Learning the vi and Vim Editors


Learning the vi and Vim Editors is a tutorial book for the vi and vim text editors written by Arnold Robbins, Elbert Hannah, and Linda Lamb and published by O'Reilly Media. The book is in its 7th edition. The book features a tarsier on the cover, an image which was also used on the cover of O'Reilly's Unix in a Nutshell and has been incorporated into O'Reilly Media. When questioned about the animal choice, Publisher Tim O'Reilly described the tarsier as looking "like somebody who had been a text editor for too long."
Author Arnold Robbins also coauthored the O'Reilly titles Unix In A Nutshell, Effective awk Programming, sed & awk, Classic Shell Scripting, and several titles in the pocket reference series related to those languages and tools. Elbert is a software engineer retired from the telecom industry. Linda Lamb is a former O'Reilly employee.
In his 2008 review of the 7th edition for Dr. Dobb's Journal, author Mike Riley compared the coverage afforded by the book to a combination of the Vim online documentation and O'Reilly's vi Editor Pocket Reference. While noting that the book "continues to fulfill an apparent market need," he did not find the book appropriate for more advanced users.

Editions