Vim Reviews

The keyboard commands allow for fast movement and editing

Nothing, really. Some users dislike the tinkering and learning curve needed to use Vim, but I like that characteristic of it.

Absolutely give it a try for code. It requires a learning period, but that is vastly offset with the speed acquired on mastery. And it's free!

I use vim within a remote session inside of tmux panes. Within each vim instance, I am able to efficiently edit any code, text files, and even explore/modify the file system. Once I sit down to start working, I almost never need to touch the mouse or even take my hands off the keyboard. Additionally, with its keyboard shortcuts, there is a significant speedup to editing by speeding up processes that you didn't know were wasting your time.

The biggest convenience is moving around the code. With "normal" editors, you get significant usage out of the Shift, Control, Home, and End keys to move around, along with the arrow keys. These movements take a long time and are a waste of time. Instead, with a modal editor like vim (or emacs), you sit in normal mode most of the time, where the keys don't input characters, but are mapped to various controls. Need to move to the bottom of the document? Hit G. No need to scroll down or hold the down arrow key or Page Down. Want to search for "functionName"? Type /functionName<enter> and you can scroll through all instances. No more Ctrl+F (or worse, menus accessed by mouse).

Vim edits text like a boss. You can move text around, make massive edits with substitution really simply and generally do all the things very quickly and efficiently.

Unfortunately, vim's GUI is less than stellar. Most unfortunately, it does not have proper support for folding code in a way that's easy to see. There's lots of hacks and plugins, but they're all just that: hacks and plugins. There's not an easy way to keep proper GUI-style interface features.

Learning vim is tough--the keybindings don't immediately make sense. But getting over the learning curve is 100% worth it. The pay off is huge.

I use vim on a daily basis for the vast majority of my text editing--the only exception is when I'm using an IDE, in which case I'll turn vim keymappings on if they're available. I'm regularly pasting text into vim, making quick edits and copying back to whatever I need.

Vim is completely customizable! I can make it do whatever that I need it to do and having so many years behind it, it has little bugs. There is also a great community around it so most of the time, there is a plug in for what I need it to do. You can make it a full blown IDE or just simple. It all depends on your style of coding.

Vim is completely customizable. It's greatest feature is also its greatest downfall. It has a steep learning curve and set up to get going. Once you get going, then it becomes easy. VimL is also a pain to learn but then it clicks after a while.

If you have been programming for a while, then I would recommend taking the vim dive. It can be a steep curve so it's best to get some practice. When you feel like giving up, ask for help. There is so many people that you can ask for help.

The ease of use is scale of "painful" at first but as you get going and customized to your needs, then it becomes delightful.

When I need an editor, I can always count on vim to do what I need it to do. It has given me the least of amount of trouble and is always installed on our servers when I need to view things or modify something on the fly.

What I like about Vim is that it's very lightweight and very customisable because of it's plugins. It also has support for code highlighting for various languages, skins and themes if you are into customisation. And because it is lightweight, it consumes just a little bit of your memory. THere's a ton of plugins that you can use that could be provided with by plugin bundlers like Vundle and the others.

What I dislike about is the learning curve you need to have it work for daily use, there's a ton of shortcuts to memorize and be familiar with in order to use it with comfort. Vanilla VIM is also something you don't want to stick to since it's very bland and not that user friendly, you really need to customize it to your liking in order to get the best out of vim.

Consider it if you want to have a lightweight editor that you won't even need a mouse that much to use it. It's really great for web development stuff.

I use Vim as my primary editor at work as a Ruby on Rails and Javascript developer. It's syntax is just right to not use it with any IDE unlike other languages. The use of the mouse is one thing I've noticed significantly, I haven't used it that much because of the keyboard shortcuts used by Vim. It's also kind of cool to use an editor right in the terminal in my opinion, I mostly work with the terminal and just having it right there makes it's seamless for me to switch between different kinds of work.

Vim is a great text editor for linux. The shorthands makes it extremely useful to navigates, search, edit, copy, replace, paste, etc. Unlike a normal editor, we get to focus more time on the content rather than editing the code.

No automatic code correction or compiler unlike intellij or eclipse. If they could include suggestions or error handling suggestions, vim would be the top editor.

It would be great if they can support atleast major languages like C, C++, Java, Python with different color codes for variables, keywords, etc..

Must know for any linux user. Coding with vim will help you rather than the auto-completion editors.

Most of the company code I write is in vim. Source control like git is well integrated with vim and hence it is a top choice for most of the code I write. It is a must know for all linux users to realise the efficiency of linux.

It's installed everywhere there is a terminal. Great for working on computers that you don't have an environment for development set up on.

It is not as easy to use as a text editor or IDE. As someone who frequently makes typos, VIM is great when I need it, but not great otherwise. It's like coding with a pen and paper, to some degree. No autocomplete, no indentation help, no nothing. You should still learn it, though.

Learn it - you'll use it if you're in the Software Dev field. I'd recommend using a text editor otherwise, though.

Coding on machines that I do not have my own environment on or making VERY fast edits to different files.

The biggest thing vim has over nano (and other CLI text editors I've used) is its lack of persistent control / nav bar. You have the entire terminal window at your disposal for editing, which I really appreciate. The common bash on vim is not knowing its commands, but once you learn how to enter INSERT mode, save, and quit, what else do you really need?

The obvious answer is the learning curve. Vim has a ton of stuff that I never use, that is practically impossible to discover yourself without extensive research. Considering the "How to exit VIM" question on Stackoverflow is apparently one of the most frequently viewed questions on the site is saying something about discoverability. (Hint, it's ' : ' to enter command mode, and q to quit)

The most important commands to learn are how to change modes, and how to quit with / without saving. There are of course tons of other features of VIM (there's a reason it's been around for over 2 decades), and you can look those up as you need them, but out of the box, the ease and simplicity of just opening a file, editing it, saving and quitting is way smoother with vim than any other CLI text editor I've used before.

I use Vim as an easy way to quickly edit files on a VPS. Plaintext files like env, conf, and plist files can quickly be edited without the need for git or FTP.

When you get used to use VIM as main IDE you move around the code much fast, you edit the code much faster, I tried to go back to other IDEs but I couldn't´t found the shortcuts and the well done way to interact with the code as VIM has.

Copy past outside vim is always a problem, there are some ways to fix this, but it doesn't came as default. Search is not always the best, but with some tweaks you can make it much faster.

The ramp up is really hard at the beginning, but after 1 or 2 month working with it everyday, you will start feel the advantages from it. After 4 or 5 month using it, you will love it!. Then you will realice that you can configure more and more VIM, so you will have your own vimrc file, with some plugings, some macro, same new key maps. You are now a Vim users, and you are not going to able to use another IDE again.

Productivity, I´m much more productive using this IDE. First at all, you have less distraction on the screen, you work ALWAYS in the terminal which is great, I don´t have to switch between apps when I have to do something, I have everything in the terminal which make my work much faster and organized. I can add macro to everything that I use often which follow the VIM ideology, that write less do more.

This is the text editor I use the most because there is an implementation of it on all the operating systems that I use. I use Vim and the same familiar editing commands whether I am working on Windows, MSDOS, Unix, Linux, OpenVMS, or even an Android tablet.

Vim stands for "vi Improved" and there are many advanced commands that I should learn to use, but haven't. It is a bit of a steep learning curve when just getting started using Vim, but I have found that just the knowing the basic editing commands are all I need to edit any text file.

This is a free text editor that is available on multiple computing environments from Raspberry Pi to large supercomputers.

My job position requires me to work on a diverse set of computing environments, and I'm glad that the Vim text editor can be used on all of them without me having learn a different text editor for each environment.

Vim has loads of features and customization tools for editing. Autocompletion, search, looking up the definition of a function (using tag file), multiple tabs, string replacement, smart indenting, keyword colours are the primary ones I use almost every day. Not to forget, vim has a good documentation to lookup when in doubt. On UNIX, it even allows seeing the man pages of functions we are using. Having multple modes like editing, command and visual are all good.

Editing huge files is supported by few editors and Vim is among them. I have used it to work with data file in a few Gigabytes.

The only issue with Vim is that the customization is all using the scripts and hence there is a learning curve involved. But once someone learns it, it becomes easy. There are lots of scripts already available on various websites, but probably there could be some direct links to youtube videos channels could be helpful. When most of the products have easy to use interfaces, being scripting only can be a restrictive proposition.

Among the best code editors available around, a must try. If the file to be edited is huge, there are just a few editors to support and Vim can become handly in those cases.

