4 ms·

Isn't that what neovim is trying to do?

BlackFingolfin 6y ago
AFAIK it still tries to stay mostly compatible with regards to how it is controlled, doesn't it? So while the internals are perhaps new, the frontend is not. But I think Kakoune https://kakoune.org https://kakoune.org would fit the bill
- chongli 6y ago
  Kakoune is definitely an attempt at redoing the vim concept from scratch. I spent a few weeks trying it out and attempting to get used to it. Ultimately, I came away from it feeling disappointed. I think the basic premise of multiple cursors editing as a preferred model (which is what Kakoune does) is flawed. Why? Because large-scale scale changes are the exception, not the rule. By emphasizing multiple cursors, Kakoune actively makes it harder to do the normal thing people do in a text editor: jump around a file and make specific edits to individual lines. Instead, a bunch of normal movement commands (such as forward and backward search) leave extra cursors in your wake, forcing you to press an extra key to dismiss them otherwise you'll get erroneous edits that might not even be visible from where you are in the buffer. This is not a good thing. The other basic premise that Kakoune addresses (that vim commands lack visual feedback) is not even an issue for experienced vim users who type commands quickly from muscle memory. The edits happen when the command finishes and you don't get distracted by intermediate results. For global substitution, you can always append the `c` flag to add a confirmation prompt to each substitution. That alone obviates much of the motivation for Kakoune's model.
  - avbanks 6y ago
    If you stuck with it long enough do you think the multiple cursors would have given you an increase in productivity over vim? Like maybe it has a high learning curve (like vim).
    - chongli 6y ago
      I don't think so. I don't think vim was in any way lacking in productivity. I'm one of those weird people that actually really likes using plain vi though. I actually own the book [1] and I've read through it several times, trying to learn as much as I can about vi and ex commands. There's so much power there that a lot of vim plugins turn out to be unnecessary. Others have tried kakoune and really loved it. I don't understand it. I really tried to figure it out, I just don't grok it. [1] https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/learning-the-vi/9780596529833/ https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/learning-the-vi/9780596...
  - jasone 6y ago
    I switched to kakoune from vim in early 2020, and I really like it (previously: emacs 1994-2004, vim 2004-2020). It's worth prefacing what follows by saying that I heavily relied on the visual selection features in vim. kakoune provides a limited orthogonal toolset that composes extremely well. After a week using kakoune I felt at least as confident with its command language as I did with vim's after years of use. Aside from a few vim plugins that were super helpful, I didn't miss anything after transitioning, except for the 'R' command (and to a lesser extent proper integration between the 'r' and '.' commands). I worried that kakoune's multiple selection paradigm wouldn't scale well, that it wouldn't be routinely useful, etc. On the contrary, I use multiple selections heavily, often as a more ergonomic alternative to recorded macros, constantly for rectangle-based operations (whether multi-line editing, indenting, ASCII art creation, whatever). Oh, for you tmux lovers out there, kakoune integrates amazingly well. All of its multi-window functionality directly uses tmux panes, with a server application (think emacs-server) tying everything together. In terms of ecosystem, vim is much richer. But kakoune is a practical, beautifully designed tool.
    - omaranto 6y ago
      Could you comment specifically on this part of the comment you replied to? > Kakoune actively makes it harder to do the normal thing people do in a text editor: jump around a file and make specific edits to individual lines. Instead, a bunch of normal movement commands (such as forward and backward search) leave extra cursors in your wake, forcing you to press an extra key to dismiss them otherwise you'll get erroneous edits Do you find that's the case? If so, how do you deal with it? Just remember to dismiss the extra cursors?
      - jasone 6y ago
        It's quite common for the selection created by motion to have immediate subsequent use. I do use the ';' or ' ' commands to clear the selection or end multi-selection, but typically only once per major operation. On top of that, it is common to start some new editing sequence which automatically resets or extends the selection in a natural way. Multiple selection has surprised me in its usefulness. It took a bit to get used to multi-step operations (select, then move/expand/match, then modify, etc.), but the beauty of this is that it's possible to incrementally undo these steps, unlike having to get the whole thing right in one go in vim. I find myself using regex captures in multiple selection -- another example of how I confidently use basic kakoune functionality where I used to rely on recorded macros in vim.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

