Move over TextMate. MacVim is the new kid in town!

For years I’ve been rather proud of the fact that I’m a total polyglot when it

comes to editors. I’m comfortable on both sides of the fence, using Emacs, Vi,

TextMate, EditPlus, or even the venerable /bin/ed whenever that makes sense.

But for the first time in a long time, my current (awesome! :)) job at Blue State Digital has given me the opportunity to

branch out and do quite a bit of real software development.

I first encountered TextMate shortly after I came to OSX. It’s a great editor,

and I have a tremendous amount of respect for Alan Odegard of Macromates

software. He has just about single handedly created not only an amazing

editor, but a vibrant and loyal community around his program, and he’s to be

commended for that.

I would have remained happy in TextMate land, but for the fact that my most

recent job has me going back to where it all started for me - server side UNIX,

Linux to be exact.

So, I editing files on my Mac using Expandrive to remotely mount them, but

quite frankly that’s a pain in the neck I just don’t need to deal with.

With Vim, I can memorize one set of keystrokes for everywhere I might need to

be.

And with MacVim, I get a nicely streamlined, beautifully Aqua-fied interface,

with all the creature comforts TextMate provides and more.

What’s more, there are a number of folks making the same transition, so there

are some excellent articles and websites out there to ease the transition like

this guide on making the switch or

the excellent VimCasts series of Vim tutorial screen

casts. They cover everything from the basics to some fairly advanced tips and

tricks on more complex Vim modes and integrations, and is written by a TextMate

to Vim switcher.

Right now I’m writing this post on the excellent

VimRePress plugin for

Vim that allows you to author and manage your Wordpress blog right from within

the editor! Very sweet :)

So, it’s a brave new world, and I’m excited by the opportunity to get

really good at Vim so I can push my editing productivity through the roof

:)