Mission Vimpossible

I tried to use vim for the first time today. I’ve opened it a few times to read files, so the cursor navigation was familiar and after I think for a moment I can remember how to exit, but today was the first time I actively wanted to use it to modify a file.

I needed to paste a character into a text file and figured it would be something a little exotic and I better search for the shortcut.

Never Again

The cheat sheet I found was no help and, if anything, confused matters further. Then this is the answer that I found amongst some other shorter, but equally unhelpful, ones.

I now appreciate that pasting in vim isn’t complicated but it was made to be by my hesitation with it’s unfriendliness and unintuitive nature and the incomprehensible ‘help’ available on the internet. I appreciate it’s a powerful tool but I feel like the simple actions should be a little more within reach for those that don’t have the will or the time to learn a whole new paradigm.

Maybe I’d have found more helpful stuff on google rather than duckduckgo, but if all the docs and online help are this dense it just makes me think this software is made by, and for, masochists and it is 100% not for me.