4 ms·

I used Vis full time for a two weeks a couple of months ago. It was pretty nifty. (I'm Emacs user so this was an time-bounded experiment). Vis is a great of ex

I used Vis full time for a two weeks a couple of months ago. It was pretty nifty. (I'm Emacs user so this was an time-bounded experiment). Vis is a great of example of the suckless philosophy and of Guy Steele's point about removing the need of features by having synergy between other features. For example they have an immutable piece table to support undo by just moving a pointer. This would mean that as the buffer remains open one would use more and more memory. Instead of implementation a 'garbarge collector' they chose to automatically close a file when its not shown on the screen.

tetrep 9y ago
> Instead of implementation a 'garbarge collector' they chose to automatically close a file when its not shown on the screen. Does that mean you lose the ability to undo actions when you switch buffers? That sounds horrible if you're editing multiple files.
- gwn7 9y ago
  That's not the case, as there are no hidden buffers in vis. If a file is open, it is shown on the screen as either a horizontal or a vertical split. That's the only way to edit multiple files.
  - luvbb 9y ago
    Sounds like it's missing a few key features.
    - chongli 9y ago
      Yeah. I love vim's persistent undo. Combine that with the undotree[0] plugin and you never have to worry about losing changes. It would be really hard for me to switch to an editor without persistent undo. [0] https://github.com/mbbill/undotree https://github.com/mbbill/undotree
    - gwn7 9y ago
      The only missing feature that is being mentioned here is the "hidden buffers". Undo is working properly. A related comment on buffer management from the author of the project: https://github.com/martanne/vis/issues/300#issuecomment-216034775 https://github.com/martanne/vis/issues/300#issuecomment-2160... I managed to live without hidden buffers so far, though I accept that they are convenient.
  - alphaalpha101 9y ago
    The fundamental problem is this: without breaking undo, prevent memory usage from simply increasing forever. They don't solve that problem, because they break undo when you hide a buffer.
Volt 9y ago
Why did you stop using it?
- emacsgifs 9y ago
  Emacs
wooby 9y ago
Where does Guy Steele make this point? I'm curious to know the context, thank you.
- thisrod 9y ago
  https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html

tetrep 9y ago

> Instead of implementation a 'garbarge collector' they chose to automatically close a file when its not shown on the screen. Does that mean you lose the ability to undo actions when you switch buffers? That sounds horrible if you're editing multiple files.

gwn7 9y ago
That's not the case, as there are no hidden buffers in vis. If a file is open, it is shown on the screen as either a horizontal or a vertical split. That's the only way to edit multiple files.
- luvbb 9y ago
  Sounds like it's missing a few key features.
  - chongli 9y ago
    Yeah. I love vim's persistent undo. Combine that with the undotree[0] plugin and you never have to worry about losing changes. It would be really hard for me to switch to an editor without persistent undo. [0] https://github.com/mbbill/undotree https://github.com/mbbill/undotree
  - gwn7 9y ago
    The only missing feature that is being mentioned here is the "hidden buffers". Undo is working properly. A related comment on buffer management from the author of the project: https://github.com/martanne/vis/issues/300#issuecomment-216034775 https://github.com/martanne/vis/issues/300#issuecomment-2160... I managed to live without hidden buffers so far, though I accept that they are convenient.
- alphaalpha101 9y ago
  The fundamental problem is this: without breaking undo, prevent memory usage from simply increasing forever. They don't solve that problem, because they break undo when you hide a buffer.

Volt 9y ago

Why did you stop using it?

emacsgifs 9y ago
Emacs

wooby 9y ago

Where does Guy Steele make this point? I'm curious to know the context, thank you.

thisrod 9y ago
https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html