Faster coding is the primary benefit I get by using Vim. Along with other utilities like ctags, grep, sed Vim becomes a formidable tool. Autosaving is quite useful as it always keeps a backup of the previous opened version.

Vim is a great terminal based text editor. Though it has a bit of a steep learning curve for beginners, it has a lot of useful features once you learn it. The best trick about vim that I like (and probably wouldn't use without) is holding Alt with my thumb to use normal mode without hitting escape. I edit most of my small projects using Vim since it's fast and I can move around, modify, delete, search, and move things without ever leaving home row.

I was going to say I wish Vim had auto-completion or spell check, but there are plugins for both (spell check is actually built in but needs to be enabled).

Start using it. It might be painful at first but it's great once you get it down.

Vim is great for scripting and small projects, and especially useful when you SSH. If you want to make it better for larger projects, you'll have to install some plugins for it. Without those plugins, I wouldn't use Vim for any medium or larger projects or large files since large scale navigation is not one of Vim's strong points (by default).

Vim is very easy to use, and provides the user with many options to customize their user experience. There are many editor commands that allow the user to easily navigate through their document. It is also an extremely lightweight editor, ensuring that the user does not experience lag when viewing or editing their document.

Vim is hard to learn and get used to. The traditional vim editor does not allow the user to use their mouse to navigate through their document. However, this can be customized. If the user becomes comfortable navigating through the document without using a mouse, it can be faster than using a mouse.

Vim has a steep learning curve, but is a great editor, and is worth the effort it takes to become familiarized with this editor.

Vim allows me to easily view and edit documents in terminal without opening up an external editor. I am able to develop code efficiently using this product. Because Vim is so lightweight, I don't need to worry about lag when viewing or editing my documents, or about the IDE crashing and losing my progress.

- Multi-purpose. It's not limited to one programming language, it can handle it all.

- Multi-platform. I use it both on Linux and Mac OS

- Works great remotely. No need to set remote disk bindings, I use vim through an ssh connection.

- Vim is highly customizable, either by programming in vimscript or using plugins (see Vundle plugin manager).

- Performance is not great. It'd be great if vim was upgrade to make use of multi-processing.

1. Check out VIM plugins and the Vundle plugin manager.

2. Give VIM some time, the learning curve is very steep unfortunately, but you'll be so productive, it's unrealistic.

3. Vimgolf can help with the learning curve.

4. Every now and then, take the time to learn something new about vim. Updating your workflow will pay back.

- Vim is my first and unique text editor for anything, ranging from Python, Java, SQL, simple text files.

- After the initial steep learning curve, my productivity got drastically enhanced.

What I like most is the amount of features it has, you can make complex edits with this editor. Allows you to use several shortcuts for editing.

Another advantage is the amount of documentation, the community is quite broad, it is an editor available for any Unix-based OS (AIX, HP-UX), Linux (Debian, RHEL, Open Suse), etc.

For novice users the learning curve is quite slow, it can be difficult at the beginning, because it's a different editor than the commons.

Vim is an editor that at first may seem difficult to use, but with practice and constant use you can see that it is a very useful tool for editing with features that are not available in any editor.

It is the best editor I recommend for those who are in the world of server administration.

I use it constantly in my work in the administration of servers, to edit configuration files, scripts, etc., in the servers that I manage. I constantly use the search tool, replacing text using Regex.

I also used it on my personal machine for configuring the applications that I have to install, bash editing, etc.

I like how efficient it is to use, once you've learnt the basics and more advanced features you will find that your writing code and using the shortcuts all become second nature. You gain a lot of efficiency from using all the shortcuts though, so they are well worth taking the time to learn.

It is also by far the most customisable editor that I have used. You can literally change everything, my favourite thing to customise is setting up keymaps that can perform multiple key press with just one.

It is a very daunting prospect opening up vim for the first time. You will struggle at first and it takes a lot of getting used to.

Take your time learning everything first. I recommend watching the Vim series on laracasts.com. That helped me set everything up.

I do the majority of my code editing with vim, it is great as it's available to be used over SSH.

VIM is a ubiquitous, lightweight, and immensely powerful editor. Just about every non-Windows environment will have VIM installed (and the Windows gVIM version is a quick free download). Once you learn the keyboard shortcuts, VIM allows you to navigate, search, and manipulate files more efficiently than any other editor. It's also highly configurable and has a huge collection of useful plugins.

While not necessarily a criticism, the learning curve for VIM is steep. Until learning a good portion of the commands, using VIM will likely slow you down. However, once you get up to speed it gives you more control than any other editor.

Thoroughly read a good tutorial (I recommend Daniel Miessler's) before trying to use it as your primary editor. Spending some time learning the commands upfront will prevent a lot of frustration.

VIM is my go-to editor when I need access to an editor from a terminal window. I use it regularly to edit files on a remote server.

The shortcuts for everything and then they also configurable. You can add more according to your need. The coding community helps a lot with lot of plugins and scripts to just do about anything you want to. I was really sold on the idea that it let's you hack together your own IDE than just using one everyone else uses.

The learning curve. It is steep. If you just try to mug up all those shortcuts, it is going to be very difficult to work with the code. Found some easy vim talks which explained that how closely vim commands are related to what exactly they do.

Vim can be intimidating with the steep learning curve, but don't worry. You can use it howsoever you please. They are lot of plugins, use them. Remember, all the commands mean something, they relate to the action they perform.

I read, edit and write code with this tool.

Flexible, extendible and ubiquitous in Linux. Vim has all the bells and whistles of other IDE's and can be configured to be a truly powerful code editor. Once tweaked to your preferences it is a joy to work with and because it's available on most Linux systems it helps do know how to use the tool effectively.

The learning curve is a bit steep, pasting can be a pain until configured properly. It's also really hard to escape... I have been using it so long now that get frustrated using any other editor that maps keys differently.

Use it! It's the best thing ever.

As a Linux Engineer I have used Vim on a daily basis for years. Even though I don't find myself editing files on systems very often anymore (what with configuration management systems and all), I still use Vim for all my coding in Shell, Python, Ruby, etc...

I like the key bindings that allow for quick and efficient manipulation of my code. I find it very convenient that you can use vim to easily read and modify files without leaving the terminal.

There is a steep learning curve to learn the keybindings. It will take some practice if a user is unfamiliar with using the keyboard to navigate their code instead of the mouse. Finding the best configuration and plugins for a workflow can be daunting.

There are a lot of choices for code editors, Vim is one of the most lightweight and easily accessible. With the correct plugins and configuration, Vim is competitive against even IDE's.

I use vim daily for code development and code reviews. The real benefit for me is that it allows a simple interface to my code that is not prone to crashing or using up system resources like some of the full fledged IDE's on the market.

Vim is available cross platform and cross protocol, so whether accessing through a GUI or over SSH, Vim provides the same stellar experience. Installing Vim plugins is a breeze and customizing the look and function of one's Vim installation takes one as far as one wishes to go.

Vim does have a steep learning curve and active Googling will be required for a while. Vanilla Vim is also bland and lacking critical features that would be pleasant if they came bundled. Luckily, plugins can take care of all of these needs or a quick addition to one's config file, but for a new user, this may be very off putting.

Once you are past the initial learning experience, you will greatly appreciate the massive speed increases and robust community support. If vanilla Vim doesn't provide all the features you need, you can almost certainly find a plugin which will fulfill that requirement. If one isn't working with coding languages though, but rather markup (e.g. HTML) or other data formats, Vim may not be the best option and a tool such as Visual Studio Code or another may suit your workflow the best.

Vim enables rapid development in a heavily self-customized environment while ensuring all team members can rapidly resolve issues on a server or locally. It also is inherently productive and fast, so coding and debugging are greatly improved. It also works very well with tools like tmux making it a perfect editor for virtually any team that has to deal with servers in some capacity.

I started using vim about 5 years ago. I made a commitment to learn the basics, and have been growing that knowledge over time. I can type code in vim faster than people who are much faster typists than me in other editors. Staying on the keyboard is the key to efficiency.

Really only that I haven't learned it all yet. I know there is more power in vim than I currently leverage, but I haven't taken the time to commit it all to muscle memory.

Totally worth the effort to learn. And it can boost your feeling of self-superiority :)

I build and maintain software. vim is my friend on my local Ubuntu machine, my home OSX machine, and on our remote servers that run our code. one environment everywhere.

