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Neovim

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Re: Neovim

#71
post #66
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do what I want. Also, LaTeX is a system for creating documents, and Word is a system for creating documents. There's only four important differences: Word has a more modern architecture, Words compiler is integrated into its GUI, Word is closed source, Words source format is not human readable. Apples to Oranges? I can compare these Braeburns to those Fujis just fine thank you.

If that is all you need and expect from a replacement for LaTeX, why aren't you just using LibreOffice?

It's not, I need the human readable source part, so I can track my work and cooperate in git :) I use LibreOffice for some stuff though.

Re: Neovim

#72
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hm, maybe better to write an open-source version of Sublime Text?" You mean, like Lime? https://github.com/limetext/lime

redcar has been around for a few years, with compatibility with textmate bundles https://github.com/redcar/redcar

Interesting. I find it a little comic that plist XML files have become the common language for exchanging syntax definitions between editors, due to TextMate.

I wrote a utility to convert these files to/from YAML so it would be friendlier to edit Sublime Text themes; editing naked XML plists was painful for me.

https://gist.github.com/swdunlop/8872387

Re: Neovim

#73
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see anything shameful about using old software if it works well and suits your needs. Yes, new editors like SublimeText have advantages, and if you prefer them over Vim, use them. However, I've seen many projects undergo a rewrite in order to move to new technology, but they never matched the utility of the old technology they were trying to replace. I'm not saying it can't happen, but that it often doesn't.…

> Vim got me into the habit of hitting escape when I was through entering text, but escape cancels the input in a lot of programs. Does ^[ cancel input in any programs ? AFAIK vim understands the ^[, not the "escape key". the key labeled "ESC" creating a ^[ is a convention used in terminal emulators. Not that it's going to help you now, but if you had trained your fingers to hit ^[ rather than the escape key (or even…

^[ just generates ASCII character 0x1B, aka Escape.

Vim understands "escape" to be 0x1B, pressed by itself (not as part of a longer escape sequence).

Re: Neovim

#74
post #4

It sounds like they have no interest in getting this stuff pushed back upstream? There's no mention of it on the home page. At this point it smells kind of Emacs/XEmacsish. Hope they can rally immense development effort.

The author of NeoVim (Thiago de Arruda) tried to add support for multi-threaded plugins to Vim and has been stymied[1].

I'm not sure how to get a patch merged into Vim. Bram Moolenar is the only person with commit access, and he's not a fan of most changes beyond bug fixes. My co-founder and I tried to add setTimeout & setInterval to vimscript[2]. Even six weeks of full-time effort and bending over backwards wasn't enough. Eventually we were just ignored.

I've contributed to a lot of open source projects, and the Vim community has been the most difficult to work with. I've been writing C for almost two decades, and the Vim codebase is the worst C I've ever seen[3]. The project is definitely showing its age, and I'd love for something new to replace it.

1. https://groups.google.com/d/msg/vim_dev/65jjGqS1_VQ/fFiFrrIB...

2. https://groups.google.com/d/msg/vim_dev/-4pqDJfHCsM/LkYNCpZj...

3. If you value your sanity, do not read eval.c. It is over 25,000 lines and has over 400 ifdefs. The first ifdef checks for Amiga; the second checks for VMS: https://github.com/b4winckler/macvim/blob/master/src/eval.c

Re: Neovim

#75
post #71
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that is all you need and expect from a replacement for LaTeX, why aren't you just using LibreOffice?

It's not, I need the human readable source part, so I can track my work and cooperate in git :) I use LibreOffice for some stuff though.

Aren't modern word processor formats just zipped-up XML files? I suspect it should be a straight-forward matter to get at least LibreOffice and version control cooperating.

Re: Neovim

#76
post #67
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I didn't mean you should be ashamed about using old software. What I meant was that we should be ashamed that other people are using old software. I am helping my girlfriend to learn Javascript, and it hurts inside that every once in a while she gets confused with something I have to explain her it's because the author of the language made rookie mistakes/dumb decisions 20 years ago.

You may know this, but the author of Javascript was under severe time pressure, and wanted to just implement Scheme but got overruled by management.

Yeah, it's unfair of me to point the blame at mr Eich with the 'the author'. Javascript definitely was no small feat and has withstood the test of time very well. My point lies more in the '20 years' part of the argument, that in all that time we couldn't get these wrinkles ironed out.

Re: Neovim

#78
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Markdown is better. Microsoft Word is better." Stop comparing oranges to apples. And there's really no "objectively better", it's two different tools with two different uses. Sure, LaTeX could be better, but it's been working on.

I do what I want. Also, LaTeX is a system for creating documents, and Word is a system for creating documents. There's only four important differences: Word has a more modern architecture, Words compiler is integrated into its GUI, Word is closed source, Words source format is not human readable. Apples to Oranges? I can compare these Braeburns to those Fujis just fine thank you.

I don't mean to be a jerk, but how much do you actually use/have used LaTex? They aren't even similar. They have very few similar use cases. One is a typesetting system the other is a word processor. Sure, documents come out the other end with both but the process and targets are very different. One allows you to quickly and easily make a quality document. One allows you to make the document to look exactly how you want.

Java and C are both programming languages but it is still apples and oranges to compare them.

Re: Neovim

#79
post #3

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand I've been thinking on it for quite a long time already, newer shinier Vim is something I secretly wish for. On the other hand I found it quite problematic. The main problem of Vim is Vimscript. So "newer shinier Vim" is Vim with real programming language instead of vimscript. But it's impossible to remove Vimscript: it won't be Vim anymore. It affects not only scrip…

Of all the reasons to keep Vim, Vimscript is the one I'd least expect to see on a list! The obtuse nature of Vimscript and clunky Ruby/Python interop are, IMHO, a huge wart on an otherwise fantastic editor.

I think the GP acknowledges that Vimscript is awful: "The main problem of vim is Vimscript."

I agree. vim the editor has a good UI: it is fast to work with and makes me productive. Vimscript is bad. I cannot grok how to write complex things and simple things often break too.

The GP is pointing out that Vimscript is essentially the command mode. The two are one and the same. Try switching Vimscript for, say JavaScript, and now you have to either use JavaScript in the command mode (yuck!) or create some bridge between the command mode interpreter and JavaScript (yikers!). So unless we rip out the command mode out of vim, we cannot replace Vimscript.

Re: Neovim

#80

I actually had hoped "Neovim" would be a modern reimagining of a modal Texteditor for the modern time, along one of two paths. Path 1: An html5+javascript based modal editor where buffers are actually DOM trees, enabling both code and other data to be rendered/edited, and also offering much richer visual enhancements. Javascript is already a great way for enabling a rich plugin ecosystem. Path 2: Modal Textediting su…

Can't tell if you are actually serious about the above or not, especially path 1.

Even if it sounds like sacrilege to some, I am putting it out there for comment. Both ideas arose from the dissatisfaction with text editing, one in the browser, and the other in the mobile space where currently almost nobody uses a text editor.

Especially the "modal html5 editor" would be useful across a variety of websites, either built into the site or the browser itself. For example it would be nice to have plugins that work about the same in IPython notebook, Chrome/Firefox Devtools, Udacity, latex-as-a-service, web-based admin tools, webmail etc.

That being said I am not convinced these projects are worth investing time in. They are on my mind though.

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