Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Wednesday, 10/23 - Come geek out about Vim!

WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - Come geek out about Vim!

WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
       Classroom 24
       5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:  Wednesday, October 23rd, at 6:30pm

RSVP:  http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/


Come geek out about Vim!


We don't have a specific topic, so let's just talk about whatever comes up.  Maybe that will be some basics, a cool trick, somebody's favorite plugin, or some combination of those.  Join us and be surprised.  :-)

Drinks and Food and Stuff


I know it is late notice, but if you RSVP, we'll try to make sure there is pizza and drinks for everybody.

When and Where


We'll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, October 23rd, where we usually do:
CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

CAIT on Google Maps

Forsyth MetroLink Station
CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)

Make sure you RSVP!

See you this Wednesday!

Steve

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Wednesday, 9/25 - Beer!

WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - Beer!

WHERE: Schlafly Bottleworks
       7260 Southwest Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63143

WHEN:  Wednesday, September 25th, at 6:30pm

RSVP:  http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/


Beer!


Our regular meeting room at CAIT isn't available this month, so we're going to have an informal meeting at the Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood instead.  If you've never been there, they have good food and great beer.  And don't worry, we'll still talk about Vim.  :-)

Please RSVP so we can try to have a table ready at 6:30.

See you this Wednesday!

Steve

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Wednesday, 8/28 - Top 10 (or so) Reasons to Use Vim


WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - Top 10 (or so) Reasons to Use Vim

WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
       Classroom 24
       5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:  Wednesday, August 28th, at 6:30pm

RSVP:  http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/



Top 10 (or so) Reasons to Use Vim


We all know Vim is great. At this month's meeting, I'd like to detail a few of the many reasons why.

As I mentioned at the last meeting, I'm teaching a class on Vim in a couple of weeks, and I'm using this material in my class, so thanks in advance for being guinea pigs.  ;-)


Drinks and Food and Stuff


I know it is late notice, but if you RSVP, we'll try to make sure there is pizza and drinks for everybody.


When and Where


We'll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, August 28th, where we usually do:
CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

CAIT on Google Maps

Forsyth MetroLink Station
CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)

Make sure you RSVP!

See you this Wednesday!

Steve

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Wednesday 7/31 - Just Enough Vim Scripting to be Dangerous

WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - Just Enough Vim Scripting to be Dangerous

WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
       Classroom 24
       5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:  Wednesday, July 31st, at 6:30pm

RSVP:  http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/

Just Enough Vim Scripting to be Dangerous

There's a lot you can do to customize Vim to your particular idiosyncrasies without having to grapple with Vim's scripting features. If you're a dedicated Vim power user, though, you'll eventually reach a point where you simply must do something that tweaking a setting or two won't handle. That's when you decide "I'll learn Vim scripting!"

It's about three minutes later that the realization kicks in: Vim scripting is its own brand of weird. Sure, it seems a lot like other scripting languages — until it really, really doesn't. It's hard to know where to start, and all too easy to do things that break Vim in exciting and unexpected ways.

This talk will get you over that initial this-is-too-bizarre / how-hard-can-LISP-be-anyway hump. We won't try to cover everything Vim scripting can do, but a little knowledge will go a long way, especially if you know where to begin and the pitfalls to avoid.

Drinks and Food and Stuff

Ever been to a meeting that couldn't be improved with some free food? Me neither, so RSVP to let us know how much to get. O'Reilly has also provided us with some free stuff to give away, but you probably shouldn't eat it. It's a little... paper-y.

When and Where

We'll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, July 31st, where we usually do:

CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

CAIT on Google Maps

Forsyth MetroLink Station

CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)

Make sure you RSVP!

See you this Wednesday!
Bill

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

No meeting this month

Unfortunately, we have to cancel the meeting scheduled for Wednesday, June 26, 2013.

We'll see you all next month.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Vimdiff at SLUUG this Wednesday, June 12th, at 6:30pm

Hi all. I'll be giving the following presentation at this month's SLUUG meeting:

Splendiferous: Unexpectedly Cool (and Useful) Stuff You Can Do With Vimdiff

St. Louis Unix Users Group (SLUUG)
Wednesday, June 12th, 2013 - 6:30pm
Graybar Electric Co, Inc.
11885 Lackland Road, Maryland Heights, MO 63146

It doesn't seem like there'd be that much to say about Vim's built-in diff capability -- it shows the differences between two files, right? Well, yes, but as with most things Vim, there's a lot more to the story if you just look a little deeper. In this talk, we'll uncover the surprising power and flexibility hidden inside vimdiff, and show several of the the nifty things you can do with this oft-overlooked feature.

See you this Wednesday!

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Wednesday 5/29 - Let's Be :normal Together

WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - Unusually :normal
       - CoVim - Alone Together, Naturally

WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
       Classroom 24
       5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:  Wednesday, May 29th, at 6:30pm (that's tonight!)

RSVP:  http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/

Unusually :normal

The :normal command just doesn't get enough love. It's very useful—okay, practically mandatory—in Vim scripts, but that's not anywhere near the whole story. Steven Pritchard has been busily (re) discovering all sorts of uses for it lately, and will show us several examples (that he promises are "only slightly contrived") of its power. You might be surprised at how flexible this supposedly-simple command can be when combined with commands you already know.

