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I love VIM... but I feel like VIM's life is coming to an end... as VIM. NeoVIM is just... better. The editor as it stands now is essentially the same, but an

I love VIM... but I feel like VIM's life is coming to an end... as VIM. NeoVIM is just... better. The editor as it stands now is essentially the same, but an actual active development that isn's a single contributor is going to create a better project, and its going to respond to the community more and keep itself more up to date and performant. I feel bad, in a way, because i have a strong loyalty to vim, but Bram's stubbornness at playing well with others is basically holding onto sand, and we know how that analogy goes...

massysett 10y ago
"actual active development that isn's a single contributor is going to create a better project" Depends on what your definition of "better" is. If you just want stable software that's bug free, multiple contributors might actually make the software worse. A lot of people use vim in a way such that Neovim will be no improvement. Neovim could become like the next zsh. I use zsh every day and have for years. I think it's "better". But for most people bash is good enough so they use it. The things that are better in zsh are not things they care about, so they will not bother switching.
- jay-anderson 10y ago
  I'd be okay with that result (bash : zsh :: vim : neovim). Whatever the result I think vi(m) users are winning in the end. One side benefit of neovim existing is a push for vim to get similar feature and step up their development efforts. One difference I see with this comparison is neovim's goal: `feature-parity and backwards compatibility are high priorities`. If they succeed in this then there'd be little downside to switching.
shortlived 10y ago
I will agree once neovim ships on the major platforms and has functions on par with vim. Their next milestone for Windows support has continued to slip. It's been at 75% complete for many months. Meanwhile, gVim is running great on numerous platforms. It's not a knock against neovim, but I just hope they can keep things going.
- jjawssd 10y ago
  Is it possible that Windows users are not as interested in vim as *NIX users for historical reasons, and therefore don't care as much about support?
- fatbird 10y ago
  Where it works, it's a drop-in replacement for VIM, notwithstanding differences in async implementations now.
  - milesrout 10y ago
    It's certainly not a drop-in replacement for vim. It doesn't support many features released in vim 8.
    - fatbird 10y ago
      Until vim 8, it was a drop-in replacement, retaining full compatibility with vimrc and all plugins. My switch was seamless, and that was a big goal of theirs. Vim 8 introduced features already found in neovim in an incompatible way, and now the real fork begins.
      - milesrout 10y ago
        Well it isn't a drop-in replacement now. And it wasn't a drop-in replacement before either, on the platforms they needlessly removed compatibility with. Vim introduced features that had been being worked on since before NeoVim, in a way that actually made sense in the context of Vim, and which fit into Vim nicely.
amitutk 10y ago
A HUGE advantage for vim is that you can login to any server, new or legacy, and it will have vim. At least it will have vi.
- marricks 10y ago
  Guess it would depend a lot on the dev, but it seems like NeoVim would make sense for one's personal computer, and then Vi/m whenever logged on to a remote server. I'm a vim neophyte, but it's not like your .vimrc follows you along to those remote servers anyways so things would be different anyways working on a server?
  - amitutk 10y ago
    You can have a simple fabric script to copy .vimrc (and .alias, .bash_profile, etc) copied to a new server. You don't need sudo for any of this.
    - kbd 10y ago
      Doesn't have to be fabric, just a shell script with scp. If you can ssh to a server you can copy dot-configs to your $home dir.
  - jmcdiesel 10y ago
    my vimrc (and all my dotfiles) are kept in my private github so, with a single git command, they travel right to me... :)
    - WildUtah 10y ago
      This is so nice and so much easier than it seems. And there's no need for a private repo; unless you're ashamed of your dotfiles, you could keep them in a public repo.
      - jmcdiesel 10y ago
        They are in a private-ish... its my company's internal... because i do share it with coworkers, but it does setup a lot of environment variables specific to our products, so its not fit for general public consumption :)
jdonaldson 10y ago
Yes, it's time to start thinking about the next twenty years. Moving vim from a single threaded process to more of an asynchronous server framework is the right move. Emulating vim commands in other editors just doesn't work, we need to turn the edit and command modes into a service. I also like the endorsement on lua. I'm eager to move my scripting away from vimscript.
sevensor 10y ago
I used vim for 20 years, up until about a month ago when I tried kakoune. It's got a new approach to modal editing that I really dig, which makes me realize the thing I loved about vim was that for a long time it was the best modal text editor around. I still think vim is a great project, but kakoune takes a refreshing approach that really clicked for me.
- exDM69 10y ago
  Thanks for the pointer. I am getting more and more frustrated with Vim (and neovim is not what I am looking for) and looking for alternatives. I did try "vis" a while ago and it was alright but not quite there yet. And it was a bit too "sickness" for my taste, e.g. requires shell scripts for completion to ":open". I do intend to try it again some time but I'll also give kakoune a go. https://github.com/martanne/vis https://github.com/martanne/vis
  - sevensor 10y ago
