Learning Vim changed how I think about editing

I finally decided to learn Vim in January 2024. Not because I needed to. My current editor worked fine. But I kept seeing developers who could edit text like magic, their cursors dancing across the screen without touching a mouse.

The first day was brutal. I opened a file and couldn't figure out how to type. I pressed keys and nothing happened. Then I accidentally deleted three lines. I closed the terminal and went back to my old editor.

But something kept pulling me back.

The second attempt went better. I learned that Vim has different modes. There's one for moving around and one for typing. It felt backwards at first. Why would anyone design an editor where you can't just type?

Then it clicked. I spend most of my time reading and navigating code, not typing. Vim is built for that reality.

By the second week, I stopped reaching for my mouse. My hands stayed on the keyboard. Small edits that used to take several clicks now happened in a few keystrokes.

The learning curve was steep. I kept a cheat sheet next to my monitor for weeks. Some days I wanted to quit. But each small victory kept me going. Deleting a word without selecting it first. Jumping to a specific line instantly. Repeating the last edit with a single key.

Now I can't imagine going back. Vim rewired how I think about text editing. It's not about typing faster. It's about expressing what you want to do in a language the editor understands.

Was it worth the frustration? Absolutely. Some tools take time to appreciate. Vim is one of them.