Annotated ~/.vimrc

Turn on syntax highlighting:

:syntax on

For all files, set the format options, turn of C indentation, and finally set the comments option to the default.

:autocmd FileType *      set formatoptions=tcql 
                         \nocindent comments&

For all C and C++ files, set the formatoptions, turn on C indentation, and set the comments option.

 
:autocmd FileType c,cpp  set formatoptions=croql
                         \cindent comments=sr:/*,mb:*,ex:*/,://

Turn on automatic indentation.

:set autoindent

Automatically write files as needed.

:set autowrite

Define some nice abbreviations:

:ab #d #define
:ab #i #include

Define some abbreviations to draw comments.

:ab #b /********************************************************
:ab #e 
   \^V^H*******************************************************/
:ab #l /*------------------------------------------------------*/

Set the size of an indentation.

:set sw=4

Have vim highlight the target of a search.

:set hlsearch

Do incremental searches.

:set incsearch

Set the width of text to 70 characters.

:set textwidth=70