I prefer using VIM as my default text editor because it is very lightweight although I have added many external plugins in it. It provides easy navigation in the code and replacing the existing code. It works with major languages such as Python and Javascript, which I use the most in my coding for providing the syntax highlighter to correct the errors. It also has very fast access without requiring the mouse when compared to ATOM. Connection through SSH is excellent for remote systems. It is an open source text editor and has a large user community backing it up.

It lacks somewhere in the color-coding for programming text and requires extensive settings for that. In order to use it in the most effective way, one has to know the shortcuts and other commands well before using it, so it will definitely take some time to become an expert in using VIM.

If you want to have a light weight Code editor, then VIM is an excellent option. Before started jumping on directly on using it, spend some time on its tutorial program to get familiar with its shortcuts and other commands.

I use VIM for writing my test cases and editing the existing code and it saves a lot of time by using the shortcuts available in VIM. It is quite convenient for me when it comes to searching for folders and directories for source code files using VIM. I work on Client’s remote systems to modify the existing code with the help of VIM editor.

It is very quick and low resources consuming piece of software. It represent clearly all the text that I need to review and also a quick shortcut to modify code.

It has a steep learning curve in order to fully take benefit of all its features. A novice user can find it complicated but when you start learning all the usual shortcuts you can edit quickly code and also plain text.

I recommend VIM to encrypt files. It is very easy to apply encrypt functions via the command line interface which is very useful if there is only remote access to some machine through SSH and such.

I am trying to automate several process in my day to day work. Some times I use it to modify plain text, it does not need to open in a graphical user interfac (GUI) mode.

It's ready to go on linux and mac. Just paste in your dot file and you're straight up and running with your editor set how you like it. If you've never used it, it's worth learning just for fun, too, because it is such a different way of working with text that you'll be amazed by the features.

It needs to come with config package manager for installing and setting up your environments how you like it with a guide, rather than having to spend days researching plugins and settings to build your effective dot net file.

Learn it even if you don't intend to use it in the long term. One day you'll benefit greatly by not having to install any software just to be able to edit files on a server.

It's free, so it saves money. It's quick and easy, so there's less time required to set it up for new users. It's simple so there's no errors and glitches to fix unlike normal software. I've benefited from all three in every job I've had. Most importantly speed, because I hate setting up IDEs and mapped drives.

What I like best about Vim editor is it has got advanced and powerful shortcuts, commands and plugins for editing my code, scripts and batch files.

It provides a small bar in the lower right corner which will let you know the mode you are operating in. I can easily enter a key in my document if I am in insert mode by just hitting the key. While in command mode, hitting a key will execute that command and you don’t need to do any extra efforts for this. Also, switching between the modes is made very easy, as you can just press the Escape key to do so.

When I first started using Vim, I was working on a Project related to Object Oriented Programming. I found that it is not suitable for this kind of programming at all as you have to use a lot of external plugins to get what you actually need.

Also, for a new user it is a time consuming task to get used to its GUI and other features.

Since it is provided as a free text editor, I would recommend it to be used at least once and it proves useful for those who works on scripting languages.

I have been using Vim as my text editor for most of my projects as well as an editor for my daily coding tasks. Its syntax highlighter feature allows me to quickly find the error in my code without even compiling it online.

Its download time is extremely quick and you don’t need to wait for a long time for the installation in your machine. So, it would save your time and you can concentrate on more important tasks.

For people that never used before vim will be a bit odd to start, however after start using it they will love. Is a clean editor that you can use to edit conf files or building your codes/scripts. You can search and replace using some really good options and you can split the screen to edit more files at same time. You can configure it to show different color schemes for different file formats.

Its hard to find something that I dislike using vim. I use it since I started using Linux many years ago. I also used some other options like emacs, but vim is my preferred text editor.

Start leaning using a tutorial because the start is not that easy. People can be frustrated if just try by themselves because Vim is different. However, after your first steps you will love it.

I change config files for my networking systems like apache, mysql and several others. I fix some small bugs in some softwares.

VIM es lean, agile, and best of all, quick as my thinking speed. Yes, using VIM I don't have to memorize commands, just think and write. Better, no mouse, so my speed increases. And as a bonus VIM is highly configurable, so it can be enhanced with abbreviations, plugins and sripts that augment VIM's features beyond a text editor, converting it into a full-fledged IDE. Auto completation, Code Intel, tree views, tabs, highlighting, emmet, themes, and more.

VIM is hard to learn, essentially it works in a different way than other text editors. So relax and take time to learn. Make routines and you'll see your own progress, which at the same time is a motivator to go further.

VIM operates in modes, Insert, Visual, Replace and Normal mode are the main and always used modes. So you will have to 'change' modes.

But work daily o VIM and after 6 month you'll feel comfortable.

Use it, don't get afraid of starting, VIM is for the rest of your life as programmer. Start, it's different mindset, step learning curve but it pays off after two months.

I need a lean, lightweight IDE, featured to allow me to avoid repetitive and non value tasks.

VIM provides a free, open source, lean, agile, easy to use and low maintenance cost.

I love the fact that VIM can be installed in less than a minute and configured in 15 minutes.

One of the best feature of Vim is its actually a modular text editor. You can change/edit the function in every key on your keyboard, so that it can help you type more faster and efficient.

As a Web programmer, I prefer this text editor also because of its simple interface. It doesn't have a lot of button on the side and top of the screen, basically, its more like a blank white page, where you can write anything on it without getting confused or annoyed.

Because its a modular text editor, it must have a way to do setting/configuration. Vim doesn't provide you a simple and easy way to do this, instead, Vim gives you.....A blank white space.....where you can write all the function, command, and setting you desire. Its really annoying, because i cannot remember every setting on Vim. So every time I want to set something, let say I want to change font, I need to look the command on internet or their help page (which is really not an easy thing to do).

If you need a text editor which can make you type faster with simple interface, use Vim. I type more faster than my old text editor. As a web programmer, my productivity increase 60% with Vim.

I work as a web programmer. I type a lot everyday, hundreds and thousands words a day and I also see code everyday. Vim offer a simple interface so i can understand what i write in an instant. Besides, Vim also offers a way to change the function of keys on keyboard, so I set all my main function (Copy, paste, delete, enter new line) to the Alphabet keys on keyboard. So every time i want to call those function, my hand is still in typing position. its really helps me on writing code faster and more efficient.

Vim can be be pretty much installed anywhere that you could possibly ever code, making it incredibly useful to know. From your personal machine to SSH'ing into a production server, by knowing vim you can modify code wherever you are. Also offers a high level of customization for more advanced users.

There is not much to dislike about vim, as it serves it's purpose of being a lightweight, flexible text editor pretty well. The only thing I can think of is that there is a higher learning curve in the beginning when compared to something like Sublime

For more advanced users, I highly suggest checking out how to customize Vim to better suit your needs / coding preferences. These additions can make Vim much more useful than it is out of the box, but again requires the user to be fairly comfortable with the editor.

The problem I am solving with Vim is the ability to reliably code anywhere, including on environments outside of my person machine. Vim does a great job of this as it is included by default on many machines, and is easily installed on machines that it is not.

What I most like about vim it's its ability and flexibility of customizing keymaps, behaviours, writing plugins. But, most of all, it's their precise text editing mode and movements. For sure its learning curve is steep but soon enough you wish all your software would have a "vim mode" so you can use your beloved vim features outside vim.

Indeed Vim have a steep learning curve and it's look and feel are far from modern.

Maybe you'll be an Emacs guy, but certainly try Vim out. Also, have a dotfiles repo configure you vim setup automatically is also a time saver. Just search .vimrc on Github... Plenty of examples...

I'm a software developer for more than 12 years now and vim is still the best text editor I could find so far. I tried many IDE's, they of course have nice features, but at the end of the day what you do is edit text and for that VIM is unbeatable.

Vim is such a versatile editor! Whether your a ruby developer, php, any type of developer can set up vim to how every you like! The modal editing is so addictive, I could not go back to using the arrow keys or mouse again.

The learning ramp seems to be a bit steep, and it really seems to scare a lot of people.

Take the time to learn vim. And I guarantee that you will start being more effecient working on projects and questioning other editors.

It has help me be more effecient when working and if I find my self doing really repetitive tasks I can always script them or make a binding that handles it.

Oh man. I love vim - it's the One True Text Editor. The keybindings and commands make working on software so much easier and faster. I really love extending it and writing code for it as well. It makes for a fun project, and is very customizable.

There's really nothing to dislike. The worst thing that can be said about this editor is that it's not very modern, but that's intrinsic to it so it's not really a shortcoming. It's simply very hard, in today's software world, to use vim as a daily driver for developing large software systems with lots of dependencies. However, the firs thing I do when getting a new IDE or editor is turn on vim emulation!

