[Nick_C]

Searching in a project: There is a builtin command vimgrep to search through external files, there is also a grep plugin that makes it easier and more versatile.

As well, there is ctags, which basically builds up a list of function calls and where they are in a file. Vim understands tag files by default and will use them automatically. You can then toggle between the function declaration and your current line (useful for searching for functions' and what their parameters are).

[topek]

If I'm not completely wrong, Eclipse's search is powered by Lucene. On small projects you won't notice a great difference, but on larger projects an indexed search is a great difference.

Does the ctags plugin work for other languages as well, e.g. python, ruby, javascript?

[Nick_C]

Yes to all three; about 34 languages in totals.

BTW, ctags is a separate command-line tool. Any *nix has it, it is available for Win too.