I\'ve got some sections in my .vimrc that look like this:
autocmd Filetype ruby setlocal ts=2
autocmd Filetype ruby setlocal sts=2
autocmd Filet
ftplugins are the neat answer to your question.
.vimrc has a line such as :filetype plugin on{rtp}/ftplugin/{thefiletype}.vim or {rtp}/ftplugin/{thefiletype}/whatever.vim (see :h rtp for more details).:setlocal command to ensure filetype-specific settings are only for that file (e.g., don't turn all comments purple across all filetypes).See examples in vim distribution if you plan to override default settings ; or among the many ftplugins I wrote otherwise), just write down your :setlocal, :*map , etc. definitions.
It represents some more line to type, but at least, it does scale.