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Show HN: A Vim distribution inspired by Spacemacs

vim.liuchengxu.org

31–40 of 51 posts

Re: Show HN: A Vim distribution inspired by Spacemacs

#32
post #3

Interesting. If there is a workable org-mode replacement that gets org-agenda I would consider switching away from Emacs to Vim or Neovim. I'm sick of using such slow and crash prone software. (Emacs is much better on Linux. I would love to use Linux as my daily driver but it's just not an option.) Since I've switched to Spacemacs it wouldn't be hard to port my small tweaks to recreate my personal preferences. But I…

But I really can't give up org-mode! ...and inline LaTeX/image previews! https://www.dropbox.com/s/hf5x3p9bne3tqbg/Screen%20Shot%2020...

And apparently nyan cat.

Re: Show HN: A Vim distribution inspired by Spacemacs

#35
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You miss a major benefit: the ecosystems of these editors evolve very quickly. Packages are updated and broken regularly, adding new features and interoporability that you may not be able to learn about yourself. A community configuration like Spacemacs will continually update to provide you with a configuration that is up to date and doesn't break.

A community configuration like Spacemacs will continually update to provide you with a configuration that is up to date and doesn't break. As far as I understand, it currently does not do that, since elpa/melpa/... packages are updated out of sync with Spacemacs and the last Spacemacs release is over 2 months old. See: https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/issues/2057#issuecomme... But, there is hope, the release not…

'Up to date' doesn't mean 'bleeding edge'; a two-month-old (or even year-old) distribution can be up-to-date.

Re: Show HN: A Vim distribution inspired by Spacemacs

#36
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also why I decided to use Keith Bostic's nvi [0], also known as vi from BSD. I got so tired of endless configuring and bikeshedding my own editor instead of getting work done. Since I switched to nvi I've learned way more about the powerful features of the base editor as well as shell tools like grep, fzf, fmt, column, wc, expand, pdftotext, pandoc, make, git... With tmux I have easy access to any REPLs and m…

What programming languages do you use with nvi? Some seem awfully verbose without some kind of code completion.

I personally have never used code completion, though I don't think it's affected me much as a C, Python and Lisp programmer. I wouldn't want to try Java without an IDE, though (I use Emacs).

Re: Show HN: A Vim distribution inspired by Spacemacs

#38
I think it's a great effort and it's looks really good, both visually and metaphorically. However, my reservations:

Beginners may find it hard to learn and extract its secrets. The code is wrapped up like a pass-the-parcel game. My .vimrc/init.vim files are comprehensive yet easy to read in one hit. One use-case for my config is that I frequently lob the whole thing at friends and colleagues and they have a complete picture - plugins and configuration - immediately.

This system is a completely different path for using Vim, and will definitely work for many people, but one of the major problems of any configuration distribution is that users make a choice by selecting it, to work with its abstraction and often only that. Hacking things in quickly might work, but it might make a mess. The first update or git pull/rebase after a hack... well, it could go wrong.

Appealing if you never want to do anything to Vim.

Re: Show HN: A Vim distribution inspired by Spacemacs

#39
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also why I decided to use Keith Bostic's nvi [0], also known as vi from BSD. I got so tired of endless configuring and bikeshedding my own editor instead of getting work done. Since I switched to nvi I've learned way more about the powerful features of the base editor as well as shell tools like grep, fzf, fmt, column, wc, expand, pdftotext, pandoc, make, git... With tmux I have easy access to any REPLs and m…

As far as I remember you are foregoing text objects which are really one of the most powerful things in vim. http://blog.carbonfive.com/2011/10/17/vim-text-objects-the-d... Ironically I think most of the IDE (ie intellij etc) vim plugins have them while you do not.

Yeah, I'm aware of text objects (I used vim for years). I don't miss them as much as I thought I would. Most of them can be replaced by compositions of the primitive motion commands. Heck, you could probably even outright replace them with macros. I just haven't felt the need to.

Re: Show HN: A Vim distribution inspired by Spacemacs

#40
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also why I decided to use Keith Bostic's nvi [0], also known as vi from BSD. I got so tired of endless configuring and bikeshedding my own editor instead of getting work done. Since I switched to nvi I've learned way more about the powerful features of the base editor as well as shell tools like grep, fzf, fmt, column, wc, expand, pdftotext, pandoc, make, git... With tmux I have easy access to any REPLs and m…

What programming languages do you use with nvi? Some seem awfully verbose without some kind of code completion.

Lately I've been writing a lot of LaTeX rather than programming. Nvi has macros, mappings, and abbreviations so it's not hard to deal with verbosity. In the past, I've written in languages like python, Haskell, SQL, R, and even HTML. It's never been a problem. I've never had to write Java though, so maybe I'd use something else if I were forced to.

Code completion, like syntax highlighting, seems to be one of those tools that changes how you think and I'm not sure it's for the better. Being able to quickly bang out a bunch of glue code may be great for a 9-5 but I think it gets in the way of the creative process. That's just my opinion, though. I'm not aware of any research into this idea.

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