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Vim Cheat Sheet

Vim is a originally terminal-based text editor, created back in the old days. In the old days, folks had one huge problem: The mouse for hovering around on your screen wasn't invented yet. Therefore programmers had to use their keyboard for doing everything - copy, pasting, moving around lines, deleting, editing and so on.

But if Vim stems from the old days, why does it still matter to day? Because Vim enables you to get stuff done faster. Way faster. Not needing to grab your mouse for writing code keeps your fingers on the keyboard in shape.

  • h: Move cursor left
  • l: Move cursor right
  • k: Move cursor up
  • j: Move cursor down

Editing​

Author's Notes​

Vim is hard to learn, but very powerful when used regulary. To me, there are a couple benefits.

  1. You get rid of using your mouse. This accelerates the speed of writing code
  2. You avoid certain issues with your mouse arm. Using the mouse is often the least ergomical process while working on a computer.
  3. You avoid the struggle having to know all the macros on the operating systems you use. Personally, I use Windows and Mac. Besides the fact that the keyboard layouts feel completely different, certain macros for editing are in fact different. Installing Vim, Neovim or an extension for your current editor solves the struggle.
  4. By forcing yourself to use the keyboard for almost everything, you get know your keyboard even better.

The best way to get started with Vim is installing a Vim-plugin for your current editor or IDE. This way you can use the benefits of your common environment, but have the benefits of Vim included.

Additional Ressources​