Re: Do developers use vim exclusively or alternate with an IDE?

> Some of the things that frustrate me the most in vim are:

I've been using vim for almost 10 years and I'm still learning stuff all
the time. Some of this might just be that you haven't found the things
that make it easier for you yet.

> Copying and pasting text from outside of the editor. E.g. modifying an
> HTML page by swapping odd bits of text from another document. It just
> feels clunky to me and I often find myself using eclipse instead.

You can make this easier by remapping the paste keys. Or having the
clipboard be the default so you don't always have to type "*p or "+p. On
the other hand, I usually find it easier to copy-paste whole sections
into vim and then delete the things I don't want. Rather than just
copying the things I do want. Ex commands and macros make it easier too.
E.g. :'<,'>v/pattern/d, :s/../../g.

> If I have an class that I want to call a method of I generally like to
> know what the overloads are and the order of the parameters. I've got
> used to using intellisense in VS. I don't know if it just laziness
> that I would like it or if people normally require it or not.

There are insert mode completion functions for html/css/php/java/c/etc.
You can download some additional ones from vim.org if the defaults don't
seem to work well for you. Lookup 'omnifunc' if you haven't already.

> "Peeking" at files real quick seems like a lot of work. Normally I do
> vsplit :o file.ext them Ctrl w w to change to the split, take a quick
> look and :q. This problem normally arises when browsing an unfamiliar
> repo. I have NERDtree but I don't think I'm using it enough. This is
> where the mouse and eclipse come in. I tend to move through a tree of
> files faster with a mouse.

There's the preview window for that ':pedit <filename>' although I never
actually use that specifically myself. You can use key commands like
'ctrl-w v' instead of vsplit, which makes it a little easier, and remap
'ctrl-w w' to something like 'tab'. If it's source code I highly
recommend ctags, then use ctrl-] to jump to the function or class
definition and ctrl-o to get back. If you have the filename you can use
gf to go to the file (and ctrl-o to get back again).


So basically, I've found that if something is annoying me, there's
probably a way to fix it :)

For what it's worth, when I started using vim I kept going back to other
editors for html and java as well, but after a few years I got used to
Vim enough that I just use it all the time now. Although, most of my
editing is in languages that don't always have particularly good IDEs
anyway.