VIM update and Bazaar happenings

Well I have used VIM for roughly a week and each day I feel more productive. At first I was struggling without the pretty IDE and extensive features. However, as time goes by I am learning new commands each day that make me more productive and keep me focused. I am starting to fly through my code with a couple key strokes. I am able to copy, paste, remove and replace strings, lines and even files without much effort. I can diff and split files with ease, helping me develop faster.

By doing this move I also sparked my imagination on how I can automate my development process more. Before I left everything up to the IDE, but didn't realize how little it was really doing for me. This has pushed me to identify other time wasting development tools I'm using.

So, I'm in the process of moving over from SourceGear's Vault to Bazaar. Vault is a great product and worked like a charm for over two years. I even love the price for a single user, free. However, it's not the fastest or most flexible source control in the world. Granted I was using the GUI which was built with .NET.

Bazaar is a decentralized source control where Vault is centralized. Even after using Bazaar for a couple days I noticed how easy it was to manage my source. So easy in fact that I felt like I was missing something. So I went over more tutorials and documentation, then I started to understand what decentralized source control really meant and why I don't want to go back to a centralized model. I can explain it in one word, freedom. You are supposed to control the source, not let it control you. If you plan to move over to a decentralized source control like Bazaar, Mercurial or git, then you will need to change how you think of source control and what source really means to you.

I will keep the blog updated on my progress with VIM and Bzr, it's a brave new world.