What does HackerNews think of vim-sensible?

I made the switch to vim a few years ago. You'll want to start with learning the keybindings. Every major IDE and editor out there has a "vim mode" and an "emacs mode" so pick one you like and enable it. Whenever you need to move more quickly just switch back to your usual keybindings and get it done. Once you have the keybindings memorized, try to use them everywhere. There are browser plugins like vimium that let you navigate with vim keybindings for example.

It gets a bit weirder from there. If you pick vim for example theres a whole lot of customization rabbit holes you can go down. My advice is to find some sensible defaults and layer in stuff as you need it from there. vim-sensible[0] is a good start.

Good luck!

[0] - https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible

See also `:h defaults.vim-explained` (https://vimhelp.org/usr_05.txt.html#05.3) which now comes by default.

You can either copy the settings you are interested in or source it entirely in your vimrc file:

    source $VIMRUNTIME/defaults.vim

---

Here's some more related resource links:

* stackoverflow: useful .vimrc tips - (https://stackoverflow.com/q/164847/4082052)

* vi.stackexchange: How do I debug my vimrc file? - (https://vi.stackexchange.com/q/2003/1616)

* vim-sensible - (https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible)

* minimal vimrc for new users - (https://gist.github.com/benmccormick/4e4bc44d8135cfc43fc3)

* Vim Configuration From Scratch - (https://marcgg.com/blog/2016/03/01/vimrc-example)

* vimconfig: generate `.vimrc` by selecting options - (https://vimconfig.com/)

While the information in there is good, a bunch of the settings are now redundant¹. The ones that jumped out to me were esckeys, ruler and showcmd.

Not that I'm saying you can't — or shouldn't — re-set options, just that the linked documentation is a little dated. FWIW, I personally re-set a couple of default options mostly so that I have a point of reference for how an option works when I'm digging about in my config.

I'm of the opinion that the combination of recent vim and Tim Pope's sensible.vim² is The Minimal Setup™.

¹ The site says the last update was 2014, and back then $VIMRUNTIME/defaults.vim wasn't a thing for example(7.4.2111).

² https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible

A bunch of the better defaults mentioned are already handled by vim since v8(:h defaults.vim), but beyond that using Tim Pope's vim-sensible¹ feels like it may be a better starting point. The repo's issues also contain some real gold on the reasoning behind why some settings are useful as defaults and why others are probably less so.

In the spirit of that reddit thread, my only tip is to have a few full runs at vimtutor and then simply buy both of Drew Neil's excellent books²³. Structured learning from domain experts, not piecemeal randomness from our fellow internet commenters. Drew's free vimcasts⁴ are great too, and give a taste of the quality you'll find in his books.

JNRowe leans back to chew on some piecemeal randomness

¹ https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible

² https://pragprog.com/book/dnvim2/practical-vim-second-editio...

³ https://pragprog.com/book/modvim/modern-vim

⁴ http://vimcasts.org/episodes

These seem a bit too opinionated to me, mostly because of 'set noswapfile'.

For me vim-sensible [1] has a more useful set of defaults (although more than five lines). Also, the readme of that project lists benefits of using a universal set of defaults.

[1] https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible

For an easy start, use a sane defaults plugin like sensible.vim [1] or vim-simple-defaults [2] (more opiniated).

Also, use vim-plug [3] with few plugin like ctrlp, nerdtree, nerdcommenter and vim-simple-complete [4].)

[1] https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible

[2] https://github.com/maxboisvert/vim-simple-defaults

[3] https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug

[4] https://github.com/maxboisvert/vim-simple-complete

I am the author of [2] and [4].

For those just getting started or using vim only occasionally, Tim Pope's vim-sensible is a good, conservative starting point. It just sets some reasonable base configs instead of Vim's crazy default settings. No custom keybindings or fancy plugins included.

Vim is by default intended to be compatible with some historical implementation of vi. In my opinion, it doesn't make any sense any more, but I guess there is some reasoning behind the decision.

https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible

If anyone is looking for sane configuration vim-sensible is the thing you are looking for! https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible