30th anniversary of the birth of Vim: author Bram Moolenaar and developer Alex Baldwin wrote articles to celebrate

Since its release in 1991, Vim has now experienced a full 30 years in a polarized developer community. Just now, the author Bram Moolenaar and the developer Alex Baldwin respectively issued articles expressing their emotions and congratulations for the "30th anniversary of the birth of Vim".

Vim author Bram Moolenaar said in his latest celebration email:

The first version of Vim was built and released 29 years ago, and Vim is more popular than ever! In the recent period, they have been working on the development of Vim 9, which will make Vim scripts faster and easier to use. This is a big project that has made a lot of progress and will continue.

Vim is an open source text editor based on the command line. It is reported that the first Vim version is referred to as Vi IMitation and was released by Bram Moolenaar in 1991. By 1992, Vim version 1.22 was ported to UNIX and MS-DOS. Since then, Vim has changed its name to Vi IMproved as its functions continue to increase.

Vim: still popular after 30 years

Today, Vim is still powerful. Although the industry has received mixed reviews from the industry over the past 30 years, some users will think that Vim is a bit stubborn, while others say it is not important. Now, Vim has been widely used by programmers and has become one of the most popular text editors.

So, what is the charm of Vim that will remain popular after 30 years?

In this regard, while software developer Alex Baldwin celebrated the 30th anniversary of Vim, he also wrote an article explaining how Vim has been loved for 30 years.

Baldwin cited some reasons why Vim is worthwhile:

1. No mouse required

For example, a typical modeless editor (such as Notepad) can only use one mode, namely text input; but Vim has multiple modes, such as input mode and normal mode, which makes keying simple. It can be used not only for character input, but also for various functions such as cursor movement and line deletion. Baldwin said: "This feature synchronizes the keyboard and brain with the code on the screen."

Baldwin pointed out that developers spend a lot of time typing text, so any additional processes (such as mouse operations) will interrupt the text typing and hinder the smooth progress of the work. He said: "Most developers like efficiency, so many people want to put their hands on the keyboard to work, so you can save time, stay focused, so that you can achieve excellent results. For decades, the Vim team has found developers Real demand shapes good products to maintain their competitive advantage."

2. Powerful "Dot" command

With Vim, you only need to enter a Dot to repeat the last change. Baldwin said: "It looks like a simple macro, but it is effective when typing complex text."

3.Vim-Easy Motion

When using the Vim plug-in "Easy Motion", the first letter of each word is highlighted in red. In this state, the user can move the cursor to that position by typing the highlighted character.

4.Shell command

Compared to running commands in a separate window, the ability to integrate shell commands in the editor makes it easier.

5.Buffer

Buffer is a memory area used to copy the contents of files read by Vim. Opening multiple file tabs will complicate management, but Buffer makes it easier to open multiple files and search at the same time.

Baldwin emphasized: "The way developers actually enter code is almost the same as it was 30 years ago. Vim is a product that understands the needs of users and is very far-sighted-'enter and manipulate text', which is still needed in the past and now Functions". "The Vim development team will continue to focus on significant productivity improvements and strictly deliver the required content."