    I haven't tried vis, although it too looks like a pretty solid project. > I did try "vis" a while ago and it was alright but not quite there yet. And it was a bit too "sickness" for my taste, e.g. requires shell scripts for completion to ":open". With regard to that particular issue, kak has a great fuzzy-finder. edit: It also apparently integrates with ranger, although I haven't tried that.
    - exDM69 10y ago
      It works very well but is still work in progress. I appreciate that it's "just an editor" and not a half-assed IDE or an application framework. But I think they might have taken it a step too far.
  - aeosynth 10y ago
    I've been using `vis` for a while now, and I agree that it used to be overly minimal, but I've submitted enough issues that it now fits my workflow. Once you get past the friction of it not being vim, you can enjoy multiple cursors, a sane scripting language (Lua), sam's structural regex....
hackuser 10y ago
Every mention of Vim turns into promotion of NeoVIM. Perhaps submit a story about NeoVIM if you want to talk about it. And what value do comments like this add? How am I better informed after reading it? > NeoVIM is just... better > an actual active development that isn's a single contributor is going to create a better project Seriously? Since Vim was first released, probably there have been millions of software projects fitting the latter description that have not been nearly as successful as Vim. There are millions of them on Github right now. And don't forget the personal attack: > Bram's stubbornness If stubbornness produced Vim, we need a lot more stubbornness in software development.
- 987373 10y ago
  The voting shows that this thread has been taken over by idiots. But the moderators appear to be happy.
- actuallyalys 10y ago
  >Every mention of Vim turns into promotion of NeoVIM. I understand the frustration, but doesn't every Hacker News thread have a thread about alternatives (usually including some promotion)? I mean, every Vim thread includes a discussion of Emacs, too.
  - flukus 10y ago
    True, but as someone that visits places specifically for vim like (/r/vim) it get's particularly annoying. It's not that it's out of place here, is just a cumulative effect (for me personally anyway) from hearing about it where it doesn't belong.
kps 10y ago
I have no loyalty to vim, but https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/2856 https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/2856 means I can't trust neovim.
- jmcdiesel 10y ago
  What about updating a file on the buffer that is changed on the disk means you cant trust them? (Especially since its an option that can be toggled?)
  - kps 10y ago
    There's the change, and there's what the change says about the project. The change violates the principle that what is in the buffer is there because the user caused it to be there. Since it is a silent change to a principle that vi and its descendants have always followed, it can lead to data loss; the copy in the buffer may have been the only one. The fact that the change was apparently entirely uncontroversial means that neovim does not think through the implications of their changes and/or is not sufficiently concerned about data loss.
    - fmoralesc 10y ago
      Disclaimer: I committed that change. If you think the issue is important, you are free to report it; the project has reverted decisions like this when people have complained (most recently, the default value of the `mouse` setting). On the other hand, considering how much time this had to be discussed, I would think that by and large this is not a mayor concern for users. This commit was made In June 2015, and the discussion about defaults goes as far back as essentially the beginnings of the project in 2014. We inherited this setting from sensible.vim (which many people consider, well, a very sensible minimal configuration), where the issue was discussed and dismissed back in 2013 (https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible/issues/64 https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible/issues/64). I think the argument there is convincing. Again, if you don't, please discuss it in the appropriate channels.
MichaelMoser123 10y ago
How is NeoVIM better than vim? Never tried NeoVIM; VIM is very customizable, so for me its ok as long as I can customize it. The most confusing vim thing for me was to learn vimscript (when doing plugins), but nowadays there is python so it shouldn't be such a problem.
- marricks 10y ago
  This discussion caused me to look up info on it, and this source has some compelling reasons: https://geoff.greer.fm/2015/01/15/why-neovim-is-better-than-vim/ https://geoff.greer.fm/2015/01/15/why-neovim-is-better-than-... For me personally, a good reason to switch seems to be the NeoVim team itself seems less hostile to new people and making changes. Of course stability is likely important to many people, so there may be many good reasons to stay with vim as other's have stated, but someone refusing an update because it uses ANSI C seems a bit much...
AlexandrB 10y ago
When trying NeoVIM I found it completely unusable because of a single bug: https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/2035 https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/2035 Hitting ^[ needs to be utterly responsive, but this causes that input to take up to seconds to be accepted. I've tried the suggested workarounds in tmux, etc. but the problem stubbornly persisted so I gave up. Will have to check back once that is fixed. This brings me to a larger point - with Vim I can throw just about any environment/file type/file size at it and expect it to work. NeoVIM is not there yet so it's going to stay on the "try again in the future" list.
- sonthonax 10y ago
  I had the same problem in terminal Vim. This fixed it: " leave insert mode quickly if ! has('gui_running') set ttimeoutlen=10 augroup FastEscape autocmd! au InsertEnter * set timeoutlen=0 au InsertLeave * set timeoutlen=1000 augroup END endif
milesrout 10y ago
I disagree. NeoVIM is clearly worse, to me. It has zero benefits over proper vim and many massive downsides.
- computerex 10y ago
  Lucky you elaborated and supported your opinion with facts.

