Vim inspired. Nice. I’ll give it a shot
Kakoune Code Editor
61–70 of 176 posts
Re: Kakoune Code Editor
#62Check out helix [0] for a kakoune inspired editor with some nice modern features included by default. [0]: https://helix-editor.com/
Very intrigued, waiting for the wasm-plugins though.
There are a few plugins I cannot work without. It's nice they have tree-sitter and lsp out of the box, but I can't live with things like hop[0]
Re: Kakoune Code Editor
#63Check out helix [0] for a kakoune inspired editor with some nice modern features included by default. [0]: https://helix-editor.com/
I use Kakoune very extensively. I've tried out Helix a bit though. While I'm adequately informed to make an assessment about Kakoune, my opinion about Helix is more impressionistic.
My overall assessment is that Helix has the potential to run away with the Kakoune interested crowd! For a new editor Helix looks shockingly polished!
Here is what I like:
- Tree sitter is integrated into Helix. Kakoune use a lot of regexes for syntax highlighting (except when the syntax highlighting can be done by the LSP). I really like that
- LSP is built into Helix so you don't need to worry about adding extra plugins. It just works! (Worth mentioning: Kakoune has amazing LSP integration via the separate kak-lsp plugin though)
- Helix is built in Rust. Kakoune is built in C++. I've encountered the occasional segfault in Kakoune and I would guess that these would be rarer in Helix simply because Rust makes it easy to write "safer" code by default
I find Kakoune as more minimalist and consistent in its editing philosophy. Helix AFAIK does not have a good plugin story yet. OTOH it is almost trivial to write a plugin in Kakoune.
Kakoune's pure-editing features (multiple cursors, selections and other primitives) seem richer and deeper. Helix has a wider selection of features "out of the box". As Kakoune has been around for a while it feels more mature. Helix is designed to be an "editor for all" and tries to be a bit like spacemacs with the spacebar as an important key. (BTW Kakoune has relegated the large spacebar key to a relatively minor functionality which is a pity).
Helix feels a bit more responsive and snappy than Kakoune on my machine. (But both are very fast). That could be because I was comparing vanilla Helix with Kakoune+plugins. However, long term, because Kakoune likes shelling out frequently, that might be a bottleneck on how responsive Kakoune will always ultimately be.
Helix seems to have a very fast pace of development. Kakoune moves much more slowly and ponderously. Kakoune's creator is quite hesitant about adding new features possibly in a desire to keep the core editor small and consistent. Kakoune also tends to be a bit opinionated about accepting features in general in its code-base.
Coming to the innards of Helix & Kakoune you can see the differences in the philosophy of both editors. The Helix code base liberally uses many rust crates to build the editor. Apart from a recent C++ compiler and a posix system Kakoune has literally _no_ dependencies -- not even ncurses or a regex library! Basically, Kakoune likes to build everything in-house. This approach has its benefits and pitfalls which I'm not going to debate here.
While Kakoune has had a lot of community contributions over the years, Helix seems to have lot of community momentum behind it currently.
Re: Kakoune Code Editor
#64Finally, a full rank editor. Needless to say the best part is the orthogonal design. Emacs and others compared to this have zero determinants in their favour.
Re: Kakoune Code Editor
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tried to use it enough to see if I could switch to it from (neo)vim. I liked a lot of the ideas in it, and in some ways I liked it more than vim, but it was missing some functionality that I just couldn't live without. Some things could be solved by plugins that just didn't exist yet, but others, I couldn't even see a way a plugin could be implemented. In particular, there isn't any way to get a diff mode comparabl…
I don't understand the new line thing at the end. I haven't used a utility or app in -decades- that cared about whether you have a blank final line.
`cat`, for instance, definitely cares.
Re: Kakoune Code Editor
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
movement before command sounds nice, eg 'wd' to delete a word instead of 'dw'
I find it extremely subjective. "delete word" is much better than "word delete" imo. Also `dw` sounds more logical if you think about user input speed\pauses. If I press `w` I want to move to the next word immediately. In case were `wd` deletes a word - there should be some lag, no?
In my mind I read "wd" as "select word, delete selection" which matches well with the visual feedback Kakoune gives you.
Re: Kakoune Code Editor
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it extremely subjective. "delete word" is much better than "word delete" imo. Also `dw` sounds more logical if you think about user input speed\pauses. If I press `w` I want to move to the next word immediately. In case were `wd` deletes a word - there should be some lag, no?
In my mind I read "wd" as "select word, delete selection" which matches well with the visual feedback Kakoune gives you.
> which matches well with the visual feedback Kakoune gives you.
Do you really need this feedback though? I can understand this when yanking, but if I'm going to delete the word... The whole action take much less that a second and then I proceed with my task.
Well, to each their own I guess
Re: Kakoune Code Editor
#68Does anyone use this daily? this gets posted a few times a year to HN but tbh it looks like someone just re-invented vi. Which seems kindof like creating a new religion. It can be done, but even the best televangelist isn't going to hold a candle to the spread of the catholic church.
I've gone for several week long stretches of using it but never fully converted. What winds up happening is that I get to a point in a project where I really need to focus on the code and not the editor, switch back to vim, and don't get around to switching back for another few months. The editing model is better than Vim's and if I didn't have 20 years of vim muscle memory I probably would have switched over by now.
I disagree that the editing model is better than vim. It’s fancier and makes for flashier demos but I don’t think it’s better. For one thing, it places the emphasis on editing in the large. That is, its default operating mode is to leave multiple cursors all over the buffer when you’re trying to jump around your file. You have to build a habit of pressing an extra key to dismiss the multiple cursors so you don’t inadvertently start inserting text in multiple places without realizing it. This is the wrong approach!
Vim puts primary emphasis on quickly getting around and making small edits one at a time. Editing in the large can be accomplished easily with the substitute ex command or search and repeat (via n and .) or macros recorded with q. For any programmer, the vast majority of their time is going to be spent editing in one place at a time. When they need to do something bigger, vim has them covered. If they’re finding they need to do some more sophisticated refactoring they probably want an IDE (or at least an LSP plug-in for vim of which there are many).
Re: Kakoune Code Editor
#69The person that decided on the launch command 'kak' is not Dutch for sure :) Though I guess most 3-letter words mean something bad in one language or another :P
I end up mentally pronouncing kak like "cack" (https://www.lexico.com/definition/cack) every time. Makes kakscript sounds pretty weird too.
Re: Kakoune Code Editor
#70Does anyone use this daily? this gets posted a few times a year to HN but tbh it looks like someone just re-invented vi. Which seems kindof like creating a new religion. It can be done, but even the best televangelist isn't going to hold a candle to the spread of the catholic church.
I've been using it for the better part of three years after using Vim for many years.
What I like about it that it is intuitive. Selections make sense. The visual feedback is great too. I've configured nearly nothing, the out of the box experience is great.
I'm never switching back to Vim.