Coding Productivity Over 9000

Why you should learn and use vim keybindings.

It started 2 years ago when I decided to invest in vim. The first weeks with vim were hell, I wasn’t productive at all. So I consider it as an investment, and it pays well. Let me show you a simple example, let’s say I have this code (written in Swift).

func add(x: Int, y: Int) -> Int {
  return x + y;
}

and I want to add another function, that is a multiply function

func multiply(x: Int, y: Int) -> Int {
  return x * y;
}

The old days

In the old days, I would need around 10-12 seconds by doing these:

1. Move my right hand off the keyboard towards my mouse
2. Select the add function
3. Press ⌘ + c
4. Move my right hand to the keyboard again, press arrow down then ⌘ + v
5. Use my mouse to place the cursor at + operator and replace it with *
6. Double click add function name and replace it with multiply

Vim’s way

Let’s see with the approach that I would’ve take with vim, this time it takes around 7-8 seconds:

1. Go to visual mode with v then press % to block all the add function
2. ctrl + c (yes I have a custom mapping for copy)
3. Go to the bottom line of buffer with G
4. ctrl + v (custom mapping for paste)
5. Press kf+s*<ctrl>-{

• k move cursor 1 line up.
• f+ find + operator and move the cursor to it
• s* replace + with *
• <ctrl>-{ back to normal mode

6. Press kHwcw then type mutiply

• k move cursor 1 line up
• H (custom mapping) move to the first character at the current line
• w move 1 word (to add function name)
• cw and type multiply will replace add with mutiply

Step 1-6 combined would take 7-8 seconds for me (let’s make it 8 seconds). There it is, I just saved 2-4 seconds of my life. I think it’s really worth it. The previous example is a simple one, consider these coding-related operations:

• Jump between lines
• Move code from line x-y to line z
• Change code inside curly braces (in vim you can use ci{, yes that’s only 3 strokes)
• Etc..

Note: You can cheat on step 5 and 6 if you use Vim Easymotion.

I don’t know how much time I’ve saved for myself, but indeed the investment pays really well. Some people will tell you that you should use a real IDE and I couldn’t agree more with them, I would tell you the same. With vim in your toolbox, you can install a vim keybindings plugin for your IDE, so you’ll get the power of IDE and vim keybindings.

Personally I use XVim for XCode, Ideavim for Jetbrains. Sometimes depending on my mood, I use Spacemacs (Pre-configured emacs with a lot of useful packages) with vim keybindings for other stuffs. Feel free to see/copy my vimrc.