massysett 10y ago

"actual active development that isn's a single contributor is going to create a better project" Depends on what your definition of "better" is. If you just want stable software that's bug free, multiple contributors might actually make the software worse. A lot of people use vim in a way such that Neovim will be no improvement. Neovim could become like the next zsh. I use zsh every day and have for years. I think it's "better". But for most people bash is good enough so they use it. The things that are better in zsh are not things they care about, so they will not bother switching.

jay-anderson 10y ago
I'd be okay with that result (bash : zsh :: vim : neovim). Whatever the result I think vi(m) users are winning in the end. One side benefit of neovim existing is a push for vim to get similar feature and step up their development efforts. One difference I see with this comparison is neovim's goal: `feature-parity and backwards compatibility are high priorities`. If they succeed in this then there'd be little downside to switching.

shortlived 10y ago

I will agree once neovim ships on the major platforms and has functions on par with vim. Their next milestone for Windows support has continued to slip. It's been at 75% complete for many months. Meanwhile, gVim is running great on numerous platforms. It's not a knock against neovim, but I just hope they can keep things going.

jjawssd 10y ago
Is it possible that Windows users are not as interested in vim as *NIX users for historical reasons, and therefore don't care as much about support?
fatbird 10y ago
Where it works, it's a drop-in replacement for VIM, notwithstanding differences in async implementations now.
- milesrout 10y ago
  It's certainly not a drop-in replacement for vim. It doesn't support many features released in vim 8.
  - fatbird 10y ago
    Until vim 8, it was a drop-in replacement, retaining full compatibility with vimrc and all plugins. My switch was seamless, and that was a big goal of theirs. Vim 8 introduced features already found in neovim in an incompatible way, and now the real fork begins.
    - milesrout 10y ago
      Well it isn't a drop-in replacement now. And it wasn't a drop-in replacement before either, on the platforms they needlessly removed compatibility with. Vim introduced features that had been being worked on since before NeoVim, in a way that actually made sense in the context of Vim, and which fit into Vim nicely.

amitutk 10y ago

A HUGE advantage for vim is that you can login to any server, new or legacy, and it will have vim. At least it will have vi.

marricks 10y ago
Guess it would depend a lot on the dev, but it seems like NeoVim would make sense for one's personal computer, and then Vi/m whenever logged on to a remote server. I'm a vim neophyte, but it's not like your .vimrc follows you along to those remote servers anyways so things would be different anyways working on a server?
- amitutk 10y ago
  You can have a simple fabric script to copy .vimrc (and .alias, .bash_profile, etc) copied to a new server. You don't need sudo for any of this.
  - kbd 10y ago
    Doesn't have to be fabric, just a shell script with scp. If you can ssh to a server you can copy dot-configs to your $home dir.
- jmcdiesel 10y ago
  my vimrc (and all my dotfiles) are kept in my private github so, with a single git command, they travel right to me... :)
  - WildUtah 10y ago
    This is so nice and so much easier than it seems. And there's no need for a private repo; unless you're ashamed of your dotfiles, you could keep them in a public repo.
    - jmcdiesel 10y ago
      They are in a private-ish... its my company's internal... because i do share it with coworkers, but it does setup a lot of environment variables specific to our products, so its not fit for general public consumption :)

jdonaldson 10y ago

Yes, it's time to start thinking about the next twenty years. Moving vim from a single threaded process to more of an asynchronous server framework is the right move. Emulating vim commands in other editors just doesn't work, we need to turn the edit and command modes into a service. I also like the endorsement on lua. I'm eager to move my scripting away from vimscript.

sevensor 10y ago

I used vim for 20 years, up until about a month ago when I tried kakoune. It's got a new approach to modal editing that I really dig, which makes me realize the thing I loved about vim was that for a long time it was the best modal text editor around. I still think vim is a great project, but kakoune takes a refreshing approach that really clicked for me.

exDM69 10y ago
Thanks for the pointer. I am getting more and more frustrated with Vim (and neovim is not what I am looking for) and looking for alternatives. I did try "vis" a while ago and it was alright but not quite there yet. And it was a bit too "sickness" for my taste, e.g. requires shell scripts for completion to ":open". I do intend to try it again some time but I'll also give kakoune a go. https://github.com/martanne/vis https://github.com/martanne/vis
- sevensor 10y ago
  I haven't tried vis, although it too looks like a pretty solid project. > I did try "vis" a while ago and it was alright but not quite there yet. And it was a bit too "sickness" for my taste, e.g. requires shell scripts for completion to ":open". With regard to that particular issue, kak has a great fuzzy-finder. edit: It also apparently integrates with ranger, although I haven't tried that.
  - exDM69 10y ago
    It works very well but is still work in progress. I appreciate that it's "just an editor" and not a half-assed IDE or an application framework. But I think they might have taken it a step too far.
- aeosynth 10y ago
  I've been using `vis` for a while now, and I agree that it used to be overly minimal, but I've submitted enough issues that it now fits my workflow. Once you get past the friction of it not being vim, you can enjoy multiple cursors, a sane scripting language (Lua), sam's structural regex....

