I’ve finally done it. After months and months of on-off usage of Vim, I’m now finally using it 100% of the time. It’s been a long and hard road getting here, but let me tell you, it’s been well worth it. I now feel like I absolutely fly through my code. I’ve read many a time, people saying that watching someone using Vim is like watching something mystical, and I can see why. Looking at how I edit code in Vim now, makes me feel clumsy when I think back to using other editors like TextMate. Don’t get me wrong, TextMate is a wonderful editor, but there is just something about the speed and finesse of editing in Vim which I have just fallen in love with.

I wrote about trying MacVim before and how I just felt it lacked the spit and polish that TextMate does. But now, I can’t remember why I originally felt that way. There’s a simple elegance to the Vim, yet with this awesome power available to you. Switching wasn’t easy in the slightest. I would load Vim up for an hour, tinker around, get frustrated and go back to Textmate. Then a month later I’d try again, learn a new command, last two hours and go back to TextMate. A few more months and hours turned into a full day, then the full day turned into a couple of days, and then I never looked back.

One of the keys to hitting the ground running is having a good config. I originally used jferris‘s vimfiles but moved to scrooloose’s files not long ago. It practically has every plugin you could ever need to make life in Vim sublime.

Some other handy references I’ve used along the way have been vimtutor, the Vim Recipies Cookbook, the Vim Tips Wiki. To aid my own memory of useful commands I’ve even started my own Vim tumblr.