Vimming to New Heights
A major release of the Vim text editor packs a whole lot of new features.
Monday, February 12th, 2007
Everyone knows that there are three things you’re not supposed to discuss in polite company: politics, religion, and text editor preference. However, rules are made to be broken, and the recent release of Vim version 7 prompts just such an occassion. While George W. Bush, John Kerry, and Jesus may be keeping mum, the rest of us can celebrate a significant upgrade to a popular editor.
The complete list of new features in Vim 7 (http://www.vim.org/) is substantial. Major enhancements include native spell checking, smarter completion for a bevy of programming languages, and remote and compressed file browsing. In fact, the features are so numerous that even a simple list wouldn’t fit in the span of these few magazine pages. (See the sidebar “A Sample of Vim Goodies” for a brief list of notable additions.)
