Vim is great
============
For some reasons I still use the Vim editor [1] version 6.1. The main
reason is that this particular version is the fastest on my IRIX
computers (it is from the SGI Freeware collection and the GVim uses the
Motif libraries). On 175 MHz or oven on 250 MHz CPU is does matter.
But I have here the Vim 7.x (and even 8.x on the SGI Indigo). The 7.2
is somewhat slower and the 8.x is considerably slower (on the poor odl
Indigo with its 33 MHz CPU there is no other option: the Vim 5.1 is WAY
TOO OLD - it even does not support vertical split - and the 8.0 is the
only other version available). The 7.2 comes from the NekoWare (it was
created by SGI fans from the now dead Nekochan.net) and the GVim uses
the Gtk+ (which is ugly, slow but functional on the IRIX).
The 7.x and 8.x versions are one big advantage over the older 6.x ones:
the spell checking functionality.
It it pretty easy to use:
---------------------------------
:set spell
---------------------------------
And typing errors are highlighted. The default language is English (I
assume that it is the variation of English which is used in US). It is
what I use here at SDF. Well, I should put the command into the .vimrc
file because I usually forgot to turn it on...
But my (less or more) native language is Czech. So I have to use an
another commmand:
---------------------------------
set spelllang=cs
---------------------------------
And I there is no necessary file in the ~/.vim/ directory then Vim will
asks if the it can download the file (or files) from the ftp.vim.org
[2]. It works even on as strange system as the IRIX 5.3 is... (as long
as the "cur;" utility is available). I'm not sure if it is secure but
it is really user-friendly.
The Vim takes care about file encoding. For Czech language I can use
or the Latin 2 encoding (ISO 8859-2) or the UTF-8. There are available
files for both encodings and the Vim will download the right one.
Don't tell me that this is not great!
References:
[1] http://www.vim.org
[2] ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/runtime/spell/