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Neovim

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Re: Neovim

#131

Post by general_failure »

DennisP wrote: post #67
tinco wrote: 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.

Or maybe eich was a terrible programmer and it shows. Serious my some of the is stuff are major blunders. No amount of time pressure can be used as an excuse for such poor design.

Re: Neovim

#132

Post by tinco »

stusmall wrote: post #122
tinco wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm by no means a LaTex expert. I've written a few papers and a bunch of reports, nothing published, just undergraduate stuff. I dropped out halfway through my graduate degree, so I'm not what you'd call an academic. But I've seen and read enough to know that you can do impressive things with LaTex. I have another question though, how much have you used Word? I have used it only a couple of times since highschool, bu…

>I'm by no means a LaTex expert. I've written a few papers and a bunch of reports, nothing published, just undergraduate stuff I had a long talk about something like this with a close friend last night. He has a favorite technology stack that is regularly trash talked on sites like this. From what he's seen its usually from people who have only a passing knowledge of it. Either they worked a job and only had to mess…

I wouldn't trash talk this if it was simply an unpopular way of working. I'm trash talking it because it's the most popular way of working. I don't know anyone that does not write his/her papers in LaTex.

I have a lot of respect for having your own toolchain that's optimized and comfortable for you.

I am sorry I come across wrong, I am not saying that developers should feel ashamed for using it. I am saying developers should feel ashamed that other people are using it.

I'm not saying using LaTex is dumb, I've stated multiple times in this thread that I use it myself. I'm just saying we could do better.

Re: Neovim

#133

Post by jbranchaud »

tinco wrote: post #123
terminus wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are just the surface differences. The modes in which you use all of these are very different. Word: explicit WYSIWYG control over typesetting. LaTeX: semantic level control over typesetting. Additionally provides explicit low level typesetting commands. Markdown: given how basic (trivial even) Markdown is ( http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax ) I'm not sure why it's even in this list.

It's in the list because it's what I would use for my thesis, if I'd do one now :) It's basic, but it has the semantics for most stuff, and can easily be extended for more. I'd do all formula's/drawings in external tools. Word nowadays has semantic typesetting controls too, I think since they started that ribbon thing that it has become useable. If you stick to using their semantic things I think you can do a pretty…

Writing a thesis using only markdown sounds extremely painful. Are you going to create all your figures elsewhere and then include them as images? How are you going to create your list of figures? And your table of contents? How are you going to create, maintain, and organize your list of references? I could go on.

Re: Neovim

#134

Post by haberman »

standardfoil wrote: post #55
bayesianhorse wrote: post #33

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.

I personally think path 1 is absolutely where editors should be going. Upvote from me.

NeoVim is a step in the right direction, but not far enough. The future is a more Light Table like environment (http://www.lighttable.com/). But Light Table (as visionary as I think its UI is) is written (and extended, AFAIK) in ClojureScript, a LISP-like language that nobody knows.

It it was written and could be extended in JavaScript instead, and configured to the extent that I could write VIM-like modal editor support for it, I might finally be able to give up VIM after 20 years for something better.

Re: Neovim

#136

Post by gradstudent »

phillmv wrote: post #113
gradstudent wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look at SublimeText, it's got 1% of the features of Vim, yet it's converting Vim users left and right, by its sheer usability. You're confounding usability with "do not need a manual". They're not the same thing at all. Moreover, I reject entirely your assertion that vim is not usable. vim is amazingly usable; text manipulation commands for example all follow a common structure: [action][times][position]. That mean…

>You're confounding usability with "do not need a manual". They're not the same thing at all. Moreover, I reject entirely your assertion that vim is not usable. If by usable we mean "one can be productive in it" then yes that's correct, vim is immensely usable and I've been using it in that sense for six years. That however is a facile definition of what most people typically mean when we speak of 'usability'. A tool…

> If by usable we mean "one can be productive in it" then yes that's correct, vim is immensely usable and I've been using it in that sense for six years.

