Earlier quoted context omitted.
Helm may be the most flagrant example of a terrible package that remains inexplicably popular. I haven't uninstalled it yet, because there are a few packages that use helm that don't have ido equivalents yet, but I try to minimize my usage of it as much as possible. Issues include: - Significant performance issues - Constant bugs - updates often break the package completely, especially if you're using the melpa versi…
I think both built-in completing read and helm/ivy have their uses. ido is best for when you know what you want and want to get it to it with minimal number of keystrokes. helm seems better for when you want to review many (but not too many) options before deciding on what you want. I find ido unusable for find-file, because of how it splits up directory from filename. So I use the builtin completion. But I rarely op…
To be fair, most of my file opening is done with projectile, which, when you exclude the right files and use ido, works fantastically well. I can get to nearly anything I've been working on in two commands - projectile-switch-to-project (C-c p p) and projectile-find-file (C-c p f).
I'm not sure what you mean by "how it splits up directory from filename" - could you clarify?
ido-use-virtual-buffers is indeed awesome - I really love it.