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

Helix Editor 25.07

helix-editor.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 167 posts

Re: Helix Editor 25.07

#141

Post by teo_zero »

eviks wrote: post #129
ByGhacaxda wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never used Helix and I likely never will, so I've got no horse in this race. But code folding, seriously? I'd be totally against it. It's yet another editor feature that ties your source code to tooling . It allows you to write too large and too many functions, while keeping the code readable to yourself . Source code should be readable (mostly) independently of tooling. It should be readable when printed to pap…

> It should be readable when printed to paper. Why should anyone waste time targeting a dead use case?

Right. But if we replace 'paper' with 'webpage' the parent post is still relevant.

Re: Helix Editor 25.07

#142

Post by eviks »

teo_zero wrote: post #141
eviks wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It should be readable when printed to paper. Why should anyone waste time targeting a dead use case?

Right. But if we replace 'paper' with 'webpage' the parent post is still relevant.

Web page can run (and some code-focused pages do) code folding code, so the question is still relevant with minor modification.

The whole premise of losing productivity and spending time in the most common case to support underpowered rare use cases is deeply flawed.

It's similar to the argument for using bad defaults in config/keybinds 99% of the time just because in 1% of the time you would use another computer without your customizations.

Re: Helix Editor 25.07

#143

Post by xigoi »

usef- wrote: post #107
cardanome wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean a base Mac Mini in 2025 comes with 256GB of storage. Some storage is still damn expensive. But regardless, if someone were to only ever installing Helix on their system, you might have a point. But you probably want to install many applications and if every applications starts wasting storage, you will soon run out of space.

Almost all the size is language grammars, which are optional and removable. Some distros like Alpine make them separate packages. But for desktop use, I think it's a good default to have everything "just work" out-of-the-box, because 110mb is nothing for typical developer machines.

Have you considered that professional developers who can afford expensive computers are not the only ones using a text editor?

Re: Helix Editor 25.07

#145

Post by k_bx »

ssernikk wrote: post #70
xmonkee wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really really like it. I honestly think they should wrap it in a GUI with some conveniences like a mouse based file browser and it can compete well with vscode.

Zed has Helix keybindings now! https://zed.dev/

Off-topic, but kudos to Zed as being the first editor to actually allow me do Emacs keybindings which don't suck. Requires configuration, but overall it works and I use it alongside my regular Emacs. Feels great!

Re: Helix Editor 25.07

#146

Post by usef- »

xigoi wrote: post #143
usef- wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all the size is language grammars, which are optional and removable. Some distros like Alpine make them separate packages. But for desktop use, I think it's a good default to have everything "just work" out-of-the-box, because 110mb is nothing for typical developer machines.

Have you considered that professional developers who can afford expensive computers are not the only ones using a text editor?

Absolutely, I used one for many years before I was professional.

Out of curiosity, what hardware are you picturing those people running it on?

I've run Helix on a Daylight computer, which has a deliberately underpowered CPU (MediaTek Helio G99) and it's incredibly fast/snappy. 110mb is still near-trivial on the 128GB storage.

If you're (validly) worried about bloated software, note that Alpine's helix package is 10.3MB, which is smaller than their Neovim or Emacs packages. Individual language files are small (python is ~500kb uncompressed), there are just hundreds of supported languages. But installed ones are not loaded unless you edit the language.

Re: Helix Editor 25.07

#147

Post by qn9n »

phatskat wrote: post #110
justusthane wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, why wouldn’t it be? Plenty of programs have Vim keybindings. The challenge is matching the behavior perfectly 1-1.

This is where vim keybinds fall short every time. I do appreciate the effort, and have zero expectations about a one to one match, but the moment I do something out of habit and an editor doesn’t do what I expect, in “vim mode”, it breaks the illusion.

Honestly most implementations are just the basic navigation keys and a couple of edit commands. The basic navigation in Helix is the same as Vim so the ubiquitous feeling continues.

Re: Helix Editor 25.07

#148

Post by qn9n »

angra_mainyu wrote: post #139
varbhat wrote: post #39

Congrats! I am happy for helix but i don't think it's a good fit for me. I use Neovim. It does what i want it to do. It's one of the best available options. But, i am not completely satisfied with it. I personally want an editor with following: * Modern codebase. Written from scratch. * VIM Keybindings: I have muscle memory of Vim. I would like to use Vim Keybindings in my editor. I don't want to use any other keybin…

>list of requirements So basically Neovim, but swapping out Lua for something else.

And with better defaults akin to Helix

Re: Helix Editor 25.07

#149

Post by MoreQARespect »

freedomben wrote: post #77
ByGhacaxda wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never used Helix and I likely never will, so I've got no horse in this race. But code folding, seriously? I'd be totally against it. It's yet another editor feature that ties your source code to tooling . It allows you to write too large and too many functions, while keeping the code readable to yourself . Source code should be readable (mostly) independently of tooling. It should be readable when printed to pap…

Could not agree more with everything you said. I hate code folding because it leads to giant functions and blocks that are way too big, but because of the folding people don't have to look at it and scroll (which if they did, they would be much less inclined to write and ship such shit in the first place). Same with type inference. It's almost no effort to write out the type, and it's eminently readable. With type in…

The way to prevent giant classes and methods is with linting rules, not by crippling your text editor.

type inference makes code waaaaaay less verbose which aids readability.

Re: Helix Editor 25.07

#150

Post by Oreb »

ssernikk wrote: post #70
xmonkee wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really really like it. I honestly think they should wrap it in a GUI with some conveniences like a mouse based file browser and it can compete well with vscode.

Zed has Helix keybindings now! https://zed.dev/

Even as someone who uses both Helix and Zed, I don’t find Zed’s Helix keybindings very useful. There is still too much basic stuff missing. The biggest one to me personally is that the “gw” command does not seem to be implemented.
Post reply on HN