The VimL Primer: Edit Like a Pro with Vim Plugins and Scripts

This book will nudge you into writing VimL, the first step in getting your vim blackbelt.

[Note: I have received a free copy of the book to write this review.]This book is an introduction to VimL (aka Vimscript), the language that allowsyou to script the Vim text editor. Since Vim is also scriptable in, amongothers, Perl, Ruby or Python, one might have doubts about the relevance oflearning yet another language, let alone a language that is useless outsidethe text editor, and, according to some, a not very well-made language atthat. The answer is that all (not too old) versions of Vim support VimL,whereas support for other languages depends on the installation; in otherwords, a plugin in VimL is portable. As a personal note, I used to script Vimmostly in Lua before I ran into trouble with Vim on another computer. Sincethen, I use VimL exclusively.Add to that that VimL is really simple to learn, and integrates perfectly withthe rest of Vim (whereas the mixing of Vim commands and non-VimL scripting canbe painful), and you'll definitely want to use it more than any other languageof whatever reputation. Oh, you might choose to use no language at all, andnot script Vim; but then, it's like driving a sports car (an SUV, really) andchoose to remain in second gear.Now, given that Vim has an excellent help system, why would you need a book tolearn VimL? Because Vim's help is a reference manual and isn't meant as apractical introduction. This book, on the other hand, is not a reference atall, but takes you by the hand to build a real working plugin step by step. Inother words, you'll learn by doing, here creating an interface to MPC, itselfan interface to MPD, itself a great way to listen to music.The book addresses everything from variable types to mappings, includingautoloading (postponing the reading of script files until necessary, thusavoiding long startup), working with file types, or highlighting code. A lotis reviewed in the process, and there is a lot to learn if you're new to VimL.As this is a primer (so the author don't spend too many pages on explanation),you'll probably scratch your head from time to time, getting stuck in someplaces; but then Vim's ":help" command will be exactly what you need. In otherwords, this book is like a map: you know where everything is, although youdon't know the details. The details are in Vim itself.And now for the big question: should you buy this book? The answer is no ifyou're looking for a way to learn Vim in general (this is a book about VimLonly!), or if you already know you way in VimL (though you might learn a fewthings). But it is a yes if you want a simple yet systematic approach to VimL:after reading this book, you'll be able to write a plugin, and if you ever doso, you'll be able to review each and every step and make sure you forgetnothing. With time, you'll probably turn more and more to Vim's internal help,and forget about this book: but isn't it what a primer is about?

TL-DR: I liked the book but don't have anything very specific to say about it.I had heard about his book in the Pragmatic Bookshelf newsletter, and I had looked at it a little, being very interested by the Vim text editor.But at that time I had such a long backlog of ebooks I'd bought but not read yet that I refrained from buying yet another one.That said, when Ben Klein asked on the vim_use mailing list if anybody would be interesting in reviewing his book I jumped on the occasion, and so the book leapfrogged the many others on my waiting list.I started reading it right away, then got sidetracked, then started reading it again, then again left it for a few months.Finally I started again and read it all, a couple of pages a day, over a little less than a month.It's a pretty short book (about 60 pages), so you could really read it much faster, in one or two evenings I guess.I liked it a lot. It gives a very good overview of the various things that can be involved in making a Vim plugin.The example the book used (interacting with a music library, displaying the list of songs and playing them from the editor) is well-chosen, it's very easy to get your head around and allows us to learn many aspects that might be needed in a Vim plugin.Not everybody will want to write a Vim plugin, but most Vim users will probaby want to customize their .vimrc, and learning a bit about how plugins are structured is interesting in its own way.

Note: {I have received a free copy of this book to write this review.]I am a long time vi/vim user who has never done any scripting in Vimscript/VimL. I found the book very well laid out with excellent examples throughout and found it to be an excellent introduction to VimL. It taught me the basics of scripting vim and has given me new challenges as I come up with ideas on how to use vim scripting to make my life easier. Many thanks to Benjamin for writing a readable and useful introduction to VimL.I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn VimL and to anyone who is new to VimL and wants to expand their use of it.

"The VimL Primer", by Benjamin Klein, takes the reader for a guided tour inside the Vim scripting language, touching upon a selection of topics while putting together an example of Vim plugin.The book is concise, nicely typeset and easy to read.I appreciate the choice of the various topics: from the classical details of the vim scripting language, such as data types and looping constructs, to the vim configuration, such as the layout of the .vim directory, down to more editing specific aspects, such as buffers, windows and syntax highlighting. Details are tastefully cherry-picked from the vim documentation, and whenever you want more ":help xyz" is your friend.All in all, a nice contribution, well suited both for reading while sitting at the terminal, experimenting with the many code snippets, as well as for "half-asleep-train-or-underground-reading" while heading towards/back from a day full of exciting vim editing!