Live data from Hacker News

Helix: A Neovim inspired editor, written in Rust

github.com

201–210 of 321 posts

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

#201
post #195

One of the reasons I love n/vi/m is the ergonomic benefit of using keys that are close to your touch typing position. I'm a bit disappointed that beginning and end of line in helix are home and end.

You can also use `gh` and `gl` for start and end of line (and `gs` for first non-whitespace character in line). These options (among others) pop up when using helix and typing `g`.

Ok, so in vim I'd type 'd$' as "delete to end of line". What is the equivalent in helix?

EDIT: while I'm here, where are the sentence and paragraph movements?

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

#202

Does this 'written in Rust, written in Zig, written in Go' make any difference in the user experience? See this often nowadays.

Yes, it's a useful indicator of how portable the software is. I can ignore systems software written in Rust because it only works in places that LLVM targets, and extending LLVM is a nightmarish process. I can ignore software written in Zig because until this year (or arguably last year) it's been a one-man hobby project, worth checking on again in about a decade. For now there are too many weird bugs that pop up if you use platforms different from the main developer. "Written in Go" means I at least have a chance of fixing deployment problems, becausae crosscompiling is easy and the language is fully self-hosted.

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

#203
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 can see Helix replacing Vim and Neovim for the most "normal" user. It's great, and it's a better alternative than VSCode for Vim users that aren't quite power users but also not exactly the most basic user either.

However, until I can fire up a new installation of *nix and type `helix` to begin editing things it will never replace good 'ole Vim.

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

#204
post #16
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…

> Helix is built from the ground up around Tree-Sitter and LSP. Sadly, that achievement is compromised by having to call into unsafe code.

No post body was provided.

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

#205
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between having a "learning curve" and having to spend effort setting up things that work out of the box in another editor. Vim advocates generally claim that investing time learning the Vim keybindings pays off as saved time during later work. But that's not what's happening here. If LSP just works in Helix, and requires fiddling with config files in Neovim, then Neovim is wasting my time, not te…

This may be a factor for brand new devs, but everyone who uses vim already has it setup, by definition. One time setup cost is a small factor in choosing an editor. Stability and ubiquity are more important IMO.

Any sufficiently complex "one-time setup cost" quickly becomes an ongoing maintenance quagmire. And I say that as a full-time neovim user for the past seven years.

Neovim is still my favorite vi, but I think I erred when I started bolting on so many plugins and supporting processes... when I want a lightweight IDE, I'll use VS Code.

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

#206
I've used vi from Linux terminal sessions for more than a decade, and VS Code as a GUI editor now most times when not in a terminal session.

Am I missing something not using a GUI vi editor? I came across some dude on YouTube that calls himself "The Primeagen" that swears by VIM, but I couldn't follow his use of it.

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

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask why you would want such a mouse-aware terminal-based IDE? Because it sounds like an oxymoron.

Not OP, but I get their frustration. File browsing is not very amenable to keyboard based navigation IMO. I'm currently using fdfind through telescope.nvim as well as another neovim plugin for this, but I can easily see why someone would want to use a terminal based text editor, with a mouse based file navigation tool.

Not to shove Emacs into a Vim thread but Emacs file browsing is actually pleasurable. You can have a tree if you want (neotree) but C-x C-f with Ivy fuzzy search makes navigating really easy. It's one of the things I wish Vim had for a long time and one of the things that eventually drew me away from Vim to Emacs.

Anyway, to add to your point there are also cases where highlighting a large chunk of code is often easier with mouse based nav.

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

#208
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…

Even as a Colemak user, the ergonomic benefits of hjkl navigation are utterly lost on me. It’s left me stuck as an arrow keys plebeian.

Just remap them?

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

#209
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also use `gh` and `gl` for start and end of line (and `gs` for first non-whitespace character in line). These options (among others) pop up when using helix and typing `g`.

Ok, so in vim I'd type 'd$' as "delete to end of line". What is the equivalent in helix? EDIT: while I'm here, where are the sentence and paragraph movements?

The fastest way to do this in Helix would be `td`.

edit: Paragraph and other object movement/selection is done by the `[`, `]` menu. `]p` for the next paragraph. Surrounds are done by the `m` menu.

Post reply on HN