why vim?

vim is vi(improved) vim is a powerful way that allows you to transform your thoughts into action in as little keystrokes as possible. In fact, the subtitle of the book Practical Vim is this: “Edit Text at the Speed of Thought” With that said, vim has a steep learning curve that often does not feel…

Intro to OSX File Management Commands

Filenames can have spaces! So when you deal with them either surround the filename with apostrophes like this: “my file name.txt” or escape the spaces my\ file\ name.txt. Otherwise, don’t create new file names with spaces or escape characters to keep your sanity. Wildcards * greedy wildcard ? single character wildcard [] single character list of wildcards {} pattern list of…

Setting up .vim directory

vim settings are important for every vim user and you shouldn’t have to use a vanilla vim setup just because you ssh into a VM or set up a new computer. Since most vim settings have zero personal data, the  most convenient thing to do is to upload your vim directory+settings onto the internet for the world to bask…

Mac Unix Command Basics for Beginners

These are useful unix commands that are entered through a Terminal shell prompt. These commands are actually names of Unix programs that usually sit in a folder called /bin where am i? pwd How to check the current directory $ pwd learn more about anything – man How to bring up the manual page for a command:…

Top 10 bash_profile aliases

You are operating with limited time and limited brain power to finish your programs with enough time to go outside and breath fresh air Knowing this, its way too tedious to type out commands like git diff –cached which can be shortcut to gdc with an alias. An alias will allow you to create shortcuts with your own command…

git gotchas

Gotcha 1: git config? “Oops, I’ve been using git without setting my git config?” If youdon’t set your computers git config, it’ll likely choose a default email for you – something like Patrick@MacBookAir.com. That means, even if you push this to Github, your account will not get the commits. How to config your git author…

vim: how to turn on syntax highlighting

Normal mode How to turn on syntax highlighting for your current session :syntax on .vimrc configuration How to default syntax to “on” for all vim sessions Remember to always  back up your config files, simply add this to your .vimrc syntax on Try different colors How to cycle through available color schemes for your current session…