It's a great lightweight editor for small projects. I use it a lot for quick prototyping, as well as small school projects.

First thing is Vim is free. Vim provide fast typing and keybinding for my work. In unix filesystem, is default installed vi mode which can be used at terminal / console. So you just need to learn one keybinding. Also vim has portable configuration that can you easily edit.

Short UI for web development. I can say using vim for editing HTML is hell for me. Maybe for veteran vim user no. High learning curve for newbie just for typing, but worth the time. In my workplace, for learning vim trainee has given 2 weeks to get used with the keybindings.

If you like an powerful editor which make you typing so fast, but has high learning cuve. Vim is good. Vim has been around internet since 1991, got a lot of reputation an user base. An extensible, and easy plugin to install.

Fast typing of keybindings are really helpfull. Other that that, vim can run on console which mean i can do some ftp / ssh work.

Love it or hate it, there really is no middle ground with Vim. It has a very steep learning curve and really relies of constant and dedicated use to become proficient in it. The point of Vim is to provide a text editor that minimizes the amount of movement your hands have to do so that you can work faster. And speed is Vim's strongest feature, once you get used to it.

Vim is also extendable and has a HUGE amount of available plugins that can customize your vim to function just as well as your full featured IDE like Eclipse or Sublime Text. The amount of configuration is staggering and there's even a port of Eclipse that can be used within Vim (called Eclim).

Vim is free and can be used in pretty much any Linux distro, so is essential if you want to ssh into remote environments.

It's hard to learn, and even after 2 years of using I'm still having to look up some commands. Unless you're ultra dedicated to learning new and interesting key commands your progress in using Vim will eventually plateau and you won't get any faster. Also, because it's open source, plugins can be both good and bad. Sometimes there is excellent documentation, and sometimes there's not, forcing you to look in the source code to find out how to do something. This can be both good and bad, depending on your level of curiosity.

If you're a programmer, learn Vim. There's nothing else to it. You need to know how to use it, even if it's just a basic understanding of moving around, inserting text and saving and quitting, your life will be so much better for it.

Remote server administration, faster coding.

Vim is a mode based editor for quickly and very efficiently marking up code. Expandable via plugins you'll find the default version, installed on most Linux systems (also available on Windows and Mac OS), already quite feature rich. The Vim name comes from the fact that it is an ancestor of vi (the well formed Unix editor) and the 'm' represents that it is "Visually IMproved": in its default setting Vim automatically colors your code according to syntax which makes reading what you're opening, or writing for the first time, very enjoyable. If you're ever looking at a file which is not color highlighted simply press ESC (this takes you to command mode) and then type, ":syntax on" sans the quotation marks ENTER. Colors and other settings are all highly customizable and may be stored in a .vimrc file. Google: how to use Vim & Vim Cheatsheet (which you should print out and hang next to your display for easy reference) and let the fun begin!

Vim is a mode based editor which means that keyboard input produces different behavior depending upon which mode you're in. At first this can seem annoying but once you've trained your brain, it is actually speedily efficient! When you first enter into Vim press the letter 'i' (for INSERT) to go from command to edit mode and then type away. To save and exit press ESC Shift+ZZ.

Vim is well matured, widely available, and almost universally accepted by serious programmers everywhere.

If you are new to Vim I highly recommend you start with Cream which overlays all the conventional keyboard shortcuts and provides a drop-down menu system so that you'll be able to do common tasks such as copy/paste from other windows into your Vim opened document using the shortcuts you're already familiar with. Cream (for Vim) is available via http://cream.sourceforge.net/

I've written entire installation automation kits and heavy-duty data processing scripts in Vim.

Vim has an incredibly powerful plugin system, and every plugin you never knew you needed probably already exist. Due to the terminal interface, Vim can be customised by just editing your .vimrc, which can also be used to add command line functionality.

I have never found anything quite as good as vim's %s (string replace) functionality, regex replace is a lifesaver in many situations, and not something that many other text editors have.

The learning curve is *very* steep - there's a joke that ^C^C^C^Z^Z is a common sequence for new vim users trying to exit the editor to type, and it holds true. It does take a while to get to grips with the new way of working, using commands instead of GUI interfaces.

It also has some weird paste behaviour, sometimes pasting at your (GUI) cursor, sometimes pasting at your text-cursor, but that's just a minor nag.

If you want a text editor, and not an operating system masquerading as an editor (looking at you, EMACS), vim is for you.

I was solving my lack of a suitable all-purpose text editor - NANO is nice and all, but it's just not powerful enough for programming or power user-type stuff. Hence, I went to vim, and after the aforementioned learning curve drastically sped up my development time.

Fully extensible with plugins, fast, in-console text editor. Syntax highlighting for every languages/code i have written, auto completion. Did I mention fast? A plethora of key-bindings and more custom ones can be created, actually more than one can remember. One package that is worth mentioning is vundle, a package manage for vim itself. Split editing, be it vertically or horizontally. And all this from the : prompt. When you lay your hands on a low end linux box, you start to appreciate the elegance of vim.

Anyone coming form a gui text editor will have to learn a lot, actually, the learning curve is so steep that most don't finish the process and call it quits. There are new packages being released every day, it seems impossible to keep up. There is no definitive guide to best text editing using vim, for veterans, it all comes down to personal choices at the end. Well, there are guides claiming the best editing practices but I have found myself to be counterproductive when simply following their guide. So, it takes sometime before you build your habit and a set of packages that you absolutely need.

Don't be afraid of vim, learning vim completely requires you to read some of the books available online/amazon and that's only base vim. Then there are the plugins you install and their usage. So, forget about all that, learn what you think you need, google your requirement. Nobody is asking you if you know vim (unless you sit for interviews), it's yours to use, if you like something, embrace it.

For security purpose, our office uses RHEL but the central systems run windows 7 enterprise. If I need to deploy something on the user systems, I first need to test it and I do that on ubuntu-gnome (personal pref) running inside vmware. That guest system ends up being quite slow to actually type into in a 'modern' editor without tearing my hair out. This is where vim comes.

I have been using vi since the early 1980's and really liked it. When I found vim I was so happy because I could finally do the things I used to do in Unix on a Windows machine

It would be nice if the editor could be started by using the program name, vi, instead of vim. :-)

If you liked to use vi from Unix or Linux and want the same experience on Windows, this is the editor for you.

Since this is a text editor it doesn't really solve any business problems. I find that since I am so used to using this editor style, I am just more comfortable using it.

Limitless configuration options, incredible plugin community. The editor modes make browsing & sniping text automatic and extremely fast.

The learning curve ensures there is always something waiting to surprise you.

Recent competition in the form of Neovim has pushed features to the next level, we now have asynchronous plugins, an embedded terminal.

As long as plugins are configured properly etc, it is blazingly fast.

Not able to give it the "full project intelligence" of Intellij/Webstorm. Can be difficult to identify performance problems.

VimL is horrible.

Editing text.

- Free, Open source and best vi editor for Linux.

- Vim is popular among developers. We can built add-ons or plugins using vim to control many other software and programming tool.

- Vim is completely based on keyboard commands where each one is distinguished by using keys like alternate, command or control.

- Special feature of vim includes completion, comparison, merging of files, also extended to regular expressions, support of plugins.

- If we keep on practicing with the shortcuts of vim editor, we will become a true programmer.

- It is readily available on all platforms (LINUX, Debian, BSD, Windows).

- Vim is popularly known as developers shortcut.

- Vim editing commands are not easy to learn.

- It consumes large amount of time to be a master, by the time which we may lose our interest in Vim editor.

- If you are beginner, It demands a lot of practice.

- You have to learn the command grammar and train your muscle memory over time.

- Since it is a old editor the recent graduates have no idea about vim.

- If you wanted to be a programmer, Vim is the first step.

- Being a Computer science student, I started using vim recently. Within a short span of time I have addicted to Vim and its been my default editor far all my projects, temporary files and my internship work.

- Benefits: More you learn, More you explore. Ease our workflow, recipe for a conserved programmer.

If you have ever had to ssh into a unix server, you will probably have been faced with the necessity of editing some files. At this point some people choose simple editors, which are fine for minimal changes, but there is an almost ubiquitous alternative, vi.

Vim is the successor of vi, so you will be able to find it almost anywhere. It runs on iOS, Windows, Mac OS X, Unix systems, pretty much everywhere. I like investing time into a tool that I will be able to use almost everywhere.

