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The State of Vim

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Re: The State of Vim

#131

Post by anthk »

rob74 wrote: post #35
dmortin wrote: post #4

I wonder how long vim and emacs can stay vibrant. I've used emacs in the last 20 years, so I stick with it, but new generations who are trained on vscode and such are less likely to use such "old fashioned" tools. Surely, there will still be emacs and vim users 50 years from now, but the user numbers and the community power will diminish as the graybeards gradually leave this plane.

To put it into perspective: vi was already 15 years old when Bram decided to write vim for the Amiga, which had a GUI - so vim already looked out of place on the Amiga too! - but it was still successful, of course (I think) mostly because of being ported to Linux pretty much at the same time as Linux got started.

Amiga by default had an Emacs clone on every install.

Re: The State of Vim

#132

Post by eviks »

bandrami wrote: post #109
eviks wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology#1-other-tool... emacs is 4% vs VSCode 73%, so it's not popular, though vim still is

Isn't stackoverflow's most-accessed question to date "how do I exit vim?"

More like top-200+ by views, though even the wouldn’t contradict much else

Re: The State of Vim

#133

Post by ykonstant »

sodapopcan wrote: post #130
ykonstant wrote: post #120

> How can we make Vim9 script, the new Vim scripting language, more widely used? One way is to inform users and prospective plugin writers that 1) Vim9 script is vastly superior to the old Vimscript, to the point where it is not unpleasant to use, and 2) it is much more conductive to writing text editor code than the general purpose Lua. Of course this still does not mean that people will want to learn yet another sc…

> Of course this still does not mean that people will want to learn yet another scripting language I understand this sentiment and that there are certainly psychological blockers in having to learn too many languages, but vim9 is very simple to learn. It is much closer to a "familiar" language than Lua. Plus, you are going to have to be familiar with Vim's standard library anyway. I believe they are adding more and m…

I agree completely.

Re: The State of Vim

#134

Post by kps »

112233 wrote: post #46
porphyra wrote: post #11

Many of the Vim nerds I know, including myself, have switched over to Neovim. Only when using a remote server with a default installation do I use regular old Vim.

Neovim sounded like a good idea, so I switched, too. Then after an update, it broke mouse selection in terminal, by turning on some crazy option by default. I still have to search how to disable it each time. Ok, things like that happen. Then, after another update, it broke terminal update. Like, your screen scrolls up or down a line and the text does not get redrawn correctly. Is it a wezterm issue? Well, the origin…

I've also seen terminal misbehaviour with neovim, not using wezterm, including incredibly slow redraws.

Re: The State of Vim

#135

Post by abraxas »

the__alchemist wrote: post #99
abraxas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of editors and IDEs came and went while Emacs/Vim persisted. Through my three decade career I recall the ascents and downfalls of tools like BRIEF, CodeWright, NEdit, JEdit, TextPad, Notepad++, Visual Studio, JBuilder, Eclipse, Sublime and a few others so the cemetary (or hospice in some of those cases) is large.

Sublime, nor Visual Studio are in the cemetery.

Visual Studio is very much dying. Visual Studio Code is its successor that's very much alive. Those are two different products

Re: The State of Vim

#136

Post by otikik »

ykonstant wrote: post #120

> How can we make Vim9 script, the new Vim scripting language, more widely used? One way is to inform users and prospective plugin writers that 1) Vim9 script is vastly superior to the old Vimscript, to the point where it is not unpleasant to use, and 2) it is much more conductive to writing text editor code than the general purpose Lua. Of course this still does not mean that people will want to learn yet another sc…

> it is much more conductive to writing text editor code than the general purpose Lua.

Lua is very much not a general-purpose Language. It can be used like one, but it's a specialized language thought to live inside a "host" application, which it then controls. Which does seem to fit the usecase here.

Would you be able to substantiate your claim that it is more conductive to text editor code?

> it is not unpleasant to use

I'm afraid that is a very low bar. Lua is not unpleasant to use either.

Re: The State of Vim

#138

Post by kps »

sodapopcan wrote: post #122
jitl wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With no config file Neovim is just vim but with mouse mode enabled by default. With Lua and the new APIs it’s much easier to write powerful plugins that do crazy shit and use animation but none of that happens by default, you need to go out of your way to get that kind of action, same as with regular vim.

It's not, though. A bunch has been stripped out (interactive :!, :view, etc) and time only time will tell how much further they will drift apart.

And as such neovim has dropped POSIX conformance (including things like `:!` as you mention, that I use regularly) and is apparently not interested in it.

I wanted to like neovim for its possibly better lsp integration, but if all I need is an IDE with partial vi emulation, I might as well use VSCode.

Re: The State of Vim

#139

Post by mmooss »

wirrbel wrote: post #40
joeblubaugh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m willing to believe that “vim” combines some neovim users, but I’m not surprised that the original is still more popular. Anecdotally vim seems to ship new features faster than it did 3 years ago.

Braam really took Neovim personally and got better at getting stuff into vim that he wouldn't merge before once neovim was arround as a competitor. I really lost track of vim in the last years because neovim is just a solid platform with an active community. But honestly at work, I think I am the only one using either a vim or emacs (I kind of use neovim and emacs but primarily neovim). In my childhood there was a TV…

Why do Neovim users feel the need to take down Bram and Vim? Now you are taking credit for Bram's work!

Why not make an application you love and leave everyone else alone? The community's behavior - what I see - is a deterrent to using Neovim.

Re: The State of Vim

#140

Post by ykonstant »

otikik wrote: post #136
ykonstant wrote: post #120

> How can we make Vim9 script, the new Vim scripting language, more widely used? One way is to inform users and prospective plugin writers that 1) Vim9 script is vastly superior to the old Vimscript, to the point where it is not unpleasant to use, and 2) it is much more conductive to writing text editor code than the general purpose Lua. Of course this still does not mean that people will want to learn yet another sc…

> it is much more conductive to writing text editor code than the general purpose Lua. Lua is very much not a general-purpose Language. It can be used like one, but it's a specialized language thought to live inside a "host" application, which it then controls. Which does seem to fit the usecase here. Would you be able to substantiate your claim that it is more conductive to text editor code? > it is not unpleasant t…

No, I don't feel like substantiating my claims to someone who assumes a default hostile response to me and makes nonsensical readings of what I say.

For instance, when I compare Lua to vim9 script and say the former is general purpose, I am obviously in the context of comparing the one scripting language to the latter. And you know that. And yet, even though you understand the context perfectly, you still choose to write "Lua is very much not a general-purpose Language..." and proceed to patronize me on semantics.

So, will I be able to substantiate? Yes. Will I bother to do so to you? No.

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