On 5/22/07, Tobia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
David Nečas (Yeti) wrote: > it's a bit strange when a vim user describes vi as `crazy' and `so > weird'...It may sound strange to us Vim veterans, but it's what I would expect. My path to learning Vi/Vim (which took place at the same time as my learning of GNU/Linux, by the way) was as follows: 1. Use it as a Notepad with weird save/quit commands (<esc>:w<cr> ...) Always in insert mode, only using the arrows, Del, BS, Home, End, and hitting Esc and 'u' like crazy whenever something weird happened. 2. Learn "copy & paste", first line-wise (dd yy p P), then selection-wise (v V ^V y d, still only using the arrow keys. At this point (a few months?) I was already as productive as with my former Windows editor of choice! (something like TextEdit™ or TextPad™) 3. Learn that command mode is actually useful for moving around in the file (gg, G, {, }) and opening two files at a time (:e, C-^) 4. Other stuff (complex movements, buffers/windows/tabs, registers, macros, mappings, autocommands, folding, custom syntax files...) This timeline might look non-linear, in fact I believe that learning Vim is an exponential task to the engaged user, and that's a very good thing! The point is: I don't consider my learning path in any way peculiar, and if Vim had suddenly reverted to Vi while I was in phases 1 to 3, I would have looked at my computer with a blank, baffled expression on my face. Tobia
Yeah, the really big problem is that the guy I am working with who I am helping admin a few servers is at exactly step 1. In fact, it wasn't until recently that he figured out (I told him) that Ctrl-Z is not the same as :q!. And like you said, we upgraded and he was just like, "vi got totally weird and now I use nano!" But after having explained to him a couple things that might help him out (r for replacing single characters and whatnot) I think he might start the path to enlightenment ;-) -fREW
