---
title: "Looking into VIM and ViEmu."
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2008/3/15/looking-into-vim-and-viemu.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2008/3/15/looking-into-vim-and-viemu.html"
published: "2008-03-15T14:10:53"
updated: "2008-03-15T14:10:53"
tags: ["General Software Devel..."]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "I'm a keyboard junkie. After having seen this little screencast about Vim , I recently installed ViEmu for Visual Studio, Word and Outlook. My final thoughts after a month or so with it: In Visual Studio I felt more…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Looking into VIM and ViEmu.

By Roy Osherove March 15, 2008 In [General Software Devel...](https://osherove.com/blog/category/general-software-devel)

**Historical article** · Originally published March 15, 2008; technical details may be outdated.

I'm a keyboard junkie. After having seen [this little screencast about Vim](http://blog.eleutian.com/2008/01/18/VimScreencast1.aspx), I recently installed [ViEmu](http://www.viemu.com/) for Visual Studio, Word and Outlook.

My final thoughts after a month or so with it:

- In Visual Studio I felt more productive with Resharper so I removed viEmu from VS.
- In Word- I can't live without it, especially when writing while flying. It is a life saver.
- In outlook - I don't use outlook much anymore (Gmail!) so its not relevant for me.

In Visual Studio, Resharper does a lot of the things that ViEmu is known for: especially navigation. The thing is, Resharper "knows" the code much better than ViEmu (which just knows text - which is why it works magic in word) and thus I felt as productive with both, with some of ViEmu "overriding" resharper's shortcuts a bit annoying.

In Word - I have used it for editing and writing [my book](http://the.artofunittesting.com/).  It was much more productive, but the learning curve was hard. I'd continue to use it in Word, since it does make editing text much fater (especially the navigation and search features)

For another POV, check out [JPs post](http://codebetter.com/blogs/jean-paul_boodhoo/archive/2008/03/12/gettin-jiggy-with-vim.aspx).  I've also installed gVim instead of notepad.

## Lessons on this topic

- [Why Vim?](https://courses.osherove.com/courses/vim-hates-you/why-vim/) · Vim Hates You
- [Useful Vim Commands Reference](https://courses.osherove.com/courses/vim-hates-you/useful-vim-commands-reference/) · Vim Hates You

## More in General Software Devel...

[All posts in General Software Devel...](https://osherove.com/blog/category/general-software-devel)

- Apr 11, 2008

    ### [TechEd Israel Reflection Slides and Demos + organizational feedback](https://osherove.com/blog/2008/4/11/teched-israel-reflection-slides-and-demos-organizational-fee.html)

- Mar 16, 2008

    ### [Dark Colored Visual Studio Color Scheme](https://osherove.com/blog/2008/3/16/dark-colored-visual-studio-color-scheme.html)

- Mar 11, 2008

    ### [Turn Anonymous Types into IDictionary of values](https://osherove.com/blog/2008/3/11/turn-anonymous-types-into-idictionary-of-values.html)

- Mar 4, 2008

    ### [Generate an object model from an XML string](https://osherove.com/blog/2008/3/4/generate-an-object-model-from-an-xml-string.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/