by Benjamin Klein
ISBN: 9781680500585
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skydhash · 2026-02-14 · Original thread
There are the Practical Vim[0] and Modern Vim[1] by D. Neil

And the VimL Primer[2] by B. Klein

But Vim is a whole culture that starts with ed(1), the standard editor. You do edit based on line numbers and regex addressing and commands. Then there was ex(1) that added more features. vi(1) added a `visual` mode to ex(1), and some commands can now be done in relation to the position of the cursor. Vim is the improved version of vi(1), a lot more commands and a scripting language.

The plugin system is similar to everything that was unix at that time, relying on a variable like $PATH. Any path added to that variable (runtimepath for vim), should follow some patterns for subdirectories and the file will be loaded according to a certain logic. Plugin managers actually manage that variable and do a few things aside (isolating plugins, downloading from forges,...)

[0]: https://pragprog.com/titles/dnvim2/practical-vim-second-edit...

[1]: https://pragprog.com/titles/modvim/modern-vim/

[2]: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-viml-primer/9781680...