Editing Short python scripts with vim

vim, programming, cookbook

Being that I usually find interesting to know about other people’s workflow, here’s a short description of my working environment that I typically use when developing in Python:

tmux

In the beginning I’ve used Yakuake tabs to split servers and files in separate tabs. As the number grew, I’ve started naming the tabs (and even had a short stint extending Yakuake to fit this use case), but as the number of projects and environments that I have to juggle kept growing, I’ve resorted to splitting each separate tab into “subtabs”, using tmux.

I start tmux -2 in each Yakuake tab (the -2 switch is to enhance the color support) and I’ve mapped the Alt+\ as the escape combination. Why this? Backslash as the leader key comes from vim and I don’t like the ctrl key, I’d have to use my pinky finger and I don’t like it. This is how to achieve that:

 unbind C-b
 set -g prefix M-'\'
 bind M-'\' send-prefix

Next, to make it easier to switch tabs, I’ve mapped alt+ to switch to the coresponding tab number.

 bind-key -n M-1 select-window -t:1
 bind-key -n M-2 select-window -t:2
 bind-key -n M-3 select-window -t:3
 bind-key -n M-4 select-window -t:4
 bind-key -n M-5 select-window -t:5
 bind-key -n M-6 select-window -t:6
 bind-key -n M-7 select-window -t:7
 bind-key -n M-8 select-window -t:8
 bind-key -n M-9 select-window -t:9

But one problem: the 0 key is far away. So I want to start tab numbering at 1:

 set -g base-index 1
 setw -g pane-base-index 1

(Neo)Vim

Vim is the perfect editor for quick scripts: it is fast to start, very fast to edit, easy to configure, etc. There’s plenty of material on the web for this, but two short tricks that are worth mentioning: ctrl+z is the easiest way to escape from vim to the terminal (followed by fg to bring it back to the foreground) and I sometimes type this (maybe I should even include it in my vimrc) to execute the current file with the python from my virtualenv:

:map <f5> !python ./%<cr>