hackuser 10y ago

Every mention of Vim turns into promotion of NeoVIM. Perhaps submit a story about NeoVIM if you want to talk about it. And what value do comments like this add? How am I better informed after reading it? > NeoVIM is just... better > an actual active development that isn's a single contributor is going to create a better project Seriously? Since Vim was first released, probably there have been millions of software projects fitting the latter description that have not been nearly as successful as Vim. There are millions of them on Github right now. And don't forget the personal attack: > Bram's stubbornness If stubbornness produced Vim, we need a lot more stubbornness in software development.

987373 10y ago
The voting shows that this thread has been taken over by idiots. But the moderators appear to be happy.
actuallyalys 10y ago
>Every mention of Vim turns into promotion of NeoVIM. I understand the frustration, but doesn't every Hacker News thread have a thread about alternatives (usually including some promotion)? I mean, every Vim thread includes a discussion of Emacs, too.
- flukus 10y ago
  True, but as someone that visits places specifically for vim like (/r/vim) it get's particularly annoying. It's not that it's out of place here, is just a cumulative effect (for me personally anyway) from hearing about it where it doesn't belong.

kps 10y ago

I have no loyalty to vim, but https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/2856 https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/2856 means I can't trust neovim.

jmcdiesel 10y ago
What about updating a file on the buffer that is changed on the disk means you cant trust them? (Especially since its an option that can be toggled?)
- kps 10y ago
  There's the change, and there's what the change says about the project. The change violates the principle that what is in the buffer is there because the user caused it to be there. Since it is a silent change to a principle that vi and its descendants have always followed, it can lead to data loss; the copy in the buffer may have been the only one. The fact that the change was apparently entirely uncontroversial means that neovim does not think through the implications of their changes and/or is not sufficiently concerned about data loss.
  - fmoralesc 10y ago
    Disclaimer: I committed that change. If you think the issue is important, you are free to report it; the project has reverted decisions like this when people have complained (most recently, the default value of the `mouse` setting). On the other hand, considering how much time this had to be discussed, I would think that by and large this is not a mayor concern for users. This commit was made In June 2015, and the discussion about defaults goes as far back as essentially the beginnings of the project in 2014. We inherited this setting from sensible.vim (which many people consider, well, a very sensible minimal configuration), where the issue was discussed and dismissed back in 2013 (https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible/issues/64 https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible/issues/64). I think the argument there is convincing. Again, if you don't, please discuss it in the appropriate channels.

MichaelMoser123 10y ago

How is NeoVIM better than vim? Never tried NeoVIM; VIM is very customizable, so for me its ok as long as I can customize it. The most confusing vim thing for me was to learn vimscript (when doing plugins), but nowadays there is python so it shouldn't be such a problem.

marricks 10y ago
This discussion caused me to look up info on it, and this source has some compelling reasons: https://geoff.greer.fm/2015/01/15/why-neovim-is-better-than-vim/ https://geoff.greer.fm/2015/01/15/why-neovim-is-better-than-... For me personally, a good reason to switch seems to be the NeoVim team itself seems less hostile to new people and making changes. Of course stability is likely important to many people, so there may be many good reasons to stay with vim as other's have stated, but someone refusing an update because it uses ANSI C seems a bit much...

AlexandrB 10y ago

When trying NeoVIM I found it completely unusable because of a single bug: https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/2035 https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/2035 Hitting ^[ needs to be utterly responsive, but this causes that input to take up to seconds to be accepted. I've tried the suggested workarounds in tmux, etc. but the problem stubbornly persisted so I gave up. Will have to check back once that is fixed. This brings me to a larger point - with Vim I can throw just about any environment/file type/file size at it and expect it to work. NeoVIM is not there yet so it's going to stay on the "try again in the future" list.

sonthonax 10y ago
I had the same problem in terminal Vim. This fixed it: " leave insert mode quickly if ! has('gui_running') set ttimeoutlen=10 augroup FastEscape autocmd! au InsertEnter * set timeoutlen=0 au InsertLeave * set timeoutlen=1000 augroup END endif

milesrout 10y ago

I disagree. NeoVIM is clearly worse, to me. It has zero benefits over proper vim and many massive downsides.

computerex 10y ago
Lucky you elaborated and supported your opinion with facts.