My Sincere Roadmap to Master Vim
When I first started my career as a Data Scientist, I noticed something about seniors I admired most: they were using Vim in their IDE or daily notes. That was my introduction to Vim.
Be honest: I started learning Vim because it looked cool. I wanted to work like they did.
At first, using Vim was frustrating. It slowed the code editing process down, such as wrongly deleting some parts and not being able to recover them, or it was hard to move the cursor to the exact words for editing. I felt like a toddler learning to walk while everyone else was running.
If you are starting out and feeling this way, please know: It is normal. Don’t give up. Here I want to share the roadmap I used to go from “clueless” to “capable,” and the resources that made the difference.
1. The “Everywhere” Strategy
The best way to learn Vim is to make it unavoidable.
- In your IDE: Whether you use VS Code, IntelliJ, or Cursor, install a Vim emulation plugin.
- In your Terminal: Stop using basic text editors. Use Vim to replace it.
2. One Step at a Time
In Vim, there are often five different ways to achieve the same result. For example, if you want to delete from your current line to the end of the file:
- You could type
dG. - You could count the lines and type
d[number]j.
Don’t try to learn all five ways at once. Start with one. Once one command is in your muscle memory, look for the “shorthand” or the more efficient version. Vim is a language; you don’t learn a language by reading the whole dictionary—you learn it by building sentences.
3. Beyond LLMs: Vim Adventures
I often get asked if you can just use an LLM (like ChatGPT) to learn Vim. While LLMs are great for explaining what a command does, they aren’t great for practice.
When an LLM gives you a command, you already know what to type. There is no “puzzle” to solve. To truly master Vim, you need flexible scenarios where you have to think about which movement is the most efficient. That’s when I found Vim Adventures.
Vim Adventures costs $35 for 3 months. Unlike an LLM (where you just copy-paste what it tells you), the game forces you to think and solve puzzles using Vim logic. It makes the practice intentional and flexible.
However, the game is hard for people who have just mastered some Vim commands. As you reach higher levels, around level 8, there were times I almost quit because I couldn’t figure out the right movement to get past a level. I tried to find the documented solutions. However, most of them were videos or just some discussion on reddit or other tech blogs.
Here I wrote down all answers and the logic for every single level of Vim Adventures. If you find yourself stuck or want to see the most efficient path through a level, check out my repository: 👉 GitHub: Vim-Adventures Solutions by Veraz00
Hope the frustration in Vim Adventures would not make you quit vim.
Final Thoughts
During your IDE journey, when using Vim, you may face denial from others, like ...your Vim skills are so bad... or sometimes, the doubts from yourself. But Vim cannot be mastered over 1 day, 1 week or 1 month. It’s about a mindset of continuous improvement.
And though at the beginning, it may even slow down your work efficiency, but if you decide to be the one who masters Vim, who can move the screen without a mouse, who can quickly search, delete, and replace words, just keep practising it and never give up.
If I can do it, you can too. Happy coding.
