a new buffer (or alternately ctrl-w n).
To switch between buffers, use ctrl-w ctrl-w (yes, twice).
Use :q as usual to close the buffer (or alternately, ctrl-w q).

Item 6: Master the buffer and window commands

• To split window vertically, run :vsp
• To split window horizontally, run :sp
• To make all visible windows approximately equal height, run ctrl-w =
• To switch to other window, run ctrl-w ctrl-w or use the directional keys ctrl-w h/j/k/l
• To delete other windows, use ctrl-w o or run :only
• To list-buffers, run :ls (or even :files or :buffers)
• Dialog Boxes: The Root of All Evil - agree, Vim doesn’t need dialog boxes as well (at least in the non-gui mode)
• Buffers to the Rescue - Same thing for Vim, I think.

Item 7: Lose the UI

• Remove the menubar using :set guioptions-=m.
• Remove the toolbar using :set guioptions-=T.
• Similar options exist for the scrollbar, see :help guioptions
• Region selection can be easier in Vim using the visual mode, just press v, use the normal keys to move around, such as 10j to move down by 10 lines, and then a command to work on that visual selection, such as d to delete it.

Item 8: Learn the most important help functions

The help in Vim is vast, see :help usr_toc to see the chapters of the awesome reference manual.

Item 9: Master Emacs’s regular expressions

I agree, Friedl’s book is the authority on this. However, there are some good introductions to Vim regular expressions available.

Item 10: Master the fine-grained text manipulation commands

• Creating macros are easy in Vim. Press qa to start recording a macro called ‘a’, do all the commands you want to run, pres q to stop recording. Then, run @a to repeat the recorded commands i.e. a macro.
• Swapping two adjacent words, yeah, this can be better. I use xp to swap characters and dwwP to swap words, but it doesn’t do fancy stuff like the transpose-* functions. This can be an interesting plugin to write.

Tune in next time…

1. Filling paragraphs can be done by setting :set textwidth=80 and running gqap command to format ‘a’ ‘p’aragraph, or like me you can map the ‘Q’ key to run it : :nmap Q gwap. To make this work inside comments, make sure you :set formatoptions+=c.
2. gnuserv : I use It’s All Text! Firefox extension.
3. Dired : There are plugins available with similar functionality
4. Whitespace manipulation - plenty of ways such as :set expandtab, :retab!, :help fo-table, etc.
5. nxml-mode : I haven’t used nxml-mode but I’m still looking for something like Emacs’ SGML-mode that works for Vim. I miss you, SGML-mode.
6. picture-mode : Dr. Chip to the rescue with DrawIt.vim
7. minibuffer management : Not sure what this is.
8. effortless navigation : I think Vim has enough keys for this by default. See :help navigation.
9. region management : We can always choose the color scheme of choice for the highlighted region, or change it ourselves, see :help :highlight.
10. rectangle commands : Use ctrl-v
11. emacs shells : We have :sh but don’t know if Emacs does something more
12. align-regexp : Not sure what this is.
13. frame initialization : I set Vim to always opens in full screen, see :help win16-maximized. Not sure how to do it in Linux yet, but in Gnome, I just press Alt-F10.
14. using the goal column : No idea…
15. setting the fill column : Nada…
16. OS settings and font : I like to customize Vim’s font and keep trying different fonts, currently I’m using :set guifont=Consolas:h14:cANSI
17. browsing and editing archives : I think Vim does this by default, see :help netrw.
18. advanced keybinding : see :help :map and :help keycodes
19. mastering the kill ring : I guess you can simulate this with :echo @a, etc.
20. mastering Info : Not sure if this would be useful in Vim.
21. using M-x customize : Not sure what this does.
22. utility apps : It’s all in the plugins.

Summary: Porting good ideas is a good idea

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I wonder why a search for Steve Yegge on Wikipedia points to Batman…

First, there was the Mint financial newspaper’s article on “casualpreneurs” in the July 8th, 2007 edition which featured ion. FYI, Mint is a joint collaboration between the Hindustan Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Then, there was an article in the BTW magazine’s 10th September 2007 edition on “netpreneurs” which featured ion.

And yesterday, there was a huge half-page article on ion in the Economic Times! (Bangalore edition)

I can’t help but think on how much hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing and forehead-slapping happens behind the scenes. But to see all the response from customers as well as an article in the Economic Times dedicated exclusively to us just six months after launch makes it seem all worthwhile.

So, thank you to all our dear customers for making ion so successful! And some of you actually like it so much that you spread the word around for us!

P.S. Yeah, we know we don’t look great in that big photo, but hey, our excuse is that we were too busy working on ion