Even most IDEs offer a vi-bindings plugin, including Qt Creator, Visual Studio, IntelliJ Idea, to name a few. The ease and speed with which I can edit code truly makes using vi a wonderful investment.

There are a couple of minor issues while using Gvim on Windows, but they are easily dealt with. For instance, line-ending differ from one operating system to the other, but having some special settings in the .vimrc file takes care of this problem.

One other issue is that even though IDEs try their best to provide vim bindings with the corresponding plugin, there are always issues, since they have default bindings that collide with some useful vi commands, for instance Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V. This makes you have to choose which bindings to keep, for many different configurations which is a bit painful.

Having a modal editor is a different paradigm. The easiest way to get good at it is just to use it and run vimtutor. I recently introduced an old coworker to it and he was able to appreciate the benefits of it within a week of starting to use it.

Also, perhaps switch the Caps Lock key with the Escape key.

Enhanced productivity and less wrist pain. Both of these I find huge benefits in the long run, although it might be hard to justify the time it takes the average user to get "good enough" at using Vim.

Vim allows you to edit text at high speed due to muscle memory. This means you don't have to lose your flow when coding. It is also universally available on all Linux/Unix systems.

Vim has a very steep learning curve. In fact, over 1.5 million people have gone to Stack Overflow just to find out how to quit Vim! There is also the need to setup plugins if you need more than just a minimalist text editor.

Be prepared to put in time and effort to master Vim. It's gonna be worth it in the long run!

Vim is universally available on almost all servers and OSes. This has allowed our team to solve problems quickly with minimal setup time. It is also one of the "standard" editors in the developer/ops community and hence allows us to share plugins and configurations easily.

I like that you do not have to take your hands off of the keyboard. Vim has so many shortcuts and the ability to record macros to build the most efficient and customizable workflow that you can manage. When you understand Vim it gives you additional confidence to be able to use any unix machine. You can also add plugins to extend it or even import your own settings onto any machine remotely.

The learning curve is steep. You need to be a great typer and understand the logic that makes Vim magical. I think of it as another language. The way that you have to think about your movement and editing can limit your code output at first. You must always know what state that you are in.

I am trying to become a better programmer and when using git you end up in Vim. I think that it is important to understand all of the environments that you work in to make sure that you can operate efficiently.

Super easy and fast shorcuts that you can also compond/mix them in order to create other ones.

Vimrc possibility with lots! of customization to change almost everything. It's really good for programmers that like constant learning. or if you like scripting.

Huge amount of really good plugins to make something like a simple vi editor more like a sublime one.

Terminal mode.

Really lightweight editor, even when you add a considerable ammount of plugins to it. And when you compare it against other editor like Sublime or Atom.

The code is kinda messy and the vim script language is not that good.

There a huge learning curve at first. Not exactly because of the shortcuts be the amount of customization you need to do in order to have a professional text editor. You need to read a lot of documentation and dotfiles to finally make your own .vimrc that suits your needs and goes with you.

Yes, there's a lot of plugins... but they are not nearly as well integrated and done as functionality you could find in other modern text editors likes Sublime, Atom or PyCharms. They lack power.

If you have some of the hacker spirit. Like learning a old but really good editor. Or are a administrations (sysadmin) guy who need to ssh in to servers and make edits (also if you love the terminal). YES! definitively learn vim.

Other options for learning vim may be the reason you don't like to use the mouse which is a good one, but face it we are in a modern age when mouse can be really useful.

Super fast editing of code while developing/programming.

Not having to use the mouse since it kinda slows me down and it annoying.

The only editor with many keyboard shortkuts and can be accessed faster without requirement of mouse. Syntax highlighting for many languages are found. Many extensible plugins can be added easily. Avalable on all known platforms with same accessability and same features. No hanging at all when iam using it. Opening a file or merging is all with terminal commands in ubuntu which is easier and faster to access.

It is completely terminal based which is boring sometimes. User interface is fixed. Lots of time required to get used to it as it has many shortkuts and keyborad keys. Many new programmers should know about this software as it is best for them but there is no much popurality as i guess.

Passioned programmers and beginners can easily use this with great keyboard shortkuts. Fast programmers should use this as it is fastest for any one to use.

As a Progammer i used many old text editors which made my work tough to proceed. Many programs in different languges has its own syntax highlighting helped me alot to understand easily and work effeciently.

All the functionalities of a eiditor can be done withing keyboard itsled which is morefaster considering the usage of both mouse and kayboard. Fully syntax highlighted for many known languages are found which makes the code to look clean and better. It is free and open source as well. There many other new features inclusive of same old text editor features as well.

Lots of keyboard shortcuts to be learned which makes difficult for a beginner to use and user directly shifts to some other good UI based text editor. But later we find this as the best editor. Text editing within the terminal makes some time space shortage which is bit irritating to a fast programmer.

Any programmer who is willing to make things in a faster pace can use this which is free of cost and can be installed in terminal itslef.

As a computer engineer i normally use many code in different languages and edit them frequently. As time complextity is what matters to programmer we reuire everything to be done faster which VIM does it for us.

I use Vim for everything from taking notes to full scale development. Using Vim feels so natural and fast. After learning how to use the various modes and commands Vim is now the quickest text editor I have ever used. Another great feature is that it works just perfectly via ssh or other remote connections, while still offering the power of a full fledged text editor. This is especially useful if you are developing and need to get into your server and verify or make a quick change, you can use the same editor you use on your machine so you can be just as quick and efficient. Finally I love that there are so many great plug-ins for Vim, You don't really need any to enjoy using it, but they really make it much more powerful. A few examples are, git integration, code completion, syntax and error checking, and many many more. Oh and one last final note, VIm works on Linux, Windows, and OS X. I really can't say enough good things about Vim, just try it!

The only problem I have with Vim is the learning curve. It takes a fair amount of effort to become proficient at using Vim, but the payout it definitely worth it. I use this as a dislike because I have referred many colleagues to use Vim and they get started and get frustrated with learning it and quit using it. It really isn't that bad to learn and you will end up loving it if you give it a worthy effort.

Be patient and take a couple hours to learn it well. There is a vim-tutor program that comes with it that helps a ton. Don't get frustrated because the eventual payout is worth way more than the time you invest learning how to use Vim.

I am an aspiring security professional so the problems I'm involved in solving vary greatly. I have used Vim in every aspect of my career though. From Simply taking notes, to developing in c and python, to reverse engineering. I can't imagine a more useful or versatile tool for the jobs.

The macros and motions, vim has a good documentation about mappings keys too. This will let you excited!

The viml, (used to create vim plugins), the viml is poor of features.

You need to learning about motions and macros basically. This features increasing the mouse-less and increase your speed to type some code. Vim have syntax highlight and I have created a good theme for. Just you need to use vim is a simple terminal or terminal emulator. Vim is extremely highlighting, so you don't need to spend a lot of memory to use it. Please considering to search about vim on google, you will see a lot of people and great community of vim talking about it. Vim is free!

All of my projects I have used vim. I can customizing highly the editor and use it in an specific project.

My favorite part of Vim is its convenience. When typing into the terminal, it's a simple built-in command to bring up the Vim editor on any text file. There are other editors in this category, such as emacs, but Vim is lighter-weight than Emacs and does not autosave old versions of files. When emacs autosaves old versions of files, it can be annoying because of the need to manually delete them. Vim is a mainstream text editor used by the Ruby community and the shared experience with other developers also draws me to Vim.

What I dislike about Vim comes from its lightweightness. Firstly, I prefer GUI-based text editors to move around longer files. Vim also lacks features such as autocomplete of commands and requires special settings to color-code program text.

Vim is a good supplement to a heavier-weight IDE

I tend to use Vim alongside more comprehensive IDEs to make quick little changes to files. When I don't feel like opening up a full-blown IDE, Vim is useful. Vim has saved me time I would otherwise have spent fumbling around files and directories.

Vim also supports a wide variety of languages and I have used Vim for writing code in a number of languages, as well as plain-text documents. It's like having a notepad in your console.

Vim is a free text editor. It is fully handled by the keyboard using commands. It can be used for writing codes, content writing etc. Auto completion in Vim saves time for editors. Preference can be changed, so that interface looks great. There are many shortcuts available in Vim which makes typing easier. Vim is supported by many platforms (Linux, windows). Plugins can be included which helps in adding extra features.

Vim is little difficult to handle for beginners, user must know all commands and shortcuts in order to use effectively. So it takes time to get expert in Vim. Most of the features available in Vim are also available in other text editors. The Interface can be improved so that users feel Vim has user friendly.

