Supercharging Vim

Let's start by opening a new hidden file called .vimrc in our home folder and pasting a few lines:

set nocompatible
filetype off

" Settings to replace tab. Use :retab for replacing tab in existing files.
set tabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4
set expandtab

" Have Vim jump to the last position when reopening a file
if has("autocmd")
   au BufReadPost * if line("'\"") > 1 && line("'\"") <= line("$") | exe "normal! g'\"" | endif

" Other general vim options:
syntax on
set showmatch      " Show matching brackets.
set ignorecase     " Do case insensitive matching
set incsearch      " show partial matches for a search phrase
set nopaste
set number           
set undolevels=1000

Now let's close and reopen the file, so that we can see the configuration take effect. Let's go into a little more detail regarding some of the options.

First of all, as you...