actually, i went looking last night, vim is definately scriptable to your hearts content. i found the totally-rockin 'taglist.vim' which provides sweet navigation through your files. i also saw scripts that changed the behavior of TAB depending on whether it was the first key pressed on a new line (indent), otherwise (word-complete), shift-TAB being (word-complete-backwards).

the scripts look something like:

" Tlist_Cleanup()
" Cleanup all the taglist window variables.
function! s:Tlist_Cleanup()
    if has('syntax')
        silent! syntax clear TagListTitle
    endif
    match none

    if exists('b:tlist_ftype') && b:tlist_ftype != ''
        let count_var_name = 's:tlist_' . b:tlist_ftype . '_count'
        if exists(count_var_name)
            let old_ftype = b:tlist_ftype
            let i = 1
            while i <= s:tlist_{old_ftype}_count
                let ttype = s:tlist_{old_ftype}_{i}_name
                let j = 1
                let var_name = 'b:tlist_' . old_ftype . '_' . ttype . 
+'_count'
                if exists(var_name)
                    let cnt = b:tlist_{old_ftype}_{ttype}_count
                else
                    let cnt = 0
                endif
                while j <= cnt
                    unlet! b:tlist_{old_ftype}_{ttype}_{j}
                    let j = j + 1
                endwhile
                unlet! b:tlist_{old_ftype}_{ttype}_count
                unlet! b:tlist_{old_ftype}_{ttype}_start
                let i = i + 1
            endwhile
        endif
    endif

    " Clean up all the variables containing the tags output
    if exists('b:tlist_tag_count')
        while b:tlist_tag_count > 0
            unlet! b:tlist_tag_{b:tlist_tag_count}
            let b:tlist_tag_count = b:tlist_tag_count - 1
        endwhile
    endif

    unlet! b:tlist_bufnum
    unlet! b:tlist_bufname
    unlet! b:tlist_ftype
endfunction
[download]

the deal with the syntax-highlighting is that if it knows what color to make something as soon as i type it (and knows when to change the color back to normal) then it has the brains to do further modifications like putting 'sub X {}' when you type sub (with cursor left on X), hit right-arrow or space and 'X' dissapears and cursor goes inside '{}' for anonymous sub, or type a subname and 'space' will take you to inside '{}'. i believe having highlighting (the way vim seems to do it) implies being able to smart-complete.

i hope cperl-mode is smart enough that if that were:

do { something(); } while <FOO

# wouldn't get you

do { something(); } while (<FOO>) {}
[download]

and now that i actually know vim has auto-complete (Ctrl-N and Ctrl-P in insert mode) i might be able to break myself of my love for short variable names...

i suggest anybody who uses vim go check out the Tips section on http://www.vim.org. there's even...

    ASCII ART!

+----------+
|          |                  *******
|    +----------+           **.......**
|    |     |    |         **...........**
+----|-----+    |         *..*********..*
     |          |         ***         ***
     +----------+       **++**       **++**         -------|>
                       *++++++*******++++++*       /
                       *+++++++++++++++++++*      /
     -----------\      *+++++++++++++++++++*     /
                 \      **+++++++++++++++**     /
                  \       ***+++++++++***      /
                   \         *********        /
                    \                        /
                     \                      /
                      ---------------------/
[download]

but i think we've gone way OT.