Vim is great text editor to use. Spend some time in learning the commands and shortcuts, then it will work for you. If you don't want to learn and need an easy, user friendly text editor then go for others, there are many other similar text editors availbale.

I use Vim daily for writing programs. It is a great text editor, it made my typing really easy. I saved time using shortcuts available in Vim.

Vim (Vi iMproved) is fast clean and extensible. This is the current incarnation of the vi editor, that has been a part of unix scene since 1976. Vim has been included with or easily installable on each operating system and environment that I have worked with for the last 20 years and more. It is everywhere. This means that no matter where you go, Vim or another Vi derived editor is there. The same commands, the same modes of operation, therefore, no new learning curve.

When you go to a new computing environment. you can do your work without the trouble of learning a new editor. With vim there no features that you are used to using but are missing on the day you really need it, just because the editor of the day failed to include them--just get your work done. This can be critical for getting your work done, when you are using a remote computer of a web hosting provider that your client selects.

That to appeal to the "it must have a GUI crowd", GUI version have appeared that damages the best features of Vim and get in the way of really learning the editor.

It would not have lasted for 40 years, as the primary editor of developers, programmers, and others if it was not worth the try. It has proven its worth in the field and lasted the test of time for 40 years and still going strong.

It has enhanced productivity by not forcing users to learn another new editor once again, as they move from one OS or environment to another. It is not the only editor that I use, but it is all the same the only one that I have never left behind.

- Vim is free and has a vibrant community

This code editor is open source and is available for free. It also has website and scripts updated constantly by an active community that is backing this project

- Highly Customizable

There are scripts that you can find to do just anything and all of these are available for free. There are scripts to give a folder structure, git plugins and a lot more

- Heavily Portable

All you have to do is to copy the configuration file .vimrc and paste the same into another system that you want to use with the same vim configuration and you are good to go.

- You have to use the terminal if you have to use vim

There are times when users prefer a more isolated software, users who prefer not to use the terminal for their text editing needs.

- Only for developers

Designers who code in HTML and CSS might find Vim useless. Only developers benefit from this editor.

- Steep Learning Curve

The huge number of modes that Vim users can be daunting for first time users. Other editors like TextMate and Sublime-Text can be lot more simpler and pleasing to look at.

Vim is great if you are a developer. The huge number of scripts available can customize your vim for an ultimate developer experience. And also its availability across many Linux distributions only means you don't have to search extensively. It also saves your time, makes you a faster coder /increase your long term productivity .

I, being a developer, work most of the time on the Terminal. Therefore, vim comes of great advantage to edit and test code on the fly without having to leave the premises of the terminal. Since, it is present or available for most Linux distros, it is an added advantage when I am working across servers with different distributions.

It's just the best text editor you can use as a programmer on an Unix-Environment. If you have any Unix-Based system, then you have access to the console, and consequently to vim.

Vim gives you the power, yet the freedom to code on any programming language you want with auto-completetion(with plugins), and much, much more!

Besides, once you have practiced a lot with it, and installed all the plugins you need, you'll work lighting fast. Even without a graphical user interface, you'll work very fast.

I dislike how hard to learn is it. The commands are not very intuitive. For instance, to save you have to type: ":w", i understand the 'W' stands for "write", but it's much common for programs to save with just "ctrl-s".

You need to practice a lot in order to be productive with it, and understand all the modes it has(INSERT, NORMAL, and VISUAL).

If you want to use Vim, then google for a guide or the documentation of it. It's pretty difficult to learn all the commands of VIM, and how to install plugins to adapt it for all your needs. Once done that, you're ready to use it!

As a Software and Web Developer, i use multiple Linux Systems(Oracle, Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc), and I always need to write a program or debug one, and VIM is really great for that. Also, Vim come on almost every Linux Distro installed by default.

Vim Is Very customisable & Extensible, it let you type partial names of files, commands, help entries, etc. and searches for them incrementally, on-the-fly. You don't have to type the names entirely from the beginning, it works on telnet and SSH connections, it can be very easily installed on a remote server and can be easily accessed on the client system, this makes it the best text editor in small capacity machines such as raspberry pi etc, especially when the gui required is minimal. Vim's configuration is portable which means we can copy the entire configuration of one system to another the entire configuration is portable. Vim is a good documentation of the code. Scripting, file merge, and a GUI shell are some the best appreciated features, because of the modality the most common commands do not need to be "decorate" with Ctrl- or alt- keys. All of the major navigation and editing functions require only 2 or 3 keys, without the bizarre finger-straining exercises required by EMACS or prowling through menus. Vim for Windows maps most of the standard keys as well, so page up and page down work as expected and if you want them to do something else, you can edit the keybindings file. If you edit a lot of batch files, PERL scripts, if you regularly move between Windows and *nix environments Vim extremely powerful.

Vim includes a basic GUI, you might as well be using Notepad. There are too many modes, switching between them is cumbersome. If you primarily write formatted text, Vim is not the best tool for you, It's a very old editor with not much from it predecessor Vi editor. Vim can't natively do most of the Jobs, there are plugins available for everything. A lot of movement is done via arrow keys. Vim is very plain and simple with minimum GUI which makes it very difficult for the users to operate. Vim can only be accessed by the terminal. It limits the functionality of the mouse.

I recommend other programmers to Vim as there primary text editor as makes editing code a lot easier and faster on the terminal.

I'm a software engineer, its a very good editor for programming on terminals and very basic machines such as rasp berry pi which doesn't need GUI. Vim saves time lot of work can be done in fewer key strokes, editing code is lot faster and easier than ever, but even so I think I could enjoy not having to use the mouse at all. Utility over SSH connections, VIM is extensible in many ways and one of those ways is VimL/VimScript. Via Vim-scripting and variables in VIM you can basically modify, extend or totally replace standard behavior.

Vi and Vim exists on most of the Unix and Linux platforms. Thus it acts as a universal editor for Linux machines. Moreover it is much faster when compared to any other editors. And it has a pretty active community and the most powerful part is that Vim is scriptable. So one can do great activities using it.

The primary disadvantage of Vim is that it takes a long time to learn the software and it would take months to become proficient. Also one cant expect the user interface to be great in Vim. There are too many modes in Vi or Vim. For instance, pressing 'i' goes to insert mode and capital 'I' points to the beginning of the line. Other disadvantages is that we cant use mouse to control the position of the cursor.

I recommend using other editors and IDE such as Sublime text, Gedit etc. which has more User Interface and with which one can be comfortable, which does not require any skills to learn the software. Also the IDE's comes with a template for different languages which we can make use of.

I use Vim primarily to edit files that do not take much of space and which I have to do it without consuming much of my time. Also Vim serves for a great purpose when I am using ssh.

Vim is based on vi for Unix. Vim is free and open source software with both command line interface and stand-alone GUI. Vim is based on commands to text user interface. Vim is also highly customizable with many available plugins. It has the syntax highlighting feature. Also, good support from open source community. It can be used only through keyboard binding.

Vim has steep learning curve for the beginners but after this phase it is one among the best. Code base for vim is not shared fully hence, adding new features and development is cumbersome. Makes other editor usage very difficult. Support for OS other than linux distribution is not good.

If you are looking for console based editors then vim and emacs are the ones. Unlike Emacs, vim has better syntax high-lightening. Vim has steep learning curve but good online support is available. Vim is highly customizable, definitely would increase your productivity.

Using vim as default editor at home. Due to its customization, productivity has been doubled. Vim is really helpful if your work consists of reading large files.

Benefits:

Good online support for Linux distribution

Easily available plug-ins for customization

Regular expression searches

Damn faster, much handier and super powerful! This is the main reason pop out of my head first, let's break it down into smaller ones below.

First, less arm movement. So no more arm movement when we need to switch from the alpha keys to navigation keys (up down, home end ..) and modification keys (delete, backspace, insert ..), all can be done with your hands stick to the main section of the keyboard. We don't even need the mouse to scroll up/down, click, and navigate around. IMHO, tiny movements like that will slow you down a lot in your everyday typing life.

Handy key-strokes, and code-aid features, very friendly to coder. I was familiar with Eclipse and a few other code editors with very useful shortcut keys, and I can say, with a big help from various useful plugins, there's really nothing other editors have but vim doesn't, but NOT vice versa.

Plugins, a ton of it. A cool page to find one is http://vimawesome.com (we also have color theme there), or a classic one at http://www.vim.org/scripts . To be honest, there's a few plugins I find essential (such as NERDTree, Vundle ..) and actually keep thinking they are parts of vim itself. Plugins give vim value-added features, and some can be found in no other editor/ide.

