(Level: Beginner) Abstract: Vim makes for a great editing experience for Python projects. In this session Derek will show you: - Vim basics and modes - Vim plugins that are useful for - Python development - How to organise your plugins - How to script Vim with Python.

1. Vim and Python
Derek McLoughlin
Jolt Online Gaming
8th June 2011

2. Overview
● Intro
● Why use Vim?
● Basic Vim concepts
● Vim is a Game
● General Plugins
● Python Plugins
● How to Organise your plugins
● Resources

3. Why Vim?
● It's fast.
● It's portable. Linux, Windows, Mac, DOS, VMS
● It's everywhere – even on production systems
● It's very configurable
● It's very extensible

4. Basic Concepts #1 - Modes
● Vim is modal
● It has 5 modes
● Normal
● Insert
● Ex
● Visual
● Select
● You'll find yourself pressing <ESC> a lot :-)

5. Basic Concepts #2 - Commands
● Commands follow a pattern:
Number + Command + Destination
● E.g.
● 5dw – delete 5 words
● 6w – move forward 6 words
● 7x – delete 7 characters

6. Vim is a Game
(that you play on text)
● When you play a PC game (e.g. Minecraft) you
forget that you need to press specific keys to do
something – WASD. After a while, those actions
are programmed into your finger muscles.
● You “do”. You don't “think”.
● You can practice Vim movements this with Vim
Tetris
● Movement keys are always on the right hand.

7. Vim Leverages Unix
● Example:
● :%!sort
● :'<,'>!sort
● :%!awk '{print $3}'
● :%!sed 's/foo/bar/'

8. General Plugins
NerdTree NerdCommenter
NerdTree NerdCommenter
Bufferlist Matchit
Command-T SnipMate
Ack Fugative
Tagging & Tagbar Extradite
DBExt Gitv
Rails.vim

9. Python Plugins
● Python Match
● RopeVim
● PyFlakes
● Pydoc
● Pep-8

10. Organising Plugins
● Old School – all plugins in same folder – a
mess!
● .vim
-> doc
-> ftplugin
-> plugin
● Use Pathogen
● Use Vundle

11. Scripting Vim
● Vim has an in-built scripting language
● VimScript or VimL
● It's ugly.
● Use Python instead!

12. Example*
function! GetHTML()
python << EOF
import vim, BeautifulSoup, urllib
handle = urllib.urlopen(vim.current.line)
soup =
BeautifulSoup.BeautifulSoup(handle.read())
vim.current.buffer[:] =
soup.prettify().split('n')
EOF
endfunction
* I took this from:
http://www.builderau.com.au/program/python/soa/Extending-Vim-with-Python/0,2000064084,339283181,00.htm

13. Vim is Charityware
● Donations to Vim go to a charity that helps
orphans in Uganda.
● If you do like Vim and you feel it is making you
more productive, then please donate to this
charity.
● The details are on the Vim website.

14. Vim Resources
● Vim - www.vim.org
● VimCasts - www.vimcasts.org
● Vim Quick Reference Card -
● http://tnerual.eriogerg.free.fr/vim.html
● Jolt Online Gaming version!!!
● Books
● Hacking Vim - Packt Publishing
● Byte of Vim - http://www.swaroopch.com/notes/Vim
● Older online book -
ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/doc/book/vimbook-OPL.pdf

15. Why Not Vim?
● Terse
● Modal
● Steep-ish learning curve...

16. Learning curves of editors

17. What to do if Vim isn't for you
● Notwithstanding the last slide...
● Try Emacs
● Seriously, it's a good editor.
● Org-mode is a great way to get into Emacs
gently
● Use the Emacs Starter Kit