While I know how to use Vim to manipulate text file – a skill mostly required if you need to manage Unix/Linux server, I don’t know how to use vim efficiently.
Until now, I only know that i and a get me into the insert mode, where the arrow buttons work. Esc would take me back to the command mode, where :w saves the file, :q quits the program, and :q! quit without saving. Actually, I learned to Vim because I didn’t know nano editor exists!
I quite liked Vim, even though I didn’t know how powerful it could be at times. It’s light; it’s fast; it gets work done. I admitted, that I haven’t tried emacs, as the idea of using that much Ctrl button already scared me.
Now that I use Linux, and even though I bring Sublime Text with me – an editor that is the best since Vim/emacs/Ed/etc. – I don’t feel the need to use it. I search for some example .vimrc on the Internet and randomly copy one into my home folder and play around. To my surprise, it’s actually better than I thought!
I will probably be using Vim as my main editor for the time being (unless I need the power of large IDE refactoring). I also installed the Vimium extension on Chrome. Due to this laptop being quite old, its touchpad isn’t that good, and after using Vimium and Vim for sometimes now I don’t want to use the mouse any more!
My current working environment consists of three desktop workspaces: one for Chrome, one for XChat (an IRC client), and one for the terminal. In the terminal, I use GNU Screen to divide my screen between Vim and the shell for compiling/running etc. This actually work quite well. I suggest you to try it.