(Finally, as it's too long already) Customizable, and pimp it your self. It's much like Arch Linux, comes initially with just the powerful core working instance, and everything else should be installed, customized based on your own need. So it may not always the best choice for no-i-dont-like-tweaking-anything guys.

Nothing, to be honest, but maybe, the learning curve, as it seems to be crazy to get started with vim, as it's different from most of the normal editors.

From what I've seen so far, as I recommended vim to a lot of people, there are only 2 types. The 1st, about 80% of people, will give up right in the first week, and never come back to try it again. The 2nd will never be able to happily code without vim after that damn hard first week. Once your muscles get used to it, you can never leave it.

Highly recommended, especially for new users who haven't found their ideal editors yet. To get started with it, `vimtutor` might help, and after that, you may grab an existing `.vimrc` (vim config) somewhere to see how people use vim in real life; mine could be found at https://github.com/soyelmnd/.swissknife . And as I'm a vim mania always wanna meet vim friends, feel free to drop me an email if you have troubles getting started with this damn cool weapon :-)

Everyday developer life, improve speed and productivity, a lot!

As I did some real-life user testings with vim users, their typing speed in vim is about 1.3x - 1.8x faster than without vim (as tested with Javascript, in vim vs Notepad++, Sublime, Eclipse and Atom). And, it's funny, most of them say no to switching back to non-vim binding.

If I have to switch to another IDE, chances are I'll have to look for a way to enable vim-binding for that IDE (as I did with VRapper for Eclipse, Vimderbar for Brackets, and in Netbean), as typing without vim is a nightmare to me.

The more you learn with Vim the more apparent its uses and power become. Although there's a steep learning curve it's not impossible to learn with good practised tuition. The way in which it's designed at first may seem counter intuitive but are applied as they are for good reason. Everything is set up to be faster and more efficient than other editors when in the right hands.

It's also an incredibly fast editor straight out of the box not to mention portable and works through a collection of key bindings, motions, modes, commands, sequences, macros, and expressions. Which all come together and are combined to beautiful effect.

The real power of Vim comes from third party plugin support however and is what makes it the great editor people claim it to be. With plugins you can hack and customise Vim to be however you want it to be. Whether that be turning it into a full blown IDE or an important part of a workflow. Plugins are numerous but tend to offer features such as syntax highlighting, syntax checking, navigation, auto-completion, finders, wrappers, colour schemes, etc.

Vim has a steep learning curve if you don't put any time into learning how it works. Any notions of how other text editors function won't really help or apply either, as Vim uses its own unique ideas and has a very different take on how to get things done.

The code-base for Vim is well protected and highly prized. Making it hard for development of new features or rewrites to be contributed successfully by the community. This has forced forks such as NeoVim to begin adding new efficiency and improvements separately to the program. If you like Vim as it is though this of course isn't a concern.

If you are new to command line text editing (or are tired of GUI editors) there are two main choices out there. GNU Emacs or Vim. Try both of these and see which you prefer, they both have their pluses and minuses. Just remember to have patience and be ready to learn when it comes to VIM. This will pay off in the long term if you do.

Vim is completely open source and therefore free. It's also as mentioned earlier portable (alongside your config) so can be used on any Linux server/OS. The more you learn and add to Vim the more personalised it can become. This means you can include it as part of a workflow or setup to help better carry out tasks or solutions to problems, regardless of how specific and individualised to you or the business they are. it's just a matter of learning and time.

Vim has been my go to editor for many years now. Lately I've started using some more full fledged IDEs for larger projects but Vim remains my editor of choice for single file editing and advanced text editing. While not highly intuitive, it is extremely powerful and quick to use after you get used to it. Regular expression search and replace is very quick and easy as well as block and hex editing. It's also extremely fast and doesn't take a long time to load like IDEs do.

It takes a long time to learn enough to even be efficient using Vim. And to truly learn all it has to offer would probably take more than a lifetime. It's also not very good for large projects as there is no easy way of grouping files together that I'm aware of.

Go ahead and try it a while. Go through a few tutorials to get your hands dirty and do a few regular expression search and replaces if you're familiar with regex. View the ease of opening any file on your computer with the right click menu in Windows or use it in the command line on a unix system and you'll quickly find yourself using it all the time.

I frequently need an editor to re-format a lot of text, and vim gives me that with block editing and regular expression replacements. I also need something that's quick to open from anywhere, and the right click and edit with vim option is great for that.

I really like that I don't need to leave my keyboard to move around the text files or between them. It runs on almost any kind of operating system. You can extend its functionality with the plugins available.

Vim has a pretty steep learning curve, so it can be very overwhelming to the newcomer.

Be patient, it takes the to get a hold on all the bindings. There are awesome books and resources out there.

With Vim, I can keep writing code without having to interrupt my train of thought switching between windows or moving around the mouse.

Vim's unique modal input system makes editing very efficient because you don't need to move your hands from the typing home position to reach for mouse or cursor keys. Editor commands can easily be repeated and chained with various keyboard short-cuts and quantifiers. The editor is also easily extensible using vim's own scripting language, so it can be used to edit practically anything.

It is difficult for first-time users to get used to the modal input system and vim does not follow the same conventions as other programmes but following the tutorial supplied with the editor will teach you enough for you start using it for work. It can take years to learn the more complicated vim commands but it's worth it. You'll never be able to learn it all either, because the vim community continuously adds new features through the plugin system.

Vim requires you to configure it to your personal needs before it will be useful for you, so read about configuring it early on. Although it may be difficult at first, once you learn to use it well you will be more efficient than using standard editors that easy to get started with, so don't be disheartened in the beginning; follow the tutorials and read tips on-line.

My daily work is split between researching solutions to problems and editing text files. Having a good editor like vim that lets me edit files very effectively lets me complete high-quality work on time. Newer, popular editors lack support for our proprietary systems but I was easily able to build support into vim using its plugin system.

I have a very specific workflow, write/fix code using a text editor, use git for version control, upload to github and test the newly released code using travis. The most important part, however is the text editor. The world I was brought up in did not have fancy editors to do half the job for a coder. Since the beginning, I was a fan of vi and its brothers, the simplistic interface that did not have anything extra, that did not require me to fiddle with mouse. However, vim was something that astounded me. It had the same features of vi, but not the quirks. It still starts in a flash, the insert/command modes are also intact but the additions were mind boggling, It has proper support for navigation keys, syntax highlighting, fully extendable with plugins and split screen support. It is the best text editor to date. For beginners, it also offers a gui mode.

This is not a problem with vim itself but more of a problem with my memory. Now, the bundles I use also have some kind of command, vim itself has lots of commands, so many actually that there are books to teach vim. Learning them and remembering becomes a bit problematic down the years. Sometimes gui editors are better with their tool-tips to explain what something does and one click executes it. It still requires a mouse though.

You are a mouse kind of guy, you probably will not like it as many of colleagues have shown. However, if you can get past the trouble you think is typing commands to do everything, my friend, jump aboard, you will mark this date in calendar.

It lets me edit code without getting in my way. It lets me make mistakes, which might be detrimental to business but I will never make those mistakes again. There is the git plugin, I can add and commit directly from vim commands, so that is one less step to go through. With modern editors, it feels as if I can't concentrate on the code, there are lots going on around.

Vim (or at least vi) is installed by default on nealy every *nix operating system, and is available for Windows. Learn it once, use it anywhere. Also it's configuration and customization system is very complete as it has nearly 25 years of active development and contribution.

Steep learning curve to use efficiently. From the time I started using Vim, it took a few months of constant use before I felt like interacting with the editor wasn't slowing down my use of the editor.

Just learn it, the benefits of learning such a ubiquitous editor are overwhelming for any user who uses the command line at all. I switched from vim to Sublime text for a while, but switched back because of the benefit of never not having my primary editor available on a machine far outweighed the look and usability of such a heavy handed editor.

I use Vim for editing any and all text files, for taking notes, and sometimes for examining logs, if other command line tools aren't cutting it.

Vim can be as simple or as complex as you need it, but what I like best about vim is that it can be run from anything that has a terminal. I use it from my iPad by remoting in to a remote server and running it from there. It is one of very few REAL full fledged editors that you can run from a sandboxed tablet.

The hardest thing about vim is the learning curve required to get to a point where it is useful to you. Vim is not for the weak at heart, nor is it for folks who are not quite technically sound. You really have to be committed to learning it, but once you do you will never look back.