AFAIK it still tries to stay mostly compatible with regards to how it is controlled, doesn't it? So while the internals are perhaps new, the frontend is not. But I think Kakoune https://kakoune.org https://kakoune.org would fit the bill

chongli 6y ago
Kakoune is definitely an attempt at redoing the vim concept from scratch. I spent a few weeks trying it out and attempting to get used to it. Ultimately, I came away from it feeling disappointed. I think the basic premise of multiple cursors editing as a preferred model (which is what Kakoune does) is flawed. Why? Because large-scale scale changes are the exception, not the rule. By emphasizing multiple cursors, Kakoune actively makes it harder to do the normal thing people do in a text editor: jump around a file and make specific edits to individual lines. Instead, a bunch of normal movement commands (such as forward and backward search) leave extra cursors in your wake, forcing you to press an extra key to dismiss them otherwise you'll get erroneous edits that might not even be visible from where you are in the buffer. This is not a good thing. The other basic premise that Kakoune addresses (that vim commands lack visual feedback) is not even an issue for experienced vim users who type commands quickly from muscle memory. The edits happen when the command finishes and you don't get distracted by intermediate results. For global substitution, you can always append the `c` flag to add a confirmation prompt to each substitution. That alone obviates much of the motivation for Kakoune's model.
- avbanks 6y ago
  If you stuck with it long enough do you think the multiple cursors would have given you an increase in productivity over vim? Like maybe it has a high learning curve (like vim).
  - chongli 6y ago
    I don't think so. I don't think vim was in any way lacking in productivity. I'm one of those weird people that actually really likes using plain vi though. I actually own the book [1] and I've read through it several times, trying to learn as much as I can about vi and ex commands. There's so much power there that a lot of vim plugins turn out to be unnecessary. Others have tried kakoune and really loved it. I don't understand it. I really tried to figure it out, I just don't grok it. [1] https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/learning-the-vi/9780596529833/ https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/learning-the-vi/9780596...
- jasone 6y ago
  I switched to kakoune from vim in early 2020, and I really like it (previously: emacs 1994-2004, vim 2004-2020). It's worth prefacing what follows by saying that I heavily relied on the visual selection features in vim. kakoune provides a limited orthogonal toolset that composes extremely well. After a week using kakoune I felt at least as confident with its command language as I did with vim's after years of use. Aside from a few vim plugins that were super helpful, I didn't miss anything after transitioning, except for the 'R' command (and to a lesser extent proper integration between the 'r' and '.' commands). I worried that kakoune's multiple selection paradigm wouldn't scale well, that it wouldn't be routinely useful, etc. On the contrary, I use multiple selections heavily, often as a more ergonomic alternative to recorded macros, constantly for rectangle-based operations (whether multi-line editing, indenting, ASCII art creation, whatever). Oh, for you tmux lovers out there, kakoune integrates amazingly well. All of its multi-window functionality directly uses tmux panes, with a server application (think emacs-server) tying everything together. In terms of ecosystem, vim is much richer. But kakoune is a practical, beautifully designed tool.
  - omaranto 6y ago
    Could you comment specifically on this part of the comment you replied to? > Kakoune actively makes it harder to do the normal thing people do in a text editor: jump around a file and make specific edits to individual lines. Instead, a bunch of normal movement commands (such as forward and backward search) leave extra cursors in your wake, forcing you to press an extra key to dismiss them otherwise you'll get erroneous edits Do you find that's the case? If so, how do you deal with it? Just remember to dismiss the extra cursors?
    - jasone 6y ago
      It's quite common for the selection created by motion to have immediate subsequent use. I do use the ';' or ' ' commands to clear the selection or end multi-selection, but typically only once per major operation. On top of that, it is common to start some new editing sequence which automatically resets or extends the selection in a natural way. Multiple selection has surprised me in its usefulness. It took a bit to get used to multi-step operations (select, then move/expand/match, then modify, etc.), but the beauty of this is that it's possible to incrementally undo these steps, unlike having to get the whole thing right in one go in vim. I find myself using regex captures in multiple selection -- another example of how I confidently use basic kakoune functionality where I used to rely on recorded macros in vim.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]