Vim (; a contraction of Vi IMproved) is a free and open-source, screen-based text editor program. It is an improved clone of Bill Joy's vi. Vim's author, Bram Moolenaar, derived Vim from a port of the Stevie editor for Amiga and released a version to the public in 1991. Vim is designed for use both from a command-line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface. Since its release for the Amiga, cross-platform development has made it available on many other systems. In 2006, it was voted the most popular editor amongst Linux Journal readers; in 2015 the Stack Overflow developer survey found it to be the third most popular text editor, and in 2019 the fifth most popular development environment. History Vim's forerunner, Stevie (ST Editor for VI Enthusiasts), was created by Tim Thompson for the Atari ST in 1987 and further developed by Tony Andrews and G.R. (Fred) Walter. Basing his work on Stevie, Bram Moolenaar began working on Vim for the Amiga computer in 1988, with the first public release (Vim v1.14) in 1991. At the time of its first release, the name "Vim" was an acronym for "Vi IMitation", but this changed to "'Vi IMproved" late in 1993. License Vim is released under the Vim license, which includes some charityware clauses that encourage users who enjoy the software to consider donating to children in Uganda. The Vim license is compatible with the GNU General Public License through a special clause allowing distribution of modified copies under the GNU GPL version 2.0 or later. Interface Like vi, Vim's interface is not based on menus or icons but on commands given in a text user interface; its GUI mode, gVim, adds menus and toolbars for commonly used commands but the full functionality is still expressed through its command line mode. Vi (and by extension Vim) tends to allow a typist to keep their fingers on the home row, which can be an advantage for a touch typist. Vim has a built-in tutorial for beginners called vimtutor which is usually installed along with Vim, but is a separate executable and can be run with a shell command. The Vim Users' Manual details Vim's features and can be read from within Vim, or found online. Vim also has a built-in help facility (using the :help command) that allows users to query and navigate through commands and features.