
Vim and Vi Tips: Essential Vim and Vi Editor Skills, free on Amazon today only - whalesalad
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004JF4NOQ
======
tomku
Thanks, downloaded and read through it and I picked up a couple new tricks,
even as a pretty experienced Vim user.

Some comments:

1) The order feels a little artificial. I like that inserting text isn't
mentioned until a couple chapters in, but I think that the focus on
saving/writing files at the start is misplaced. If I'm a newbie and I don't
know how to change or insert text, I don't have the ability to meaningfully
practice saving as I read.

2) There are some weird inconsistencies, like teaching :next (:n) for next
file, but Ctrl+^ for previous file. :Next (:N) is easier to remember, works in
vi and is shorter to type than the less-compatible :prev that I would
otherwise suggest. :! is mentioned several times in different contexts,
without a hint that it's the same command in each but with a different prefix
or argument.

3) There's a focus on memorization of compound commands rather than
understanding how motions and operators work. If you know how the cursor works
and that "y" means "yank from cursor", you don't have to remember that "yl"
means "yank a single character" because you can compose it from "yank from
cursor" and "one character to the right". This composition of movement and
operators is one of vi's greatest strengths, and I think that exposing new vi
users to it as early as practically possible is a great way to get them to
appreciate what they're learning.

All in all, it's a worthy read for someone who doesn't know any vi and needs a
quick lesson in the basics, somewhat like the foreign language learning
products that focus on teaching you enough conversational vocabulary for a
vacation or business trip. If you want to immigrate to vi-land permanently,
I'd suggest supplementing this with something like Drew Neil's "Practical
Vim"[1] to learn the "bigger picture" stuff as well.

[1]: <http://pragprog.com/book/dnvim/practical-vim>

~~~
slurgfest
Pretty nice review and I agree with most of your comments.

I agree that it seems strange to teach Ctrl+^ for previous file. (Not
symmetrical, and doesn't really mean previous anyway.) However, particularly
for the purpose of teaching newbies, I think :Next would be even more
confusing... and I could be wrong about this, but I think the number of people
who need to care about learning vi (as opposed to vim) is really small, if it
even extends beyond communities of people who think that things created 20
years ago are newfangled.

~~~
tomku
I agree about the vi vs. vim part, I just suggested :N since the book itself
was (as far as I could tell) strictly staying vi-compatible. :Next going
backwards compared to :next is a little confusing at first, but it actually
fits the same pattern as some other commands that go in two directions (f and
F, t and T, gg and G), if you think about the two commands as just :n and :N.
Naturally, as you observed, it's probably better to use :prev if you're in a
modern vi clone or vim.

If you switch to vim as the baseline, there's a bunch of other easier ways to
do things too, like using :sav (:saveas) instead of :w <filename> followed by
:e <filename>.

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sudonim
Awesome. Thanks for sharing. I've been using vim for 6 months, but I still
feel like a n00b. Looking forward to checking this out.

I started my vim experience using Janus

But I didn't understand how anything worked or why any of the plugins were
there.

That led me to starting from scratch (I forked my cofounder's dotfiles) and
now I feel like I know my vim config waaaay better. If you've been using
janus, I'd highly recommend giving the ground up strategy a shot.

<https://github.com/sud0n1m/dotfiles>

~~~
mikegirouard
I wound up doing the same thing (not with Janus, but with a massive forked
.vimrc).

One day I was SSH'd into a remote server and vim'd a directory by accident and
I discovered Netrw. It wasn't the same as NERDTree, but it was good enough for
me to get rid of that plugin. Eventually I just learned to enjoy the defaults
with minor tweaks. Today my vimrc[1] is < 200 lines, mostly comments and
navigation shortcuts.

[1]: <https://github.com/mgirouard/Dots/blob/master/.vimrc>

~~~
tolos
What is this netrw? <http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1075>
seems to imply it's just for vim'ing remote files. Does it do more?

~~~
jh3
Check out <http://vimcasts.org/episodes/the-file-explorer/>

Also...

:help netrw

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pseudonym
Every once in awhile the state of DRM really hammers itself home, to me.

Case in point, when someone is literally giving a potentially interesting book
away and I can't be arsed to take it because getting it onto my reader of
choice is just too much hassle.

~~~
dredmorbius
Yep.

More irony is ironic: there's no Kindle reader for Linux, which is one of the
platforms on which vi/vim are most likely to be found.

