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Remove Ex-Mode from Neovim

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Re: Remove Ex-Mode from Neovim

#41

Post by gh02t »

nicwest wrote: post #36

I have been using Ex mode for it's REPL like qualities while learning vimscript, it's a useful feature if you are writing vim plugins or doing complex search/replace operations. Will a similar conversation happen with Replace mode? I use this mode less than Ex mode and it has a useful key bind (R) that could be recycled.

I doubt it. Apart from the fact that at least I find replace mode useful, I think their main reason is not just because most people don't use it, but also because ex mode behaves inconsistently.

Re: Remove Ex-Mode from Neovim

#42

Post by sejje »

k__ wrote: post #34
seszett wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not "q", but "Q". Actually, when entering Ex mode you get a little helpful message that says Type "visual" to go to Normal mode . If you do press "q" though, you're in macro mode, and you don't get any helpful message that tells you that you have to press "q" another time to exit it.

I see, thanks for the clarification :) Vim always seems like magic to me. I always use nano/pico when I need to edit something in the command line.

Vim is a programmer's dream.

If my only use were editing files in CLI, though, I'd have always used nano and not learned vim, as well.

Re: Remove Ex-Mode from Neovim

#43

Post by shortlived »

Slackwise wrote: post #15

While I don't particularly care for ex-mode, I think it's weird to be calling it Neo 'vim' without it. If it's going to become more of a radical departure from Vim and start omitting features as well as adding, I would rather they change the name of the project instead, one that alludes to its Vim heritage rather than having a prefix that means 'new'. Is it a new version of Vim? Or an editor that started as a fork of…

My understanding of "Ex" is that it is a standalone program that happens to be implemented within Vim, which I think is a bit of an oddity. A radical departure for Neovim to take would be to change the key bindings or go to modeless operation.

Re: Remove Ex-Mode from Neovim

#44

Post by unclebunkers »

Slackwise wrote: post #26
unclebunkers wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throw the baby out with the bath water much?

Elaborate, please. (I've gone and elaborated on my own comment. I might have misworded my intent.)

You want to change the name from neovim because they want to remove functionality that I'm guessing maybe 1% of the users use regularly. Even though for 99%, neovim is vim only modernized and cleaned up. It's illogical as you're doing a disservice to the users, and neovim is a clear name that describes what it is. New vim.

Re: Remove Ex-Mode from Neovim

#45

Post by erikb »

Although I have no idea how good or bad this will turn out, I think it's a very good idea to kill edge features and instead focus on treating edge cases of core features better.

Re: Remove Ex-Mode from Neovim

#46

Post by cal2 »

thebelal wrote: post #40
CJefferson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I think this is an excellent change. If neovim remains 100% compatible with vim, down to every minor issue, then it will be very hard to usefully improve. Personally I don't use vim, even though I like the concept of vim, because it simply doesn't fit with the ecosystem I want to use (it seems to be hard to integrate clang for auto-complete and syntax highlighting into vim for example, without long hangs…

You may want to try https://github.com/Valloric/YouCompleteMe Does exactly what you describe wanting, and very well IMHO.

neocomplete.vim[1] and neocomplcache.vim[2] are nifty alternatives if you don't prefer YouCompleteMe.

[1]: https://github.com/Shougo/neocomplete.vim

[2]: https://github.com/Shougo/neocomplcache.vim

Re: Remove Ex-Mode from Neovim

#47

Post by linguafranca »

krick wrote: post #6

Removing pretty powerful feature just because author of fork doesn't use it sounds… well, actually author of fork can remove whatever he likes, but presenting neovim like "refactord vim with more features" isn't fair or even plausible in this case. And for what reasons? Oh, I see, it makes code complicated. Did he think vim'c codebase is scary for no reason? Removing all the code from vim would be the ultimate simpli…

> I, personally, used ex-mode only a couple of times, so even if I will use neovim I don't think I would care. But that just doesn't sound like a right think to do.

So he shouldn't remove it because of some strongly held principle of a random person on the internet? Even though that person in practice doesn't have any problem with it? That sounds backwards.

Re: Remove Ex-Mode from Neovim

#48

Post by linguafranca »

This is one of the reasons I very strongly support the Neovim project. They are taking an incredibly sensible and pragmatic approach to modernizing Vim.

Yes, there will be controversies. There always are. But even collaborative open source projects need strong-willed leadership, or they cannot grow properly.

Re: Remove Ex-Mode from Neovim

#49

Post by chongli »

sejje wrote: post #42
k__ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, thanks for the clarification :) Vim always seems like magic to me. I always use nano/pico when I need to edit something in the command line.

Vim is a programmer's dream. If my only use were editing files in CLI, though, I'd have always used nano and not learned vim, as well.

vi is a sysadmin's dream. I use it for editing any and all files on myriad remote machines. I especially love the ! command which lets me pipe parts of a buffer through shell commands such as column.

Re: Remove Ex-Mode from Neovim

#50

Post by goldfeld »

k__ wrote: post #28
epmatsw wrote: post #2

For those who, like me, had never heard of Ex-mode: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Learning_the_vi_Editor/Vim/Mod...

"... similar to the command line mode ... Unlike the command-line mode you won't return to normal mode automatically ... enter ... by typing a Q in normal mode" So they have a mode you enter when pressing q (which quits many other programs) that you can't leave if you don't know the leave command? This is comedy gold. :D

As much as vim is known as the modal editor, that sounds like you're describing Emacs (I'm using evil-mode instead of vim these days.) Whereas vim has dual-modality as its core, it's very well-defined and self-contained as far as modes go, and with the exception of this Ex mode, you can get out of any weird state by pressing Esc. Emacs, on the other hand, has potentially dozens of different 'modes' you can accidentally find yourself in, and each one seeming to have a different way of getting out, it drives me insane! Even a question in Emacs which can only be answered by typing out 'yes' or 'no', and by no other frigging escape sequence, is a mode come from hell. Worse yet, press Esc and Emacs goes into the mode of a mode where it briefly becomes unresponsive as it lets you know that you are WRONG.

Vim to me is like having a smooth technical conversation with a work partner. Emacs is like conversing with my partially deaf grandpa.

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