[exDM69]

I don't think that the author wrote his 1200 lines of .vimrc in one sit. More likely it's years of accumulated 1-2 line additions and removals.

My vimrc has slowly accumulated, I add 1 or 2 new keybinds every now and then and I might remove them later if I notice they don't suit my workflow. Most of my changed keybindings are related to making Vim usable with my native keyboard layout (finnish/swedish).

Also per-language additions accumulate over time. The author seems to have put all settings for all file types in the same file.

Learning standard Vi gets you a long way, but sometimes adding or changing a keybind will make things work more fluently.

[sramov]

My point was, time better spent is coding, not dicking around (and relying) on .vimrc.

We often forgot about the essence of things such as typing the actual code or words, and focus on tools. Better investment is learning how to properly type than having countless little helpers which are nothing more than debt.

Increasing complexity in all areas of life really is troublesome.

[viraptor]

I think you're thinking about it backwards. It's usually not thinking "what could I tweak today" that results in adding something to .vimrc. It's "I keep doing this a lot / this feel uncomfortable, maybe there's an easier way" that results in changes. And if you take time to actually implement it, that's a good indication it was worth the tweak.

Let's say you work with splits a lot. Sure you could press ctrl+w all the time, but it's a bit annoying. Rebinding doesn't take much time, but makes it (in the presented example) actually simpler. So did it waste time? A minute or so. Does it make life easier? A little bit. Did the "coding time" suffer? Who cares about a minute or so ;)

[sashahart]

There is no dichotomous distinction between coding and using vim to automate tasks. The latter is part of the former - no different from using q or @ or .