Because all text editors were created equal, it should be mentioned that a similar plugin exists for emacs:

http://code.google.com/p/yasnippet/

Wow. The entire series is worth reading. surround and matchit are awesome as well.

The only other plugins I'm using are rails.vim, and git-vim. Tried fuzzyfinder but couldn't get it to work.

What are your favorite plugins?

I probably use the plugin 'tComment' more than any other plugin. It toggles code comments, based on filetype. I often try to toggle comments by hitting 'gc' on machines that don't have that ability. Very simple, but has quickly become indispensable.

I keep a list of links to things related to Vim, and the list of plugins I use is at the very bottom, if you're interested: http://mileszs.github.com/

I use NERD_Commenter for code comment.But tComment also looks good.

heh - I've been using visual mode + :s/^/#/ for commenting blocks :) 'gc' is definitely much faster. thanks!

"Without snippets you’d have to type this out every time"

Well, no. You'd write your own function to insert that text and map it to some key sequence.

Now, snipmate may make the addition and maintenance of such helper functions much nicer, but if people are really typing the same stuff over and over they're missing out on a key value of a programmable editor, not just lacking a plugin.

If you use snipmate, I'd recommend also installing superTab: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1643

Now when you hit <tab>, vim will know whether to add a snipmate snippet or use autocompletion. Works great.

The snippet plugin with the most features at present seems to be xptemplate:

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2611

There's a pretty interesting screencast about it here:

http://vimeo.com/4449258