Usable means an interface which is (i) consistent and (ii) well suited to the task at hand. It does not mean you should not require any training nor that you should be able to intuit the functionality without looking at the manual.

vim is an example of software that is both highly usable and intended for use by advanced users.

> I spent all of university using vim purely as a way to indent and colour my code; but intelligently using splits, buffers, tabs, code folding, ctags etc should not require luck to discover and exacting patience to use.

You're doing it wrong. Read the bloody manual.

Re: Neovim

#137

Post by radarsat1 »

tinco wrote: post #84
stusmall wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

I'm by no means a LaTex expert. I've written a few papers and a bunch of reports, nothing published, just undergraduate stuff. I dropped out halfway through my graduate degree, so I'm not what you'd call an academic. But I've seen and read enough to know that you can do impressive things with LaTex. I have another question though, how much have you used Word? I have used it only a couple of times since highschool, bu…

I don't actually disagree with you on most points, but just out of curiosity why do you have the impression that Latex is slow? I used it to write my thesis (> 200 pages, full of images) and was re-rendering all the time, it only took a couple of seconds on my slow netbook.. When I'm working on a shorter paper, I barely notice the time between hitting "render" and seeing the result. (I realize I could even set it up to automatically render while I'm writing but prefer to concentrate purely on the text editor as much as possible and curb my urge to re-render constantly)

Re: Neovim

#138

Post by jaredmcateer »

agscala wrote: post #32
tambourine_man wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neo Vi Improved. We suck at naming things :) Yeah, I have mixed feelings as well. I love my Vim, don't touch it. And yet, vimscript does suck and better separation from core and UI could allow for very interesting things. Also, no one really cares about Vi compatibility anymore and cleaning the scary old C code base could make it much more accessible. I guess we'll see.

I think it should be called Vimim, Vi Improved Improved

Only after it actually is.

Re: Neovim

#139

Post by gradstudent »

edu wrote: post #116
gradstudent wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look at SublimeText, it's got 1% of the features of Vim, yet it's converting Vim users left and right, by its sheer usability. You're confounding usability with "do not need a manual". They're not the same thing at all. Moreover, I reject entirely your assertion that vim is not usable. vim is amazingly usable; text manipulation commands for example all follow a common structure: [action][times][position]. That mean…

No, you're changing the meaning of usability . It doesn't mean it can be used, but it means that it's easy to learn and use. And vim is powerful but it's not a good example of usability.

> No, you're changing the meaning of usability. It doesn't mean it can be used, but it means that it's easy to learn and use. And vim is powerful but it's not a good example of usability.

"Easy to learn and use" does not mean "I don't have to learn anything". In particular, vim is easy once you learn something about how it works with text. For example: "d" is used to delete text. It is used as part of a command sequence that usually goes:

[action][times][position]

One of the first things you learn for example is that "dw" deletes to the end of the current word. d5w deletes to the end of the next 5 words. "yw" copies to the end of the current word. "y5w" copies 5 words.

Later you might learn about cursor movemen. You find out that "j" for example moves the cursor down one line. Guess what? These cursor re-positioning commands fit into the command structure you've already learned. So you can easily intuit that "d5j" will kill everything to the end of the next 5 lines.

Later in your vim journey you might learn that "D" is shorthand for delete to the end of the current line. Hmm, but there is also this "y" command that yanks text. Guess what? "Y" yanks to the end of the line!

That's what usability looks like. You take what you've learned and apply it in a new context in order to produce expected and consistent results.

In short: vim is amazing. It's consistent, intuitive and immensely usable -- but only after you invest some time learning how to use it. The only time vim is not intuitive is when your expectations are that it will behave somewhat like TextEdit or Notepad or whatever other lesser text manipulation tools are out there.

Re: Neovim

#140

Post by SmileyKeith »

I think one of the most important things about this is the last bullet point. "Development on Github." I occasionally look at the vim-dev mailing list and I see people attaching patch files to conversations. I think Github's collaborative development workflow could help the barrier of entry to updates a lot.
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