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Helix: A Neovim inspired editor, written in Rust

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Re: Helix: A Neovim inspired editor, written in Rust

#52

See also Lapce, an editor also written in Rust although it's trying to compete more with VSCode rather than Vim. Also, RIP OniVim 2, it was great having been written in a similarly fast ReasonML/OCaml but the creator ran out of funding and had to get a job. A shame, it even had compatibility with VSCode extensions.

Does anyone know what happened to Zas editor [0]? I was a huge fan of the concept (a mac-assed app [1] with first class Rust support).

In fact, I was such a fan that I bought it, which has turned out to be a rather foolish move. The people behind it have gone completely silent.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30952084

[1]: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/03/20/mac-assed-mac-a...

Re: Helix: A Neovim inspired editor, written in Rust

#54

See also Lapce, an editor also written in Rust although it's trying to compete more with VSCode rather than Vim. Also, RIP OniVim 2, it was great having been written in a similarly fast ReasonML/OCaml but the creator ran out of funding and had to get a job. A shame, it even had compatibility with VSCode extensions.

Oni was presumably dead in the water as soon as they switched from Neovim to vim, as the initial backers would have been primarily composed of neovim enthusiasts

Re: Helix: A Neovim inspired editor, written in Rust

#55
post #10

I fully expect Helix to replace Vim, Neovim, and Kakoune for most users in the long run. Helix is built from the ground up around Tree-Sitter and LSP. This means you get the best syntax highlighting available, and IDE-like functionality, with zero configuration required other than installing the appropriate language server. Those are by far the most important features for a text editor to have, and crucially, they ar…

I like Helix, but it feels slow compared to Neovim. As in the actual scrolling performance. No one else has mentioned this, so I wonder if that’s an issue on my machine.

Re: Helix: A Neovim inspired editor, written in Rust

#56
post #10

I fully expect Helix to replace Vim, Neovim, and Kakoune for most users in the long run. Helix is built from the ground up around Tree-Sitter and LSP. This means you get the best syntax highlighting available, and IDE-like functionality, with zero configuration required other than installing the appropriate language server. Those are by far the most important features for a text editor to have, and crucially, they ar…

I think you're overestimating the likelihood that Tree-sitter is going to gain enough traction to be reliable for general purpose text editing. It's great for popular modern languages, but not for everything, and there's no fallback in Helix. I'm not convinced that's ever going to change.

Reliable? I trust Tree-Sitter's grammars a hundred times more than the underspecified regex monstrosities that power highlighting in other editors.

Tree-Sitter grammars are unit tested, have usable primitives for precedence and associativity, and are generally far more predictable than previous highlighting systems.

Also, name a language for which there is no Tree-Sitter grammar yet. The only remaining ones are so obscure that the missing "fallback" is irrelevant for 99% of users.

Re: Helix: A Neovim inspired editor, written in Rust

#57

Quickly tried it out and feels quite good. Unfortunately I also have to use IntelliJ, where I use the Vim-Mode (IDEAVim plugin) and I would have a hard time toggling my muscle-memory multiple times a day...

Yes Helix has its own keybidings which may be nicer but need learning. I would have made it my daily driver if it had classic (n)vim bidings.

Re: Helix: A Neovim inspired editor, written in Rust

#58
post #55
post #10

I fully expect Helix to replace Vim, Neovim, and Kakoune for most users in the long run. Helix is built from the ground up around Tree-Sitter and LSP. This means you get the best syntax highlighting available, and IDE-like functionality, with zero configuration required other than installing the appropriate language server. Those are by far the most important features for a text editor to have, and crucially, they ar…

I like Helix, but it feels slow compared to Neovim. As in the actual scrolling performance. No one else has mentioned this, so I wonder if that’s an issue on my machine.

Might it be your terminal that too slow to render? You might want to try one of the many GPU accelerated terminals like Kitty, alacritty, wezterm, etc

Re: Helix: A Neovim inspired editor, written in Rust

#59
post #52

See also Lapce, an editor also written in Rust although it's trying to compete more with VSCode rather than Vim. Also, RIP OniVim 2, it was great having been written in a similarly fast ReasonML/OCaml but the creator ran out of funding and had to get a job. A shame, it even had compatibility with VSCode extensions.

Does anyone know what happened to Zas editor [0]? I was a huge fan of the concept (a mac-assed app [1] with first class Rust support). In fact, I was such a fan that I bought it, which has turned out to be a rather foolish move. The people behind it have gone completely silent. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30952084 [1]: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/03/20/mac-assed-mac-a...

Yeah seems like a scam. I paid for it, requested an invoice and never got a reply. Never received a single software update either.

Re: Helix: A Neovim inspired editor, written in Rust

#60
post #10

I fully expect Helix to replace Vim, Neovim, and Kakoune for most users in the long run. Helix is built from the ground up around Tree-Sitter and LSP. This means you get the best syntax highlighting available, and IDE-like functionality, with zero configuration required other than installing the appropriate language server. Those are by far the most important features for a text editor to have, and crucially, they ar…

I just can't see if ever taking off, if I'm honest. The people that use neo/vim are going to continue using it, even if Helix is better. The people who aren't yet using it will use vs-code and the few that do switch, well they might go to Helix but there's a lot of vim resources out there, so I'm not sure all of them will go to Helix.

Honestly, language servers are a bit of a faff to set up, but that's tooling and it's getting easier and easier to get these installed now. I expect that will continue.

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