7 Habits For Effective Text Editing 2.0

GoogleTalksArchive · 126.4K views · 2012-08-22 · 1:20:30

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Overview

Vim creator Bram Moolenaar's 2007 Google Tech Talk on habits for efficient text editing. He explains how to spot repetition and inefficiency, then use editor features to fix it.

On Hacker News

HN recommends it as a lasting philosophy for improving your editing process incrementally, and it was widely remembered after Moolenaar's death.

Recommended by 5 HN people across 6 months · HN mentions 2013–2023

Topics

Testing, debugging & developer tools Productivity & self-improvement

What people said

tzhenghao · 2023-08 · Strong recommendation
Loved his "7 Habits For Effective Text Editing 2.0" (2007) talk and humor [1] "How many of you are mostly using Emacs?" a bunch of raised hands "Okay, we'll try to convert some people today!" RIP, Bram Moolenaar [1] - [VIDEO]
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1-2-3-5-8 · 2023-08 · Strong recommendation
Thank you Bram for everything. Your talk, 7 Habits For Effective Text Editing 2.0 inspired me and it started my Vim journey. Using Vim all these years has been a complete joy. You will not be forgotten. Link to the talk: [VIDEO]
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Monkeyget · 2014-07 · Strong recommendation
It takes a year because you learn it over time. Learning a tool progressively is the best way to go. There is a wonderful presentation called '7 Habits For Effective Text Editing 2.0' [1] explaining this philosophy. The idea is to get the basics down upfront and then get more proficient gradually over time. When you use the tool you stay aware of what you are doing. When you find an inefficiency in the way you use the tool, find a quicker way and make it an habit. This is the most efficient. If you only care about the code you have to type right now and never read the editor's documentation nor learn new commands you'll keep using only basics commands and never will gain proficiency. Not efficient. If on the other hand you try to learn every feature immediately you'll waste time learning things you won't use and forget most of them anyway. Not efficient. [1] [VIDEO]
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Sources

Video by GoogleTalksArchive, played through YouTube.

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