Once in a while I try to audit my vim configuration, plugins, etc. Although I try to be vigilant against it, I inevitably end up with plugins that go unused for months and cause some minor wtf moments when I see them later and can’t remember what they’re for.

Even worse: it’s a vicious, time consuming cycle. I find myself having a hard time parting from some of these plugins after I rediscover their purpose. So I end up refreshing my knowledge of their mappings, using them for a few days, and forgetting about them again because for whatever reason they just aren’t sticking as part of my workflow.

In an effort to document some this discovery and once and for all expunge some of these plugins from my Vundle, I decided it’s worth writing up a quick review of a few plugins I have tried, but just haven’t stuck.

Vundle organization

As you’ve probably inferred, I currently use Vundle to manage my vim bundle. I’ve considered trying Tim Pope’s Pathogen, but that’s a topic for another post. Anyway, my .vimrc.bundles file looks like this:

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set nocompatible
filetype off

set rtp+=~/.vim/bundle/vundle/
call vundle#rc()

" Let Vundle manage Vundle
" Define bundles via Github repos
Bundle 'gmarik/vundle'

" Core enhancements
Bundle 'chriskempson/base16-vim'
Bundle 'danro/rename.vim'
Bundle 'itchyny/lightline.vim'
Bundle 'vim-scripts/ShowTrailingWhitespace'
Bundle 'vim-scripts/DeleteTrailingWhitespace'
Bundle 'tpope/vim-unimpaired'

" IDE-like enhancements
Bundle 'scrooloose/nerdtree'
Bundle 'scrooloose/syntastic'
Bundle 'kien/ctrlp.vim'
Bundle 'rking/ag.vim'
Bundle 'nathanaelkane/vim-indent-guides'
Bundle 'tpope/vim-fugitive'
Bundle 'gregsexton/gitv'
Bundle 'benmills/vimux'
Bundle 'jgdavey/vim-turbux'

" Code editing enhancements
Bundle 'tmhedberg/vim-matchit'
Bundle 'tpope/vim-endwise'
Bundle 'tpope/vim-surround'
Bundle 'vim-scripts/tComment'
Bundle 'godlygeek/tabular'
Bundle 'goldfeld/vim-seek'
Bundle 'PeterRincker/vim-argumentative'
Bundle 'tommcdo/vim-exchange.git'
Bundle 'terryma/vim-expand-region'
Bundle 'kana/vim-textobj-user'
Bundle 'nelstrom/vim-textobj-rubyblock'
Bundle 'jgdavey/vim-blockle'

" File type handlers
Bundle 'xenoterracide/html.vim'
Bundle 'vim-ruby/vim-ruby'
Bundle 'tpope/vim-bundler'
Bundle 'tpope/vim-rails'
Bundle 'tpope/vim-haml'
Bundle 'tpope/vim-markdown'
Bundle 'mustache/vim-mustache-handlebars'
Bundle 'kchmck/vim-coffee-script'
Bundle 'slim-template/vim-slim.git'

" Snippets
Bundle 'MarcWeber/vim-addon-mw-utils'
Bundle 'tomtom/tlib_vim'
Bundle 'garbas/vim-snipmate'

filetype on

As you can see it’s organized into 5 semi-defined sections:

  1. Core enhancements
  2. IDE-like enhancements
  3. Code editing enhancements
  4. File type handlers
  5. Snippets

Sections 1, 4 and 5 tend to be fairly unchanging. Sections 2 and 3 are where the most churn tends to happens. There’s four plugins in particular that I wanted to review for removal:

Bundle 'goldfeld/vim-seek'
Bundle 'PeterRincker/vim-argumentative'
Bundle 'tommcdo/vim-exchange.git'
Bundle 'terryma/vim-expand-region'

Vim seek

https://github.com/goldfeld/vim-seek

Seek makes navigating long lines effortless, acting like f but taking two characters.

Vim seek install date

I remember installing vim-seek because my habit when writing code tends to be to use the f character to motion jump around to the part of the line I need to change. The problem comes when the line has more than one of a given character, which tends to happen more often than not. Vim seek maps the s character to behave similar to find, but takes two characters then jumps to the first instance of those two characters.

This works great, but I found myself forgetting the key mapping was there. Furthermore, I simply adjusted my habit from tending to use the f key to invoke find to using the / key to invoke a pattern search and typing a couple characters to search within the whole file.

Since the search is made relative to the current cursor position it usually works well. This also has the added bonus of not needing to be on the same line as the search term and I can use ? (shift+/) similar to F to search backward. Now I tend to just type / or ? and begin typing the code I’m trying to jump to.

Conclusion: removed from bundle

argumentative.vim

https://github.com/PeterRincker/vim-argumentative

Argumentative aids with manipulating and moving between function arguments.

As can be seen in the example below, argumentative lets you easily swap the order of method arguments. Argumentative defines the >, and <, mappings. You simply place the cursor on one argument and use the former to swap it right and the latter to swap it left.

Vim argumentative usage

In addition, it defines two new text objects a, and i, which allows you to further manipulate function arguments. For instance vi, and va, can be used to make a visual selection inside the method argument under the cursor or select around it, respectively.

Although I still love the idea of this plugin, I have not noticed myself using it after having installed it over a year ago. Swapping the order of arguments is just not something I do often enough to develop a muscle memory for the key mappings.

Conclusion: removed from bundle

exchange.vim

https://github.com/tommcdo/vim-exchange

Easy text exchange operator for Vim

This plugin allows you to quickly swap two lines or two large regions of text. Vimcasts provides an excellent cover of exchange.vim’s features in their vimcast Swapping two regions of text with exchange.vim.

Similar to argumentative.vim, this is a plugin I must have installed figuring I would use it a lot. Even as of writing this it still feels like this is something I do often enough to warrant custom key mappings for.

In practice though, I tend to just visually select and cut a chunk of code then use motion keys to jump to the position I want it to be, then paste. I rarely entirely swap two lines or pieces of code with one another.

Conclusion: removed from bundle

Vim expand region

https://github.com/terryma/vim-expand-region

Vim plugin that allows you to visually select increasingly larger regions of text using the same key combination.

Vim expand region usage

Using the + and _ key mappings provided by vim-expand-region, you can easily grow and shrink a visual selection as seen above.

Since I don’t typically visually select some piece of text before operating on it, I don’t need to modify my selection very often. I tend to just yank or change inside of whatever text object I’m in. For example yi( or ci[.

I do frequently select entire blocks of code, for instance an if statement to indent further, but in that case I typically place my cursor on the if or the end and do V% to select to the entire block. The % mapping comes from the excellent vim-matchit plugin.

Conclusion: removed from bundle

RIP plugins

I ended up removing all four plugins I reviewed today. I think they provide great functionality, but in the end I used them less times than I can count on one hand and they had been installed for over a year on average.

On a positive note, I can now look to this write-up if I stumble upon any of these plugins in the future and want to give any of them another try.