introduction.markdown @ 436f8ce22479

[Learn Vimscript the Hard Way][book] is a book for users of the [Vim][] editor
who want to learn how to customize Vim.

It is *not* a guide to *using* Vim.  Before reading this book you should be
comfortable editing text in Vim and know what terms like "buffer", "window" and
"insert mode" mean.

The book is divided roughly into three sections:

* The first covers basic Vim commands that you can use in your `~/.vimrc` file
  to customize Vim quickly and easily.
* The second looks more deeply at Vimscript as a programming language, covering
  things like variables, comparisons, and functions.
* The third walks through the creation of a sample plugin intended for
  distribution to other Vim users.

Currently Learn Vimscript the Hard Way is a work in progress.  Once it's
finished you'll be able to buy ebook and possibly hard copy versions.  If you
want to get on the mailing list to know when it's officially completed you can
sign up at [Learn Vimscript the Hard Way on Leanpub][leanpub].

The book is [copyright][license] 2012 by Steve Losh, all rights reserved.  You
can redistribute it as long as you don't make any changes and don't charge for
it.

The source code to the book is available [on BitBucket][hg] and [on
GitHub][git].  If you find any mistakes or feel you could improve it feel free
to send a pull request, but I'm retaining the copyright on the book, so if
you're not comfortable with that I understand.

[book]: http://learnvimscriptthehardway.stevelosh.com/
[Vim]: http://www.vim.org/
[hg]: http://bitbucket.org/sjl/learnvimscriptthehardway/
[git]: http://github.com/sjl/learnvimscriptthehardway/
[license]: http://learnvimscriptthehardway.stevelosh.com/license.html
[leanpub]: http://leanpub.com/learnvimscriptthehardway