---
slug: vim-books
title: "Vim Books"
date: "2024-06-02T10:00:00-04:00"
---

While perusing [Vim scripts][], I noticed that there are several [Vim
books][].  A couple of them piqued my interest:

- [Practical Vim, Second Edition (2015)][practical vim]
- [Modern Vim (2018)][modern vim]

I bought both books and I'm about 300 pages into [Practical Vim][].  So
far it's great.  I have been using [Vim][] for over 20 years but I still
learned a few things; for example, I did not know about [the `\v` "very
magic" prefix for patterns][very-magic].

If you buy the books from [the publisher][pragprog] instead of
[Amazon][] you can download the [eBooks][] as [DRM][]-free [PDF][],
[EPUB][], and [MOBI][] files.  I read the [PDFs][pdf] on my desktop and
the [EPUBs][epub] in the [Kindle app][] on my phone (imported via [Send
to Kindle][]).

Unlike many technical books, the [EPUBs][epub] render very nicely in the
[Kindle app][].  Example:

[Page from "Practical Vim" rendered by the Kindle app on a Pixel 8
Pro][example]

**Update (2024-06-15):** I finished both books.  [Practical Vim][] is
great and I recommend it.  [Modern Vim][] is a bit of a tossup:

- Pros: The introduction to [neovim][] is helpful and so is the section
  on [fzf][] integration.
- Cons: Several chapters are a subset of material from [Practical
  Vim][] (examples: chapters 2 and 4).  Also [Modern Vim][] does not
  cover *modern* [Vim][] features like [the `terminal`
  command][terminal], which I use regularly.

To be fair, [`:terminal`][terminal] is mentioned briefly in the "What's
Next for Vim 8" section of Appendix 1, and it was not included in a
stable release until after [Modern Vim][] was published.

[pragprog]: https://pragprog.com/
  "The Pragmatic Bookshelf"
[drm]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management
  "Digital Rights Management"
[pdf]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF
  "Portable Document Format (PDF)"
[epub]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB
  "EPUB eBook file format"
[ebooks]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebook
  "electronic book"
[vim]: https://www.vim.org/
  "Vi-improved text editor"
[neovim]: https://neovim.io/
  "hyperextensible Vim-based text editor"
[very-magic]: https://vimhelp.org/pattern.txt.html#%2Fmagic
  "Documentation for magic settings in Vim, including the \\v \"very magic\" prefix."
[kindle app]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle#Kindle_applications
  "Kindle application"
[send to kindle]: https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle
  "Send to Kindle"
[practical vim]: https://pragprog.com/titles/dnvim2/practical-vim-second-edition/
  "Practical Vim, Second Edition, by Drew Neil (2015)"
[modern vim]: https://pragprog.com/titles/modvim/modern-vim/
  "Modern Vim, by Drew Neil (2018)"
[vim books]: https://iccf-holland.org/vim_books.html
  "Vim books"
[vim scripts]: https://www.vim.org/scripts/
  "Scripts for Vim"
[amazon]: https://amazon.com/
  "Amazon"
[example]: /files/posts/vim-books/practical-vim-epub-example-page.png
  "Page from \"Practical Vim\" EPUB rendered in Kindle App"
[pixel 8 pro]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_8
  "Pixel 8 Pro"
[mobi]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobipocket
  "Mobipocket eBook file format"
[terminal]: https://vimhelp.org/terminal.txt.html#terminal
  "Vim terminal window support"
[fzf]: https://junegunn.github.io/fzf/
  "command-line fuzzy finder"