Vim: Seven habits of effective text editing - The Diigo Meta page

• 26 Jan 18
  

  Thomas James

  Seven habits of effective text editing https://t.co/5Lv8q73nmc // general principles, examples with Vim

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  Vim: Seven habits of effective text editing (2000) https://t.co/W3Y3civPC2

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  Seven habits of effective text editing https://t.co/1XxFvnI1Es // general principles, examples with Vim

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  • using a good editor and using it effectively
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  "different. You need to learn new commands and turn them into a habit."

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• 11 Mar 14
  

  zzanghwi

  • 1. Move around quickly

     
  • reading, checking for errors and looking for the right place   to work on
  • Navigating through   the text is done very often,
  • * command.
  • incsearch
  • hlsearch
  • Use % to
  • [{ to jump back
  • gd to jump from

  • 2. Don't type it twice

     

  • 3. Fix it when it's wrong

     

  • 4. A file seldom comes alone

     
  • to take advantage of your editor to make working with several files   more efficient.
  • jumping between files.
  • creating a tags file is the first thing   I do when browsing a program.

  • 5. Let's work together

     

  • 6. Text is structured

     

  • 7. Make it a habit

     
  • You need to learn new commands and turn them into a habit.

  17 more annotations...

• 14 Feb 14
  

  Maciej W.

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• 18 Jan 14
  

  cfobel

  • 1. Move around quickly

     

    Most time is spent reading, checking for errors and looking for the right place   to work on, rather than inserting new text or changing it. Navigating through   the text is done very often, thus you should learn how to do that quickly.

  • There are three basic steps:

     
     
    1. While you are editing, keep an eye out for actions you repeat and/or spend   quite a bit of time on.
     
    2. Find out if there is an editor command that will do this action quicker.   Read the documentation, ask a friend, or look at how others do this.
     
    3. Train using the command. Do this until your fingers type it without thinking.

  • Let's use an example to show how it works:

     
     
    1. You find that when you are editing C program files, you often spend time   looking for where a function is defined. You currently use the *   command to search for other places where the function name appears, but end   up going through a lot of matches for where the function is used instead of   defined. You get the idea that there must be a way to do this faster.
     
    2. Looking through the quick reference you find a remark about jumping to   tags. The documentation shows how this can be used to jump to a function definition,   just what you were looking for!
     
    3. You experiment a bit with generating a tags file, using the ctags program   that comes with Vim. You learn to use the CTRL-] command, and   find you save lots of time using it. To make it easier, you add a few lines   to your Makefile to automatically generate the tags file.
  • Some people use Notepad for   everything, and then wonder why other people get their work done in half the   time...
  • Don't overdo it. If you always try to find the perfect command for every   little thing you do, your mind will have no time left to think about the work   you were actually doing.

  • Part 2: edit more files

      

    4. A file seldom comes alone

     

    People don't work on just one file. Mostly there are many related files, and   you edit several after each other, or even several at the same time. You should   be able to take advantage of your editor to make working with several files   more efficient.

  • 5. Let's work together

     

    An editor is for editing text. An e-mail program is for sending and  receiving messages. An Operating System is for running programs. Each  program has its own task and should be good at it. The power comes from  having the programs work together.
  • A simple example: You need to write a summary of no more than 500 words.  Select the current paragraph and write it to the "wc" program:  vip:w !wc -w.   The external "wc -w" command is used to count the words.  Easy, isn't it?

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• 10 Apr 13
  

  mtt ggll

  Seven habits of effective text editing http://t.co/xfogwWeRs2 // general principles, examples with Vim
  – Unix tool tip (UnixToolTip) http://twitter.com/UnixToolTip/status/321996155112288256

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• 07 Mar 13
  

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• 05 Dec 12
  

  seanyo

  If you spend a lot of time typing plain text, writing programs or HTML, you can save much of that time by using a good editor and using it effectively. This paper will present guidelines and hints for doing your work more quickly and with fewer mistakes.
  
  The open source text editor Vim (Vi IMproved) will be used here to present the ideas about effective editing, but they apply to other editors just as well. Choosing the right editor is actually the first step towards effective editing. The discussion about which editor is the best for you would take too much room and is avoided. If you don't know which editor to use or are dissatisfied with what you are currently using, give Vim a try; you won't be disappointed.

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  via Instapaper: Unread http://www.instapaper.com/u
  Vim: Seven habits of effective text editing (2000) https://t.co/YJghst9EhX (cmts https://t.co/EI8QXMXGQf)
  
  — Hacker News YC (@newsycbot) January 7, 2018

  Twitter IFTTT Instapaper: Unread

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  • 1. Move around quickly
  • Navigating through   the text is done very often, thus you should learn how to do that quickly.
  • If you see a specific word and want to search for other occurrences of   the same word, use the * command.
  • If you set the 'incsearch' option, Vim will show the first   match for the pattern, while you are still typing it. This quickly shows a   typo in the pattern.
  • If you set the 'hlsearch' option, Vim will highlight all matches   for the pattern with a yellow background
  • Use % to jump from an open brace to its matching closing brace.   Or from a "#if" to the matching "#endif". Actually, %   can jump to many different matching items. It is very useful to check if ()   and {} constructs are balanced properly.
  • Use [{ to jump back to the "{" at the start of the   current code block.
  • Use gd to jump from the use of a variable to its local declaration.
  • Well, you don't   need to; instead realize what your specific way of editing is, and learn only   those commands that make your editing more effective.