If you are technical and love to tinker/figure things out on your own vim is an excellent choice. Stick with it and you will not regret it. If you aren't very technical or have a hard time with complex software (or software without graphics) I recommend trying out something else like the Atom Editor... but ultimately get more technical and switch to vim when you can because it is truly the best solution out there.

I am a senior software engineer. I have been using vim for only about a year so far (previous editors were TextMate, Sublime, Notepad++, and Eclipse). I love it and haven't looked back since. Vim is very lightweight so I am able to get my work done faster and unhindered. I am able to have multiple windows of code open and available with all the bells and whistles I want (currently for web development I have syntax highlighting, javascript linting, and git integration all built in).

To fully realized the full potential of vim I use it hand in hand with tmux. This allows me to have server and front end code open at the same time and other things like build processes, etc. And like I said, all of this runs very thinly so you don't have a lot of memory/CPU killing your machine (or the remote machine if you are using from a distance).

Vim's integration with the terminal and ability to quickly and efficiently edit any file on the spot, without having to leave the terminal, open the file in another application, edit it and overwrite it. Vim isn't the easiest text editor out there, I would even say its learning curve is somewhat steep. Nevertheless, after learning its ropes, your productivity will be greatly increased.

Vim's commands and shortcuts aren't very intuitive at first and require some time to master.

I would recommend looking into Vim's documentation before trying to use it since unless you know its shortcuts and commands, you'll probably have a bad experience. On the other hand, if you know them, you'll see how powerful of a tool Vim is.

While developing applications in different programming languages over distributed systems and the web, I spend a great deal of time on UNIX based terminals. Being edit all kinds of files on the spot, without leaving the terminal, has greatly improved my productivity as a developer.

Once you get the grasp of this tool, it will be a great boost to your productivity. If I ever have to use any other text editor or IDE for some reason, the first thing I want to do is activate Vim mode. It has a passionate community around it which makes it easy to extend the bare-bones tool with vim plugins. The best thing about Vim is you can use it no matter the environment you find yourself.

If you are just getting started. It has quite a steep learning curve. I have found that in my opinion it works best to start knowing just a few shortcuts to get started and keep adding to them with time.

If you can endure the learning curve involved with learning to use this tool, your productivity stands to benefit greatly from it. You can try it out at the basic level by activating Vi mode in your current editor or IDE (there's probably a plugin / inbuilt way of doing that) and once you get used to its navigations and other fundamental productivity features, move to actually using Vim.

I use this tool for quick editing of text files both on locally and on remote servers.

The speed, the simplicity, and the lack of having to use a mouse.

These things are so core to the usage of vim that just about anyone who is sighing every time they have to move their hand off the keyboard to the mouse to do something belongs in Vim.

I will concede that this is an editor that needs to be configured, and it's not a one-time activity. You need to keep tweaking stuff, changing key mappings, and everything else everyday.

I myself have come out to start tweaking my editor and updating my dotfiles on GitHub roughly once a week. There are some good guides about all the plugins that you need to install to get vim to be as close to an IDE as you would like. (https://github.com/jez/vim-as-an-ide and http://vimawesome.com)

I don't like full-fledged IDEs too much and would like the build cycle to be separate from the text-editing stage of app-development. So, I have a limited set of plugins that I keep updating everyday depending on what I find missing. I know that there will come a day when this will become the last configuration I use and the config file will stop changing as often as before. ( https://github.com/icyflame/dotfiles/blob/master/vimrc.symlink )

There is nothing I really dislike about Vim. When starting out a lot of people may say that the key mappings to ZZ, w, hjkl etc don't make sense and they don't like it. But give yourself some time, and you will understand that these mappings are not just on the basis of whim but because someone actually used it and realized this was the fastest way to write code, without having to think a lot about the housekeeping stuff.

Take your time with setting Vim up. This can take a couple weeks, that's okay. Take your time, and blend into the editor. Know what you want, find plugins for that, install it, rinse and repeat.

Eventually, you will hit a configuration that gives you everything you want, nothing more, nothing less. A good point to start might be a famous dotfile on GitHub. (https://github.com/dotfiles)

I am a full-stack web developer and also, research in robotics. I mostly write Ruby, HTML, C++, Python, and Markdown for any other non-code prose. Vim has increased my productivity a lot. I don't have to wrestly with a heavy GUI editor like Sublime or Atom. And also, familiarity with Vim, gives me a lot more leeway on the things I can do on a server I have SSH access to. It's almost like my own PC, and I feel more at ease with Vim. Any other editor (Gedit is the favorite among others) simply slows down the speed at which you work.

1. The speed. It can startup in 600ms even when I have install about 100 plugins, It's also amazing fast when edit large files.

2. Powerful and reasonable keyboard shortcuts. With the shortcuts, you can throw away your mouse and greatly speed the editing process.

3. Extensibility. With vim script, you can easily add new feature to vim and use it as a IDE. With vbundle or neobundle, install/uninstall plugins for vim is easier than install a software.

1. When set fold method to syntax, it's really slow for large files.

2. Poor support for IME. It's annoying to have to switch between different input method when edit non-English text.

Maybe it's hard to learn, but once you grasp it, you will get the benefit all your life, just like swimming.

I use vim to write c++, python, xml, easy to format code, auto-completion, snippet support and so on.

It's an editor entirely focused in being used to work efficiently and in an optimized way, specifically when using *nix systems, it has tons of keyboard shortcuts to make simple tasks quickly, it has tons of plugins and configs ready to set, it's well known, it has a large community.

It's hard to use, you need to learn and practice how to use it at least few weeks before doing something productive.

It will be worth it. From the very beginning it will be hard to get yourself confortable with Vim and how to even edit a file, you'll eventually get to move like a ninja and code fast.

General programing, and some text editing can be done with this one easily.

Flexibility and customisation ability and at the same time not so keyboard-intensive as other text editors. You can automate repetitive editing tasks, even have Vim generate skeleton files for specific file types.

Very good documentation and community size.

Present in most Linux distributions by default.

I especially enjoy Vim because it's console oriented, since I like/am used to work mostly on the command line. No need for mouse usage!

Big learning curve.

Many commands are not intuitive.

Lack of some out of the box integration with other tools frequently used with Vim (eg git, svn etc).

Customize Vim to your needs incrementally. Store the Vim configuration file and every time you need something more just add it up to the configuration. Keeping different configurations for different kinds of editing may also come handy and help you organize your work flow. Don't get afraid to go deep into the advanced features of Vim, this is where the biggest part of the benefit comes from.

Vim boost my productivity in editing source code and configuration files. Also browsing code is a piece of cake when used alongside with (c/g)tags.

If you remember the 90s, then VIM was the cool older brother to VI. VIM is functional, allows for easy movement throughout a file, and gives you syntax highlighting. It also comes stock on most Linux distros, so what's not to like?

If you're expecting something more than a simple text editor with some syntax highlighting, you may be disappointed. I however learned to code in VIM and find it super functional.

Make sure you know what you're using it for. If you want anything fancy, look somewhere else.

We're solving the problem of what software to local change files in on our Linux boxes. It's a pretty simple problem, with an even simpler solution.

Vim is available anywhere and does anything. By taking an inconvenient perspective to text manipulation, vim unlocks several advanced techniques which are ultimately more effective than low hanging fruit.

Part of the unique angle it provides is the lack of anything familiar. There is no mouse support and transitional installations don't even support arrow key navigation. It's exceedingly hard to teach others unless they're dying to know how.

Use vimtutor. It's a very straightforward guide that will get you going in about an hour. Also consider that, since it runs on remote SSH sessions, you can use it on your phone.

Editing files on remote servers with vim means you don't need to transfer over FTP, command line tools like git are always close at hand, and edits can be FAST.

Of the free text editors, I would have to recommend Vim. While I do use UltraEdit at work, I wanted a free, open-source option to use at home. As with a lot of open-source software, Vim can be customized in a variety of ways to suit the type of work you're doing and your style. You can write all sorts of scripts to customize it as well as borrow those written by others in the very active Vim community. It is also convenient that once you have your customization set up, you can save them to a configuration file and apply them on another device very easily.

There is a sharp learning curve with Vim which I think really turns off a lot of new users. It is not intuitive, although there are a lot of guides out there to help you. It is also probably better suited for smaller projects. I know others tend to prefer Ultraedit or even Emacs for large, corporate endeavors.

Try the Cream for Vim config to avoid the initial steep learning curve.

I am more of an analyst than a developer, but I do use Vim from time to time for small C# projects. I appreciate the ability to add a lot of customization and try out new configs like Cream for Vim which I have found makes the tool a little bit easier to grasp.