Thanks for nothing, Amazon.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
The Kindle Cloud Reader works just fine for me on Linux (Chromium)...

~~~
kayge
Same here, on Kubuntu 12. It didn't work on the default rekonq browser, but it
looks great in Firefox.

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dspillett
For those without a Kindle, remember that Kindle editions like this can be
read using the PC or iDevice clients.

~~~
brown9-2
Or Mac, or "Cloud Reader" through your web browser.

~~~
dhimes
+1 for cloud reader for programming books. It's open in one window, code in
another, terminal in another. Drawbacks, however, include (1) is you can't
copy-and-paste from the book; and (2) links don't work [which makes drawback
(1) very annoying].

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atsaloli
If you'd like to make sure you know all your vi basics, I recommend my
presentation "Vi Basics" at <http://www.verticalsysadmin.com/vi/class/> \-- it
is based on Bill Joy's original paper introducting vi and covers the basics of
vi according to its author and in the same order that the author covered them.

~~~
dasil003
Very cool, thanks.

~~~
atsaloli
My pleasure, you're welcome!

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amouat
Also available on Amazon UK: [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vim-Vi-Tips-Essential-
ebook/dp/B004J...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vim-Vi-Tips-Essential-
ebook/dp/B004JF4NOQ/)

~~~
jnotarstefano
And Amazon IT: [http://www.amazon.it/Vim-Vi-Tips-Essential-
ebook/dp/B004JF4N...](http://www.amazon.it/Vim-Vi-Tips-Essential-
ebook/dp/B004JF4NOQ/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1345211816&sr=8-16)

~~~
bbrizzi
And Amazon FR. One thing I love about Amazon is that you can change the TLD in
any link and it will still work.

~~~
riffraff
the link will, but often you'll have a "not available" message (commenting
just because I tried yesterday to get an ukulele tuner which is available in
.com but not in .it)

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daviddaviddavid
Once every six months something inspires me to put a book on the Kindle that I
received as a Christmas present two years ago. Then the frustrations begin. In
this case, after finding the table of contents I try to use the up-down-
joystick-button to navigate the TOC. It's just painfully slow and it's
displaying definitions for every word I happen to be on (it starts off showing
me the definition for "Table" in Table of Contents). The lag between pressing
the button and the cursor actually moving is too frustrating for me to even
use the damn device.

Perhaps the "two years old" is my problem and I just need a newer device but,
boy, I just can't get myself to use this thing with any consistency.

~~~
bajsejohannes
I read almost twice as many books since I got my kindle for Christmas last
year. I even prefer reading on the kindle to reading on a pc/tablet or a
traditional book.

That said, for reference books, it's worse than the alternatives. I almost
exclusively use it for reading books back-to-back (i.e. relying very little on
the arrow keys)

~~~
sswezey
I completely agree.

Kindle is great for cover-to-cover reading, but for reference I will always
prefer dead-tree (but will settle for searchable pdfs)

~~~
commandar
I've found that a 10" tablet (a Touchpad in my case, though I imagine the
experience with an iPad is equivalent) it pretty tough to beat for reference
material. Doesn't have the navigation issues that the eink readers do, but it
also allows me to make searchable annotations and highlights as I read.

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grannyg00se
Not free exactly. It's still locked in the kindle cage. You can't just
download it as a PDF.

~~~
giftedmunchkin
Free as in beer, not free as in freedom.

~~~
dllthomas
Free as in beer if you've paid for the glass.

~~~
giftedmunchkin
Between the Kindle cloud reader, the mobile apps, and the desktop apps, the
glass is free. I'm not saying I like DRM - I don't, I find it a huge pain in
the ass, and I took care of it as soon as I downloaded the book - but you're
misrepresenting the situation for the benefit of your argument.

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chris_wot
Try the interactive vim tutorial - <http://www.openvim.com/tutorial.html>

------
austinlyons
Vim is one of those tools that I shied away from because of the steep learning
curve. A co-worker convinced me to give it a try, and now I use Vim everyday.
I'm constantly discovering useful commands and tricks. Looking forward to
learning more from this free book - thanks Amazon.

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jamesbritt
On a related note, is there an easy way to find other free or dirt-cheap (US
$0.99) E-books on Amazon?

The Amazon site likes to group things into "As low as <price>" sections, which
means there's a least one item at that price, with most things costing more.

~~~
kroger
One way is to go to the kindle store, choose the kind of book you want (Amazon
calls it a "Department") and sort by price. For instance, here are programming
books:

[http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?bbn=726697011&qid=1345...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?bbn=726697011&qid=1345228988&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A!133143011%2Cn%3A!251259011%2Cn%3A1286228011%2Cn%3A726697011%2Cn%3A156140011&sort=price)

It's not perfect but you can find good deals this way.

