Wouldn’t it be nice if you could view an old version of a file side by side with the current one in Vim? And it would scroll together? And syntax highlight?

Well, open the current file in a Vim window. Then do the following:

1. Open a new (blank) split or window:

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:vsp new

1. Dump the old file contents in this new buffer: (note: ‘!’ executes a shell command, and ‘read’ puts it in the current buffer)

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:read !git show HEAD^:path/to/file/from/root.py

1. Set the right syntax highlighting:

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:setf python

1. Scroll bind the two splits: (note: you must run this command in both splits)

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:set scrollbind

Hope this helps. Let me know if there’s a better way to do this.