Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Learn Vim (2021)

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 215 posts

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#31

Post by tarkin2 »

I've found learning vim--either as a plugin for IntelliJ or Chrome or Firefox or as a minor mode in Emacs or by itself--probably the most productive thing I've done on a computer. I spend all my time editing code. It's incredibly useful to learn how to do that quickly.

I went through trying to customise it perfectly but I found it is better--more portable for one thing--to learn its defaults. I enable a couple of things, like mkview and tabstop etc, but no more than 10 or 15 lines.

My only criticism relates to the fact it's an editor, not an IDE; there's vimscript and I've made various vimscripts to give it IDE-like functionality, but the plugin system, and plugin systems, or lack of a in-build one, let it down. And it doesn't seem, unlike emacs, that is was designed with extensibility in mind.

But as an editor: it's unparalleled.

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#32

Post by wruza »

extr wrote: post #21
jzelinskie wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd honestly point folks towards Helix[0] these days if they don't already have something keeping them on neovim/vim. There's very little in the ways of needing to configure Helix; it has built-in most functionality that you'd find with batteries-included vim "distributions" and it works out of the box with the installed LSP servers on your system. [0]: https://github.com/helix-editor/helix

I've been using helix the last week or so. I can confirm everything "just works". My config file is not a turing-complete nightmare, it's literally 10 lines and took about 15 minutes to set up, most of that being personal preference on UI. Great program. I've tried vim-as-IDE many times and personally I've found that I just don't have the patience/discipline to get it all set up and not have it become a huge time sin…

What’s the selling point of helix then?

Personally I have one hell of a config, but since you’re fine with vscode defaults, the only thing I’ve really done to vim that counts was cloning ale into a specific vimfiles directory. What was your package set?

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#33

Post by arcanemachiner »

jalino23 wrote: post #28
cbushko wrote: post #23

I've re-built my neovim config like 3 times this year as I have played with several 'distributions' and styles. SpaceVim, LunarVim, AstroVim, and NVChad to name a few. This last weekend I gave LazyVim a try and it is by far the most sane config setup I have used and I will now be sticking with it. There is a starter repo where you clone it, delete the .git directory and start customizing. https://github.com/LazyVim/L…

https://github.com/helix-editor/helix is the answer mate

I'm happy to dump NeoVim if Helix is actually better. But is the ecosystem _really_ there yet?

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#34

Post by neverrroot »

You might want to look into Neovim, many things are easier/friendlier to set up. It’s likely also the better investment down the road, can’t imagine vim will be able to keep up with the speed Neovim is moving at. Also rather disappointing decision in Vim 9 with regards to Vimscript vs something established e.g. Lua.

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#35

Post by eldenring »

arcanemachiner wrote: post #33
jalino23 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/helix-editor/helix is the answer mate

I'm happy to dump NeoVim if Helix is actually better. But is the ecosystem _really_ there yet?

Unfortunately there is no ecosystem. Helix does not provide an extension interface.

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#37

Post by Koshkin »

tarkin2 wrote: post #31

I've found learning vim--either as a plugin for IntelliJ or Chrome or Firefox or as a minor mode in Emacs or by itself--probably the most productive thing I've done on a computer. I spend all my time editing code. It's incredibly useful to learn how to do that quickly. I went through trying to customise it perfectly but I found it is better--more portable for one thing--to learn its defaults. I enable a couple of thi…

I don’t know about it being unparalleled, but when I am in a terminal I don’t think twice before typing ‘vi’.

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#38

Post by shortlived »

Daunk wrote: post #3

I love Vim, it's just a shame it takes 200 years to setup properly.

I used to have crazy IDE-like setups but have realized that Vim is great for straight text manipulation (writing bash scripts, log parsing, etc) and VS code or eclipse is great for heavy duty programming. Now my vimrc is less than 50 lines and no plugins.

Re: Learn Vim (2021)

#40

Post by extr »

wruza wrote: post #32
extr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using helix the last week or so. I can confirm everything "just works". My config file is not a turing-complete nightmare, it's literally 10 lines and took about 15 minutes to set up, most of that being personal preference on UI. Great program. I've tried vim-as-IDE many times and personally I've found that I just don't have the patience/discipline to get it all set up and not have it become a huge time sin…

What’s the selling point of helix then? Personally I have one hell of a config, but since you’re fine with vscode defaults, the only thing I’ve really done to vim that counts was cloning ale into a specific vimfiles directory. What was your package set?

The selling point is that it's a solid editor with zero config I can use in the terminal for those "in between" tasks where it's not really worth pulling it up in an IDE but worth having some syntax highlighting and LSP support. Think like, I need to make a quick change to a python script in some far flung directory. In/out in less than a minute.

Just the fact that you're asking what my package set was is a turnoff for me. There shouldn't be a package set. It should just work. In VS Code when I need the editor to have additional features I just click the button, pick the extension with the highest number of installs, and 99% of the time it immediately does what I want. In vim you play this whole game where you google for it, gather opinions on the "best" plugin for that task, read the README, "just simply add these lines to your lua config", figure out why the keybind is conflicting with your existing keybind setup, etc etc. Goodbye afternoon!

I've tried lunarvim, astrovim, etc etc. Those work great! Until you actually do want to change something. Now you're back in config hell, and even worse, because you didn't even design this hell yourself, it's someone else's hell.

Post reply on HN