~~~
jamesbritt
Oh, fantastic. Thanks.

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jojomnky
Not to look a gift horse in the mouth but my TL;DR assessment of the first few
pages makes me think this book is pretty poorly edited. None the less I'm
looking forward to reading it and honing my vim skillset.

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mappu
I understand you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover - but a Vim book that
has Visual Basic on the cover (legacy VB6 no less) seems like a big, big
warning sign.

------
bertzzie
It's not available for me in Indonesia with this message:

This title is not available for customers from your location in: Asia &
Pacific

What will it cost when it's released later?

~~~
ehamberg
If you send me your email address I'll lend you my copy for 14 days (the limit
set by the publisher).

~~~
bertzzie
I can't find a way to message you. How do I do that? There's no email in your
profile...

~~~
ehamberg
D'oh. Sorry. Send me an email at my username at gmail. :)

------
surfingdino
Just a quick update for you guys. The second updated edition is already
available so please follow the Amazon procedures outlined in the email they'll
send you to get it. If you missed the second edition free promo, you can get
the third edition at <http://TheVimBook.com> Thanks!

------
1007
Any way to download and read this on linux ?

~~~
vilgax
Don't know about download but you can read it online using Amazon Cloudreader.

~~~
acomar
Download is easy enough, just click the transfer via usb option, and it'll
download a .azw file. You can't read it without stripping out the DRM first,
but that's not very hard either.

~~~
vilgax
Didn't saw that option. Maybe only available to those who have registered a
Kindle device.

------
shreeshga
Good book.. but for those new to VIM :-/ From the title, i thought it would
have some pro tips and tricks.

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sigkill
I just bought it using the button "Buy it with 1-Click" and I found it a bit
scary. I mean, no confirmation and all. It's like just click and, BOOM, a
confirmation email saying that you've already bought it. It's quite jarring as
compared to buying stuff from other websites.

~~~
rotation1
Yes it's almost surprising the first few times you do it. I find myself
thinking "wait, which card did that just go on?"

You can get a refund within 7 days though if you do click by accident.

~~~
sigkill
Oh, thank god for that. Generally I've lived without an Amazon account because
they don't work outside the US. But this one, combined with the post that
helped generate fake US addresses pushed me to do it.

Actually, now I'm pretty sure why Amazon would be upset when someone else
copies their one-click patent. And the sneaky thing is, when you create a new
account it's on by default!

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surfingdino
Guys, thanks for all your comments. This book has been in print since 2008 and
I have never received so many useful feedback. I have already prepared an
update for it, but it's currently being blocked by Amazon. I hope to solve
that problem this week.

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chris_wot
I once tried (and succeeded!) at purchasing the Dragon Book for Kindle, but
had to change to a US address. I bought the book, bu then Amazon wanted me to
verify I had moved to the U.S.

I never bought another book from Amazon ever again.

~~~
o1iver
Why? It's not Amazon's fault, but rather the decision of the publisher... And
I guess it's your loss anyway. I had the same problem (I have to use
amazon.de), but hey, better that than nothing!

~~~
chris_wot
Actually, if you sign up for a U.S. account with a plausible address, then
there is really nothing that would stop you from buying an ebook from the U.S.

They wonder why folks pirate. I paid for that book, I would feel well within
my rights to find a copy of the book in PDF format (non-DRM encoded) and use
that instead. I haven't done that - but there you have it. I paid for a book,
I didn't get a refund of about $100 and I can no longer read the book. _They_
stole from _me_.

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ck2
I feel like a wimp for liking nano (pico)

Vi reminds me of the crazy-old wordstar days.

------
artursapek
Well, this just got me to download Amazon's Kindle apps.

~~~
Simucal
The Kindle app on my phone has increased the amount I read so much. I find all
these random times throughout the day where I can read another chapter in
whatever book I'm reading.

Waiting for a meeting to start or standing in line? I'll read the next dozen
pages in my Clojure book or the latest fiction novel I'm working on.

When I first started reading on my phone I thought the bright display and
small screen would bother me. It hasn't. I've read huge novels on my phone
flipping small page after small page. If anything, I feel like I read faster.

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codegeek
perfect. Just ordered on my Kindle for PC. I hae always been a fan of vi but
more recently started using vim. Lot of expectations from this book!!

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stefek99
Just saying: need to use VPN to have it.

<wish I was in the US>

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darkstalker
Kindle edition has DRM, right?

~~~
ihuman
Yes, but it's possible to get rid of it

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yitchelle
Awesome! Thanks for sharing

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swagatata
thanks

