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Switching from a bicycle to a truck. Vim is NOT an IDE. Yes a lot of people try to make it one, but Vim is not very good at it. You need a lot of additional sma

Switching from a bicycle to a truck. Vim is NOT an IDE. Yes a lot of people try to make it one, but Vim is not very good at it. You need a lot of additional small tools to even come close to a full-blown IDE in functionality. It's a text editor.

pugworthy 6y ago
I share that perspective, but then I guess it comes from using VI (then VIM) for a long time. When IDEs came along, I appreciated what they added in terms of references and build integrations, but as far as being editors of text, they didn't do much for me. Managers of complex text, yes.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Came along into UNIX world, I was dismayed when comparing my Xenix VI experience with Turbo Pascal for MS-DOS, let alone the Windows 3.x versions. Or even against programmers editors like SlickEdit.
alpaca128 6y ago
Sure, an IDE comes with all the tools and features right out of the box. But not everyone needs all of them. I don't see a problem with combining tools, which is really easy with Vim as it already runs in the terminal. I installed a couple plugins in Vim. But those all provide features I actually use and they barely affect performance. But more importantly I just prefer the Vim approach: start out with a minimal UI and feature set and only add or tweak what is needed. No weird and distracting auto-formatting while I'm still typing, more intuitive tabs/buffers and nothing running in the background all the time. I might be an outlier because most editors and IDEs have standard configs that I find distracting and frustrating, but I rather put a motor and bags on my bicycle than start cutting down a truck.
- kelnos 6y ago
  I've tried for years to find the right combination of plugins and configs to make vim (and now neovim) as comfortable as IntelliJ for "large" languages (like Java & Scala), and I still can't do it. I actually very much agree with you that IntelliJ's all-batteries-included bits can be distracting and frustrating at times, and it's annoying to track down and disable the stuff you don't want. The memory usage makes me cry; occasionally the OOM killer murders it on my 16GB laptop. But IntelliJ actually does all the things I want it to, reliably, and (mostly) without fuss. vim/nvim just... doesn't. Or I haven't figured out how to get it to do it after hours of trying, which amounts to the same thing. It makes me super sad, because a part of me rebels at having to use a giant IDE to be productive, but that's just been my experience. I too would rather put a motor and bags on my bicycle than start cutting down a truck, but I haven't found a motor and bags that fit and work right for me, after more work than is reasonable trying.
  - alpaca128 6y ago
    Yes, Java projects are the reason why I still sometimes use an IDE as well. I agree that there still are some gaps when using normal editors and when you really rely on those features it sucks. I like how those two choices are starting to converge from both sides, thanks to language servers offering a more standardised way to make editors a bit smarter, as well as other programs getting plugins for using NeoVim as backend for text editing. I just don't feel like any of those two solutions is mature yet.
slightwinder 6y ago
IDE by what standard? IDE only means integration of tools, not neccessarily that the integration is state of the art. Go back 10, 20 years, and what IDEs could do back then, Vim can now too. On some parts, it's even touching the realm of modern IDEs (mostly because of LSP and VS Code's effort to make it possible for editors). There are also now "distributions" of vim-configurations, which are taking care of delivering the IDE-experience out of the box and maintained by someone else. Also, don't forget that vi(m) by design is meant to be integrated as the editor-component in the environment of the unix-shell. So it always was part of an IDE from the beginning. Though, it's true that there is an limit on how much it can do with it's momentary ability and architecture. It's textual, so it' can't copy the GUI-Components of modern IDEs or the assistants. Meaning it will likely always stay a second rate-IDE. But I guess that's ok. You don't need to be the best at every aspect of the workflow. At the end the final results are what matter.

pugworthy 6y ago

I share that perspective, but then I guess it comes from using VI (then VIM) for a long time. When IDEs came along, I appreciated what they added in terms of references and build integrations, but as far as being editors of text, they didn't do much for me. Managers of complex text, yes.

pjmlp 6y ago
Came along into UNIX world, I was dismayed when comparing my Xenix VI experience with Turbo Pascal for MS-DOS, let alone the Windows 3.x versions. Or even against programmers editors like SlickEdit.

alpaca128 6y ago

Sure, an IDE comes with all the tools and features right out of the box. But not everyone needs all of them. I don't see a problem with combining tools, which is really easy with Vim as it already runs in the terminal. I installed a couple plugins in Vim. But those all provide features I actually use and they barely affect performance. But more importantly I just prefer the Vim approach: start out with a minimal UI and feature set and only add or tweak what is needed. No weird and distracting auto-formatting while I'm still typing, more intuitive tabs/buffers and nothing running in the background all the time. I might be an outlier because most editors and IDEs have standard configs that I find distracting and frustrating, but I rather put a motor and bags on my bicycle than start cutting down a truck.

kelnos 6y ago
I've tried for years to find the right combination of plugins and configs to make vim (and now neovim) as comfortable as IntelliJ for "large" languages (like Java & Scala), and I still can't do it. I actually very much agree with you that IntelliJ's all-batteries-included bits can be distracting and frustrating at times, and it's annoying to track down and disable the stuff you don't want. The memory usage makes me cry; occasionally the OOM killer murders it on my 16GB laptop. But IntelliJ actually does all the things I want it to, reliably, and (mostly) without fuss. vim/nvim just... doesn't. Or I haven't figured out how to get it to do it after hours of trying, which amounts to the same thing. It makes me super sad, because a part of me rebels at having to use a giant IDE to be productive, but that's just been my experience. I too would rather put a motor and bags on my bicycle than start cutting down a truck, but I haven't found a motor and bags that fit and work right for me, after more work than is reasonable trying.
- alpaca128 6y ago
  Yes, Java projects are the reason why I still sometimes use an IDE as well. I agree that there still are some gaps when using normal editors and when you really rely on those features it sucks. I like how those two choices are starting to converge from both sides, thanks to language servers offering a more standardised way to make editors a bit smarter, as well as other programs getting plugins for using NeoVim as backend for text editing. I just don't feel like any of those two solutions is mature yet.

slightwinder 6y ago

IDE by what standard? IDE only means integration of tools, not neccessarily that the integration is state of the art. Go back 10, 20 years, and what IDEs could do back then, Vim can now too. On some parts, it's even touching the realm of modern IDEs (mostly because of LSP and VS Code's effort to make it possible for editors). There are also now "distributions" of vim-configurations, which are taking care of delivering the IDE-experience out of the box and maintained by someone else. Also, don't forget that vi(m) by design is meant to be integrated as the editor-component in the environment of the unix-shell. So it always was part of an IDE from the beginning. Though, it's true that there is an limit on how much it can do with it's momentary ability and architecture. It's textual, so it' can't copy the GUI-Components of modern IDEs or the assistants. Meaning it will likely always stay a second rate-IDE. But I guess that's ok. You don't need to be the best at every aspect of the workflow. At the end the final results are what matter.