title: What is your most productive shortcut with Vim?
body: <p>I've heard a lot about <a href="http://www.vim.org/" rel="noreferrer">Vim</a>, both pros and cons.
  It really seems you should be (as a developer) faster with Vim than with any other editor.
  I'm using Vim to do some basic stuff and I'm at best 10 times <em>less productive</em> with Vim.</p>
  
  <p>The only two things you should care about when you talk about speed (you may not care enough about them, but you should) are:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Using alternatively left and right
  hands is the <strong>fastest</strong> way to use the
  keyboard. </li>
  <li>Never touching the mouse is the
  second way to be as fast as possible.
  It takes ages for you to move your hand,
  grab the mouse, move it, and bring it
  back to the keyboard (and you often have
  to look at the keyboard to be sure you
  returned your hand properly to the right place)</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Here are two examples demonstrating why I'm far less productive with Vim.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Copy/Cut &amp; paste.</strong> I do it all the time. With all the contemporary editors you press <kbd>Shift</kbd>  with the left hand, and you move the cursor with your right hand to select text. Then <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>C</kbd> copies, you move the cursor and <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>V</kbd> pastes.</p>
  
  <p>With Vim it's horrible:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><strong><code>yy</code></strong> to copy one line (you almost never want the whole line!)</li>
  <li><strong><code>[number xx]yy</code></strong> to copy <code>xx</code> lines into the buffer. But you never know exactly if you've selected what you wanted. I often have to do <strong><code>[number xx]dd</code></strong> then <strong><code>u</code></strong> to undo!</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Another example? <strong>Search &amp; replace.</strong></p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSPad" rel="noreferrer">PSPad</a>: <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>f</kbd> then type what you want you search for, then press <kbd>Enter</kbd>.</li>
  <li>In Vim: <strong><code>/</code></strong>, then type what you want to search for, then if there are some special characters put <strong><code>\</code></strong> before <em>each</em> special character, then press <kbd>Enter</kbd>.</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>And everything with Vim is like that: it seems I don't know how to handle it the right way.</p>
  
  <p>NB : <strong>I've already read the Vim <a href="http://www.viemu.com/vi-vim-cheat-sheet.gif" rel="noreferrer">cheat</a> <a href="http://www.fprintf.net/vimCheatSheet.html" rel="noreferrer">sheet</a></strong> :)</p>
  
  <p>My question is:</p>
  
  <p>What is the way you use Vim that makes you more productive than with a contemporary editor?</p>