How to Do 90% of What Plugins Do (With Just Vim)

Vim is big; so big that it does some very useful things that are often overlooked. Plugins can buy us a lot of functionality, but they can add a lot of burden in the form of dependency complexity. In this talk, we'll explore some of the tradeoffs we can make between plugins and "vanilla" Vim features that achieve similar results, including:

- autocomplete (VimAwesome, YouCompleteMe)
- file jumping (FuzzyFinder, Ctrl-P)
- visual filesystem navigation (NERDTree)
- build integration
- snippets

Learn more from the developers at thoughtbot ⌨️

[MrMollmann]

0:06:48 - finding files
0:16:14 - tag jumping
0:24:33 - autocomplete
0:34:30 - file browsing
0:38:20 - snippets
0:51:02 - build integration
0:57:40 - questions
1:09:12 - plugins to use

[bgbong]

It never fails. The speaker at a "Mastering Vim" will always have at least one moment in the live lesson where they say "Oh wow, I didn't know you could do that..." Just shows how deep the vim rabbit hole goes, and how learning-mode brain is so much more different than get-normal-work-done-mode brain.

[driden]

It's 2024 and I still keep coming back to these thoughbot vim talks (also some of the emacs ones). I don't know if these still exist, if they don't please bring them back, they're great

[jasonxoc]

This video and "Mastering the vim language" are my two favorite videos on vim, both from thoughtbot. After using Vim for about 2 years I still watch these videos from time to time when I'm bored.

[porcellinoveille]

The best vim video I've ever watched. I learned tons of new features and worked on my vimrc file for hours to make it lighter. Now I am confident with help files and I can confirm that every single visit through these pages is an opportunity to be amazed again by the quality of this software. Love vim more and more <3

[DeanGadberryYT]

I love this talk. I return to watch this video so many times because I continually forget that VIM is MASSIVELY extensible. Thank you for sharing this with us!

[shmottiehottie]

The question asked at 31:37, the command to exit the auto completion suggestions without editing what you have entered and to stay in insert mode is ^e. Also, to select the current suggestion you are on in the auto completion list is ^y.

[reverseila]

After watching videos like this, one thing happend to me is that i now feel i can read help files more confidently. For very beginners, one should start with videos like these or even more simple, rather than reading through help to find ins and outs of everything.

One of the best vim talks/tut videos i have watched. Thanks

[handdarahanddara-nrfu]

Wow, love this talk, also this guy is a good presenter and so far he’s really good at answering questions and making sure he checks in with the person to make sure he got what they were asking for, very humble 10x dev it seems

[noelevans]

As a vim beginner / intermediate this talk is fantastic. Thank you!

[ECRandomBits]

The quick-fix window is way more powerful than it looks. You can write a compiler plugin (:h write-compiler-plugin) or :set makeprg + :set errorformat to a carefully constructed expression that can parse any error you want. Then :make does a lot of magic, calling your makeprg, parsing with errorformat, filling up the quick-fix and opening the first error.

BTW. this video was the reason why I made the final move to VIM. Really cool stuff!

[heliooliveira]

For the question of how to select completion without leave insert mode, ^n ("n" for next), ^p ("p" for previous), and ^y for yes accept selection :)

[blank]

27:24 "some of the default bindings use ctrl-x, I have no idea why?"

I'm like 80% sure the completion stuff was partly written by an emacser who was
experimenting with the "dark" side. C-n, C-p, C-x.

[cognishn]

Easily one of the best vim talks I've ever seen!

[ThisGuyRocksLikeCrazy]

I definitely agree with everyone. This is one of the best talks i've seen on vim.

[FerrumCorde]

Man I was in as soon as you started talking about overlooked tools being a priority. I'm all about that. I'ma have to watch a bunch of these

[denisdubochevalier]

Great talk, thanks ! As to tags matching, you can also (at least in c, c++ files) type ^W ^I on any tag to open a new window with the actual definition (may it be in a header or in the file itself). If you look for #defines only, you can type ^W ^D.

[daxtheducknotaffiliated]

Holy shit, this is gold! Literal pure gold!!! I think the fuzzy search part is honestly the coolest — I will never use Telescope again :)

[maxmeranda]

Hey Max, if you are still wondering about the answer to the question at 31:36, the answer is CTRL-E. :help complete_CTRL-E (this is a bit "duh" but don't worry, it is about 2 paragraphs down from where you were looking at :help ins-completion 27:38 ) Anyway, if the mystery isn't solved, then as you said, the manual is very nice. :)

Thanks for the talk, btw.

[Zen-lzhc]

The only regret I have is that I didn't start to use VIM earlier in my life.
I was so stubborn...
I love VIM now, and I can't see myself using any other code editor.
I configurated VIM to my dream editor, you can literally make it do anything!!! Love it.