  • There are three basic steps:

     
     
    1. While you are editing, keep an eye out for actions you repeat and/or spend   quite a bit of time on.
     
    2. Find out if there is an editor command that will do this action quicker.   Read the documentation, ask a friend, or look at how others do this.
     
    3. Train using the command. Do this until your fingers type it without thinking.  
  • Looking through the quick reference
  • "I want to get the work done, I don't have time to look through the   documentation to find some new command". If you think like this, you   will get stuck in the stone age of computing. Some people use Notepad for   everything, and then wonder why other people get their work done in half the   time...
  • Don't overdo it. If you always try to find the perfect command for every   little thing you do, your mind will have no time left to think about the work   you were actually doing. Just pick out those actions that take more time than   necessary, and train the commands until you don't need to think about it when   using them. Then you can concentrate on the text.
  • 2. Don't type it twice
  • Very often you will want to change one word into another. If this is to be   done in the whole file, you can use the :s (substitute) command.   If only a few locations needs changing, a quick method is to use the *   command to find the next occurrence of the word and use cw to change   the word. Then type n to find the next word and .   (dot) to repeat the cw command.
  • If you organise your editing around it, many changes will   become a matter of hitting just that . key
  • The . command repeats the last change
  • Instead you might want to mark the location with the m command
  • Vim has a completion mechanism that makes this a whole lot easier
  • You can   type "XpmCr", then hit CTRL-N and Vim will expand it   to "XpmCreatePixmapFromData" for you
  • You type qa to   start recording into register 'a'. Then you type your commands as usual and   finally hit q again to stop recording. When you want to repeat   the recorded commands you type @a
  • 3. Fix it when it's wrong

  • Very often you will make the same mistake again and again. Your fingers just   don't do what you intended. This can be corrected with abbreviations. A few   examples:

     

     

    :abbr Lunix Linux :abbr accross across :abbr hte the

  • The same mechanism can be used to type a long word with just a few characters.   Especially useful for words that you find hard to type, and it avoids that you   type them wrong. Examples:

     

     

    :abbr pn penguin :abbr MS Mandrake Software
  • With a syntax file   you can highlight all words that are not in the lis
  • In Vim it is   implemented with scripts and you can further tune it for your own use: for example,   to only check the comments in a program for spelling errors.
  • Part 2: edit more files
  • 4. A file seldom comes alone
  • The previously mentioned tag mechanism also works for jumping between files.   The usual approach is to generate a tags file for the whole project you are   working on
  • creating a tags file is the first thing   I do when browsing a program.
  • Another powerful mechanism is to find all occurrences of a name in a group   of files, using the :grep command
  • Vim knows about include   files, and can search them for a word you are looking for
  • In Vim you can split the text area in several parts to edit different files.   Then you can compare the contents of two or more files and copy/paste text between   them. There are many commands to open and close windows, jump between them,   temporarily hide files, etc. Again you will have to use the three basic steps   to select the set of commands you want to learn to use.
  • The preview-tag mechanism is a very   good example. This opens a special preview window, while keeping the cursor   in the file you are working on
  • 5. Let's work together
  • 6. Text is structured
  • Part 3: sharpen the saw
  • 7. Make it a habit
  • Most people only need to learn 10 to   20 percent of the commands for their work
  • If you do a task only once,   and don't expect having to do it again, don't try to optimise it. But you probably   realize you have been repeating something several times in the last hour.

  38 more annotations...

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  If you spend a lot of time typing plain text, writing programs or HTML, you can save much of that time by using a good editor and using it effectively.

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  • Seven habits of effective text editing

     

    Bram Moolenaar

     

    November 2000

        

     

    If you spend a lot of time typing plain text, writing programs or HTML, you   can save much of that time by using a good editor and using it effectively.   This paper will present guidelines and hints for doing your work more quickly   and with fewer mistakes.

     

    The open source text editor Vim (Vi IMproved) will be used here to present   the ideas about effective editing, but they apply to other editors just as   well. Choosing the right editor is actually the first step towards effective   editing. The discussion about which editor is the best for you would take   too much room and is avoided. If you don't know which editor to use or are   dissatisfied with what you are currently using, give Vim a try; you won't   be disappointed.

     

    [Vim commands and options are printed in this font]
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Page Comments

• 
  Marian Douglas-Ungaro on 2006-07-21
  Edit text How to
• 
  Chris on 2006-08-07
  Seven habits of effective text editing
  Bram Moolenaar
  
  If you spend a lot of time typing plain text, writing programs or HTML, you can save much of that time by using a good editor and using it effectively. This paper will present guidelines and hints for doing your work more quickly and with fewer mistakes.
  
  The open source text editor Vim (Vi IMproved) will be used here to present the ideas about effective editing, but they apply to other editors just as well. Choosing the right editor is actually the first step towards effective editing. The discussion about which editor is the best for you would take too much room and is avoided. If you don't know which editor to use or are dissatisfied with what you are currently using, give Vim a try; you won't be disappointed.
  

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