Nine months with Vim

Over summer, I attended the Recurse Center. I noticed that around half the people in my batch were using Vim, and figured it would be a good time to try it out. I ran into two difficulties:

1. I knew the basics of using Vim but I was less efficient than with my previous editor, Visual Studio Code
2. I didn't know how to configure Vim to use the syntax highlighting, indentation and linters I was used to. I was trying out lots of different programming languages, and needed to set Vim up for each one separately.

I decided to deal with these problems separately. I focused on the former by using a preconfigured Vim setup to defer having to think about the latter.

Initial Vim configuration

I installed Amir Salihefendic's vimrc. It provided a really good starting point, and I'd recommend it to people who don't want to roll their own config.

Once I felt productive at using Vim, I decided to write my own Vim configuration. This let me address some minor issues I had:

• I found it difficult to understand which features were and built into Vim, and which came from the vimrc
• The vimrc contained features I didn't use
• The vimrc vendored packages into the repo. To add new things, I needed to use git submodules, a lower level of abstraction than I wanted to use
• I forked the repo to make some changes. Maintaining the fork and keeping everything up to date was a lot of effort

Current Vim configuration

I wanted a configuration that was:

• Language agnostic and supported a wide range of languages
• Minimal and close to native Vim where possible
• Easy to edit and used a modern package manager

You can see my full configuration on GitHub. It's just over 100 lines of code, including comments and newlines.

File navigation

I use Tim Pope's vim-vinegar to interact with the filesystem and open files. It's a thin wrapper around Vim's built in netrw. When editing a file, pressing - opens a listing of that file's parent directory. Pressing - again to moves you up a directory. To find a particular directory or file, I use the normal Vim search (/).

I've heard good things about fuzzy finders such as fzf, but haven't used them myself.

Splits and tabs

I use both tabs and splits to edit multiple files. At work I mostly code on a large number of microservices written in Go. I'll use one tab per service, and two or three splits per tab.

To open splits, I've mapped = to open the current file in a vertical split. I use this in conjunction with vim-vinegar's - command to quickly open files from the same package/directory in a new split.

I don't currently interact with the open buffer list directly.

To move between splits, I've added the mappings ctrl+<h/j/k/l>:

" Easy split navigation
map <C-j> <C-w>j
map <C-k> <C-W>k
map <C-h> <C-W>h
map <C-l> <C-W>l

To create new tabs I use T, and to switch between them, I use alt+<h/l>:

" Simplify using tabs
nnoremap ˙ gT
nnoremap ¬ gt
nnoremap T :tabnew<cr>

Language support

I use two plugins to get decent Vim support for most languages I'll ever use:

• vim-polyglot: Syntax highlighting and correct indenting
• Asynchronous Line Engine (ALE): Linting

Interacting with code

I use a couple of small plugins which make writing code marginally easier. The features they implement come built into Visual Studio Code:

• vim-commentary: Comment out lines or blocks of code. It works for most languages I've tried
• auto-pairs: When you type a left parenthesis, it automatically types a right parenthesis and moves your cursor between the two
• vim-gitgutter: Display a green + or a red - next to columns that have been edited in a file
• :set colorcolumn = 80: Display a faint line at 80 chars

Package management

I use Junegunn Choi's vim-plug as my package manager. I like its simple API (add GitHub repos, run PlugInstall). It operates at a higher level of abstraction than Pathogen or Vim 8's native package loading in that you don't interact with your plugins' files directly. This feels familiar if you're used to brew/apt-get/pip etc.

Logbook

To simplify writing my logbook, I wrote a Vim plugin, vim-logbook which lets me easily open today's logbook and add timestamps.