CoVim - Alone Together, Naturally

Vim is eminently lovable, but one downside of loving it so much is that you become painfully aware of its (dare I say it) limitations. A pet limitation of mine: the lack of collaborative editing. Yes, yes, I know you can use screen or tmux to share a terminal session, but I want my keymaps, and my colorscheme, and my window layout, not whatever lowest-common-denominator subset my collaborator and I have barely agreed upon.

CoVim claims to solve this problem. Here's the description from one of its creators:

CoVim is a Vim Plugin that adds real-time collaboration to your favorite text editor. Think Google Docs for Vim.

Features:

  • Allows multiple users to connect to the same document online
  • Displays collaborators with uniquely colored cursors
  • Works with your existing configuration
  • Easy to set up & use
  • And More!

It is difficult to express how much I want all those claims to be true, so we're going to put them to the test, starting with "Easy to set up & use."

Drinks and Food and Stuff

If you RSVP, then we'll have enough food to eat and drinks to drink, so don't forget to let us know you're coming. We'll also have a freebie or two from the nice folks at O'Reilly.

When and Where

We'll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, May 29th (a.k.a, tonight), in the usual place:

CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

CAIT on Google Maps

Forsyth MetroLink Station

CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)

Make sure you RSVP!

See you tonight!
Bill

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

No meeting this evening (April 24th)

Just wanted to let everyone know that we won't be having a meeting tonight. We'll be back on the regular schedule next month. Thanks, Bill

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Wednesday 3/27 - Stealing^WLearning from Sublime Text

WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - A Whirlwind Tour of Sublime Text from Josh Weaver
       - Grab Bag & General Tomfoolery

WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
       Classroom 24
       5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:  Wednesday, March 27th, at 6:30pm

RSVP:  http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/

A Whirlwind Tour of Sublime Text from Josh Weaver

Vim users know a good idea when they see one -- that's how most of us ended up on Vim in the first place, after all -- and sometimes those ideas come from other text editors. In our ongoing quest to keep people asking "Why are you talking about <some editor that isn't Vim> at a Vim Geeks meeting?" we've got Josh Weaver to introduce us to Sublime Text. Sublime is a relative upstart in the world of programmers' text editors, and it's attracted a lot of positive attention of late.

Josh recently moved from using mostly-Vim to mostly-Sublime, and is going to give us a tour of Sublime, as well as his rationale for making it his editor of choice. He said to be sure to mention that he "welcomes questions," and I have no doubt we'll oblige, perhaps more than he anticipates. :-)

Grab Bag & General Tomfoolery

You know that part of the meeting where people ask questions, share tips and tricks, talk about new plugins they've discovered, and talk about what they'd like to see or do at upcoming meetings? That's the part we'll do after we're done pumping Josh for things we can steal from Sublime Text.

Free Food, Drink, and Swag

We'll have good stuff to eat and good stuff to give away, as long as you promise to RSVP so we know how much we'll need.

When and Where

We'll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, March 27th. Here's the address:

CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

CAIT on Google Maps

Forsyth MetroLink Station

CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)

Make sure you RSVP!

See you Wednesday,
Bill

Monday, February 25, 2013

Wednesday 2/27 - Vim + Ruby and Visual Mode!

WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - A Tour of Charlie Sanders' Vim Environment
       - Another Look at Visual Mode

WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
       Classroom 24
       5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:  Wednesday (really!), February 27th, at 6:30pm

RSVP:  http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/

Seems like forever since we've had a proper non-holiday / non-bowling meeting. Let's fix that:

A Tour of Charlie Sanders's (Ruby-Flavored) Vim Environment

We've got a special request for the third in our series of Vim Environment Tours this month. Those of us launching into large Ruby projects (a.k.a., me and my co-workers) have asked Charlie Sanders to show us around his Vim configuration, with an emphasis on how he uses it to do magical Ruby stuff. (Don't worry if you're not a Ruby developer, though -- the ideas are applicable to all sorts of programming, even if the specific plugins and settings are different.)

Another Look at Visual Mode

Speaking of special requests... Apparently I made one too many references to an earlier talk I gave on Visual Mode, at which point I was gently but firmly informed that I hadn't actually given that presentation at a Vim Geeks meeting, and that there were several people that might like to actually *see* the presentation instead of just hear about it. So with that in mind, this month I'll give an updated version of "Seeing Is Believing" (including a couple of new visual-mode tricks I've picked up since giving the talk the first time).

Food, Drink, and Free Stuff

Still on the fence? How about some free Dewey's pizza and a chance to win a book from O'Reilly? Just be sure to RSVP so we don't run short on the victuals.

When and Where

We'll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, February 27th, in Classroom 24. Here's the address:

CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

CAIT on Google Maps

Forsyth MetroLink Station

CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)

Make sure you RSVP!

See you Wednesday,
Bill

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

No January meeting

Due to various scheduling issues, we won't be having a January meeting.

Sorry for the late notice, and we'll see you in February!