Just run vimtutor

Four months ago, I started learning Vim. I watched YouTube tutorials. I read blog posts. I bookmarked cheat sheets. I spent hours researching the "best way" to learn Vim.

Then someone told me to just run vimtutor.

Open your terminal and type it. That's it. No installation needed if you're on Mac or Linux. It's already there, waiting for you.

vimtutor

What you get is a 30-minute interactive lesson built right into Vim itself. You learn by doing, not by watching. The tutor file is a real text file that you edit as you learn. Delete this word. Copy this line. Move to the end of the sentence. Each lesson builds on the last.

I wish I had started here instead of drowning in YouTube tutorials. Here's why vimtutor works better than videos:

You can't fake it. When a video shows you a command, you might think you understand it. But vimtutor makes you actually do it. Your fingers have to press the keys. That's how muscle memory forms.

It teaches the right things first. Movement with h, j, k, l. Exiting with :q. Deleting with d. These are the commands you'll use a thousand times a day. Vimtutor drills them in before moving to anything fancy.

It takes 30 minutes. Not 10 hours of video content. Not a 300-page book. Half an hour, and you'll know enough to actually use Vim for real work.

After finishing vimtutor, I did it again the next day. And the day after. By the third run, the basic movements felt natural. My fingers knew where to go without thinking.

Four months later, I still think vimtutor is the best resource for learning Vim. Not the most comprehensive. Not the most advanced. But the best place to start.

Stop researching. Stop watching. Open your terminal and run vimtutor. You'll learn more in 30 minutes than I learned in my first week of tutorial hunting.