Re:Show HN: I built a little browser game to practice Vim co...
by epiccoleman on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @09:58AM
(#50352817)
The trick is to just use the thing. You really don't need to study anything.
There's a bit of a hump you have to jump through when you're first getting used to having separate modes for input and editing / navigation, but that's honestly the worst part.
After that, you just need to notice things that you need to do often, and then go "I bet vim makes that easy." You pick up a little trick and use it. You probably don't remember it the next time, but you remember there was a way, and you look it up again and reinforce it. You eventually remember the things that were useful to you, and forget the "tricky stuff" that wasn't.
Over time, you start getting your head around how it works, the whole verb / subject thing, and then you start learning to speak the language. You stop thinking "ok, i need to go to normal mode, then type c, then in, then t" and start thinking "change inside tag".
Vim's not really about "editing super fast." It's more like a different mental model of editing text that really, genuinely, is better than the default mode on offer in your standard text editor. It's more keyboard driven and composable and just _capable_. Text editing operations that are annoying in standard editors are trivial in vim.
I think these little games are neat, but ultimately wrongheaded. The best way to learn vim is to use vim to do vim things. I've been using vim (or, more often, vim editing modes in VSCode or IDE du jour) for around a decade, and I bet I don't use 95% of what it can do. But that 5% I do know is extremely useful.
Also though: it's a nerdy text editor, and it's fine if you don't like it or want to learn to use it.
There's a bit of a hump you have to jump through when you're first getting used to having separate modes for input and editing / navigation, but that's honestly the worst part.
After that, you just need to notice things that you need to do often, and then go "I bet vim makes that easy." You pick up a little trick and use it. You probably don't remember it the next time, but you remember there was a way, and you look it up again and reinforce it. You eventually remember the things that were useful to you, and forget the "tricky stuff" that wasn't.
Over time, you start getting your head around how it works, the whole verb / subject thing, and then you start learning to speak the language. You stop thinking "ok, i need to go to normal mode, then type c, then in, then t" and start thinking "change inside tag".
Vim's not really about "editing super fast." It's more like a different mental model of editing text that really, genuinely, is better than the default mode on offer in your standard text editor. It's more keyboard driven and composable and just _capable_. Text editing operations that are annoying in standard editors are trivial in vim.
I think these little games are neat, but ultimately wrongheaded. The best way to learn vim is to use vim to do vim things. I've been using vim (or, more often, vim editing modes in VSCode or IDE du jour) for around a decade, and I bet I don't use 95% of what it can do. But that 5% I do know is extremely useful.
Also though: it's a nerdy text editor, and it's fine if you don't like it or want to learn to use it.