Play 9 Holes of Vim Golf

This one will take a while. It also requires that you install Ruby and have a Twitter account (a throwaway is fine). If that doesn’t scare you off, great! Come get some points.

Log in to Vim Golf and create an account. Follow the instructions on the upper right of the screen to install and set up the Vim Golf command line program on your machine.

The site consists of “challenges,” which are simple before/after text files. Your job is to edit the “before” file until it is identical to the “after” file while using the fewest keystrokes possible. You can see other players’ solutions and try them out. Practice copying these solutions keystroke by keystroke until you understand how they work. When you’re ready, submit a solution of your own. If it’s good enough, you’ll be shown more solutions – even shorter ones. Keep practicing and resubmitting until you just can’t do any better.

Repeat this process with 8 more challenges. Keep track of the time you spend, the new commands you learn, and your ranking for each challenge.

Once you’ve done a few, think up your own challenge and submit it. Maybe use some Python code from class.

After completing 9 challenges and submitting your own challenge, get points in one of two ways:

• Option 1: Presentation. Prepare a few slides with screenshots of your challenges and rankings. Walk us through an in-class demo of the vimgolf CLI. Give us a few of the most important time-saving commands you learned.
• Option 2: Blog post. Present the same information as in Option 1, but do it in a blog post. This post should be extensive, with links to each of the challenges you completed, the one you submitted, a list of lessons learned, etc. Expect me to request revisions; don’t submit it at the last minute.

Just @mention me on Slack to schedule your presentation or to give me your blog post URL. This assignment is lengthy, and it takes some time to get started. Let me know if I can help!