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Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim

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Re: Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim

#111

Post by dhruvrajvanshi »

wodenokoto wrote: post #99
airstrike wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I try Zed and VSCode and I always come back to this setup. I have Ctrl+` set to switch focus between the editor and the terminal panes in VSCode, so I can toggle between them pretty easily as this is also my workflow If anyone's wondering, here's what I have in my keybindings.json { "key": "ctrl+`", "command": "workbench.action.terminal.focus" }, { "key": "ctrl+`", "command": "workbench.action.focusActiveEditorGrou…

ctr+` is the default behavior on VS Code I use it all the time and I didn’t set it up and I’m sure as hell neither did my co workers. It’s a nice short cut if you have a keyboard with backtick to the left of 1 in the numeral row. If you’re from a country where keyboards have a different key there, I would recommend setting up a short cut manually.

It only opens the terminal by default. The key binding is to use the same shortcut to focus back to the editor.

Re: Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim

#112

Post by machomaster »

eviks wrote: post #79

> all the configuration that goes into it before I can use it to start writing code. Yes, this is awful and something the default should've changed years ago instead of continuing this massive collective time waste. But presumably after 15 years you've configured almost everything you need? At least to the point of matching a static config file? > Lua is great, but one JSON file is even better. No way, it's a strict…

> Yes, this is awful and something the default should've changed

> years ago instead of continuing this massive collective time waste.

This doesn't seem feasible, because that would go against the culture and long-term practice of doing things. That's why approach of "starting from scratch and doing it right without the baggage" like Helix's works so much better.

Re: Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim

#113

Post by ivanjermakov »

rewgs wrote: post #107
Barrin92 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I will never understand how you go back from a very customized editor setup because when the very customized setup inevitably breaks the amount of headache you have is roughly proportionate to the amount of customization, whereas software with strong defaults tends to deal with that for you. This is particularly the case with neovim which, in almost deliberate defiance of any systems thinking, just tends to consist…

I see people mentioning neovim "breaking" and to this day I have no idea what everyone is talking about. I have a very customized neovim setup, update almost every day, and quite literally have never experienced a single thing breaking.

I agree. Cramming a dozen of low quality plugins without understanding how they operate and hoping updating won't break things is not a great way to go.

I understand "just make it work" mentality, but it might be useful to have deeper understanding of a tool you use several hours everyday.

Re: Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim

#114

Post by dhruvrajvanshi »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #97
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #73

Just last week some hero claimed to be adding helix keybindings to zed ( https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/4642#issuecomme... ). Golly I hope they succeed.

What I find strange about an open source product funded by VC money is that all of the people are helping make it a better editor and yet when they eventually exit none of the money will go to them. Compare that to vim where it's truly an open source product.

> Compare that to vim where it's truly an open source product.

Where there wouldn't be any money in the first place? I don't see popular vim plugin authors getting paid.

Maybe I'm not understanding your point.

Re: Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim

#115

Post by viraptor »

carb wrote: post #100
theonething wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always just closed vim to use the terminal You don't mind losing all your editor state? If you don't like working with multiple terminal windows, why not open a term within vim with `:term`?

What editor state are you losing when you leave vim? I run a pretty light vanilla vimrc (60 lines maybe) and with two lines you can enable vim undofiles and returning the cursor to the last location upom reopening a file. For me, quitting vim is functionally equivalent to ^Z?

You lose the open windows/tabs. Apart from trivial one-off scripts I basically never have only a single tab open.

Re: Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim

#116

Post by tomr75 »

jaxtracks wrote: post #21
st3fan wrote: post #5

> my workflow consists of switching back and forth between a terminal window and an editor window. Same! I run neovim in tmux together with stuff I hack on. I switch beteen tmux windows with shift-arrows and it works so well. I run this full screen in Ghostty. No distractions. I try Zed and VSCode and I always come back to this setup. It works so well for me personally.

Yeah the tmux / vim combo is so hard for me to beat with other editors still. I used Zed exclusively last month thinking the LLM integrations would be a compelling enough reason to finally switch. Like the post author, I'm a little fatigued with config / plugin churn since I switch languages frequently and it always takes some customizing to make vim work well when I do that. As the author describes though, I found m…

have you tried cursor?

Re: Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim

#117

Post by tomr75 »

baketnk wrote: post #25
toisanji wrote: post #10

I use cursor and vim now. I have been on vim for 15+ years. Are there LLM extensions that make vim work like all these new AI editors? I would prefer to stay in 100% vim world, but the productivity benefits from LLMs with composer mode and context is so powerful.

Avante is much more active and polished at this point, but there's alternatives: https://github.com/baketnk/l.nvim (self-shill, docs overhaul needed) which was inspired by the original: https://github.com/yacineMTB/dingllm.nvim Also brand new from ggerganov: https://github.com/ggml-org/llama.vim dingllm is very straightforward, you submit your entire selection/buffer and it streams out to the current position. mine i…

also RAG implementation, and the apply code feature of cursor..

Re: Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim

#118

Post by baq »

theendisney wrote: post #83
marssaxman wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the '90s I would customize my development environment to within an inch of its life, but after going from one machine to the next, one toolchain to the next, one operating system to the next, year after year, culminating in one ridiculous six-month period when I had to pave my dev machine and reinstall everything from scratch every two weeks (yes, this was stupid; yes, I knew it was stupid at the time; no, I…

If it can open text files and has a cursor im good. Irl i dont grow attached to environments either. Its just to expensive when they vanish. Its just people now :)

Not sure why but I feel almost physical pain when I see nano opened on a fresh setup. I just can’t handle it, it’s surreal.

Re: Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim

#119

Post by baq »

eviks wrote: post #79

> all the configuration that goes into it before I can use it to start writing code. Yes, this is awful and something the default should've changed years ago instead of continuing this massive collective time waste. But presumably after 15 years you've configured almost everything you need? At least to the point of matching a static config file? > Lua is great, but one JSON file is even better. No way, it's a strict…

> Lua is great, but one JSON file is even better

Yeah that single line makes me doubt the whole post, how can a format without comments be an upgrade to any configuration file is beyond me. My customized configs were full of ‘this was broken on this day by something else, link to obscure thread’ before I accepted the way of default.

Re: Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim

#120

Post by kenanfyi »

Long time Vim users are also organized human beings in life most of the time. This constant discussion over what editor to use always boils down to this point IMO.

Having a config file and trying to keep it healthy over the years requires such mindset. It might eventually break because you got sick of it, but there are thousands of parameters to that problem. Are you a plugin freak, are you trying to change every single default keybinding, do you try new things, which terminal emulator you like, what about FOMO…

I had an on and off relationship with Zed, because in the beginning there were some bugs and many things were missing, but they are adding and fixing a lot of things and at the current state I use it more than Neovim although I have a relatively maintenance-free config. I always liked Vim/Neovim because I had shitty computers throughout my life and using a snappy terminal interface to write was always easier than using a chunky editor. But nowadays things have changed and Zed is extremely fast too, so this advantage of snappiness is unrelated now. Plus the design is minimal and well-thought, which I always appreciate. Next to VSCode Bloat, I find it extremely easy to look at.

My dream was to have Vim motions by default in every single piece of software like editors, browsers, PDF readers and even Finder. What Vim changed is the motions and the way you interact with the computer and this does not need to be exclusive to terminal interpreters anymore, so I appreciate the effort of editor developers to shift the paradigm to using what Vim invented. Zed does it good and I hope they eventually reach to a state, where I can completely switch.

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