Tip #625: Typing print statements faster and more ergonomically (esp in C++)

Guess what the most common word is in the C++ language? I wager it is 'cout'.

Interactive debuggers and logging libraries are all very well, but most of us still have in our debugging toolboxes the technique of adding short-lived statements to our programs whose only purpose is to help us figure out the bug currently occupying us by printing the value of a variable. If you find yourself often typing such statements they are worth optimizing for.

For example, strings in most languages are surrounded by double quotes which require an extra motion and keystroke for the left shift key. With my coding style I multiply that motion towards the shift key by 4-6 times per print statement and 10-100 print statements everyday. The result is to significant slow me down and bring me closer to the Home for the Aged Wrist. The analogous cout statement in c++ is even more egregious in this regard. Consider statements like the following that I frequently find myself typing:

cout << "AAA: " << someVarName << ": " << someOtherVarName << "\n" ;

That's *12* times my left hand moves towards the shift key for *one* statement! Unacceptable. My solution is to remap keys to interchange '<' and ',' as well as double quotes and single quotes. Rather than force myself to learn a new keyboard mapping within vim I cause the mappings to trigger in a context-sensitive mannter, within only a cout statement, from the time I type 'cout' to the time I type the ';' in the end.

Here's my code fragment to do this:
function! CppSetupCout ()
    inoremap , <Space><<
    inoremap < ,
    inoremap ' "
    inoremap " '
    imap ; <Esc>:call CppResetCout ()<CR>a;
    map <Esc>, :call CppResetCout ()<CR>
    imap <Esc>, <C-o>:call CppResetCout ()<CR>
endf
function! CppResetCout ()
    iunmap ,
    iunmap <
    iunmap '
    iunmap "
    iunmap ;
    imap <Esc>, <C-o>:call CppSetupCout ()<CR>
    map <Esc>, :call CppSetupCout ()<CR>
endfunction

function! AuCpp ()
    inoremap cout <End><Esc>:call CppSetupCout ()<CR>acout <<
    imap <Esc>, <C-o>:call CppSetupCout ()<CR>
    map <Esc>, :call CppSetupCout ()<CR>
endfunction

autocmd FileType cpp call AuCpp()

Notice that I use <Esc>, (or Alt-,) to quickly toggle these mappings on or off in other situations.

For some other languages it's prob sufficient to simply switch single- and double-quotes. Java might call for switching '+' and '=' within system.out.println. Come to think of it:

autocmd FileType java iabbrev sop system.out.println

You get the idea.

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