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This landing page doesn't really provide any reasons to use LunarVim. What features does it have? What does it look like? What can it do that plain Neovim, V

by mkl 5y ago

This landing page doesn't really provide any reasons to use LunarVim. What features does it have? What does it look like? What can it do that plain Neovim, Vim, or other IDES can't?

extr 5y ago
Speaking as someone who just yesterday was having a hell of a time getting NVIM configured with basic autocomplete, I was immediately interested. I would love to use VIM and it's ecosystem of plugins but I don't have 100s (1000s) of hours of patience getting everything tweaked and working well. Assuming OP works as well as it claims, I would literally pay a monthly subscription for it.
- muhmud 5y ago
  That's basically it; you get LSP, Treesitter, completion, snippets, ... all setup and ready to go. I've been using it for a few weeks now and it's pretty nice. If you want to try it, use the rolling branch.
  - extr 5y ago
    So, I just gave it a shot. Seems pretty nice, definitely pretty syntax highlighting and basic autocomplete was simple to get up and running. However, I think this project has the same issue as basic VIM/NVIM, in that if you're coming from something like VS Code it's not super obvious what plugins account for what functionality, or how you can replicate your workflow. For example, I had to google "Treesitter", which seems to be an AST parser. Okay, that's awesome that they have that, but what exactly do that do for me? On top of that, immediately ran into issues with the autocomplete not picking up my venv, not completing function signatures, etc etc. And diving into the config now apparently means I need to learn the lua language. Sorry don't mean to rant to you specifically. Just secretly wish I was one of these 20 year VIM guys with perfectly honed configs, but not enough time in the day.
    - hossbeast 5y ago
      As a 20 year VIM guy, my configs are not perfectly honed, I still regularly learn new tricks, and I still feel like there's a ton I don't know.
      - askonomm 5y ago
        And will you, on your deathbed, not regret all the time put under making a coding environment work to your liking? I personally can't imagine putting so much of my most valuable asset under what is essentially just editor config. But then again I'm a millennial so what do I know.
        thih9 5y ago
        The idea is to configure your editor so that it enhances your productivity. E.g. you spend 1 hour on editor config, but then you finish 8h of work in 6h because you work faster. More likely the improvement is minimal and it’s recovered across many sessions. But still, the net result is supposed to be positive by a large margin.
        Lio 5y ago
        "The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life." It's a bit like trying to write the perfect piece of software. Some people wouldn't bother with the effort and would instead use something written by others, I mean we all do that to some extent. It comes down to, why do anything? If you do want to make anything or do anything, it's never a wasted effort, even though you'll never succeed in doing that perfectly.
        michaelmrose 5y ago
        https://xkcd.com/1205/ https://xkcd.com/1205/ Over a 5 year time frame something that saves one second per day is worth about half an hour of time. Something that saves 5 seconds 20 times a day is worth 50 hours of work. Over 20 years its worth 2 hours and 200 hours respectively. It's probably pretty easy to find optimizations in any environment that are trivially a positive investment of what you correctly note is your most valuable asset.
- petepete 5y ago
  The easiest way to get up and running with autocomplete in Neovim is Coc. https://github.com/neoclide/coc.nvim https://github.com/neoclide/coc.nvim You can go down the native LSP route too but I suspect this is what gave you trouble. It certainly confused me.
armchairhacker 5y ago
Especially compare it to SpaceMacs (https://www.spacemacs.org https://www.spacemacs.org), another vim IDE with a similar name. I bet LunarVim is supposed to be an improvement of SpaceMacs, but how?
- pxc 5y ago
  There are already two Spacemacs-inspired vim distributions called 'spacevim' (maybe one has given way to the other by now, idr), so this might just be a similar project with a name that hopes to be more distinctive.
- d3nj4l 5y ago
  Space macs is an eMacs district with plugins to make it feel more like vim, so it definitely isn’t a “vim ide”
  - garren 5y ago
    Spacemacs has holy-mode so it’s not just to make it emacs feel like vim. It’s curated and managed like a distribution, and in my opinion makes emacs much more accessible. I’d say in both cases, once you have editor support for syntax highlighting, refactoring, autocomplete/intellisense, live/interactive error reporting, etc. you’ve stepped out of the realm of text editing and squarely into IDE territory. A fully loaded Spacemacs install (and by the looks of it, LunarVim) is not Eclipse or VS with reSharper, but they compete and are well beyond a simple text editing.
chrisatmachine 5y ago
I plan to add a video in the future, I plan to add videos for every language supported some time soon.
- mkl 5y ago
  I think simple bullet points and screenshots would probably be both easier and better.

by mkl 5y ago

This landing page doesn't really provide any reasons to use LunarVim. What features does it have? What does it look like? What can it do that plain Neovim, Vim, or other IDES can't?

extr 5y ago

Speaking as someone who just yesterday was having a hell of a time getting NVIM configured with basic autocomplete, I was immediately interested. I would love to use VIM and it's ecosystem of plugins but I don't have 100s (1000s) of hours of patience getting everything tweaked and working well. Assuming OP works as well as it claims, I would literally pay a monthly subscription for it.

muhmud 5y ago
That's basically it; you get LSP, Treesitter, completion, snippets, ... all setup and ready to go. I've been using it for a few weeks now and it's pretty nice. If you want to try it, use the rolling branch.
- extr 5y ago
  So, I just gave it a shot. Seems pretty nice, definitely pretty syntax highlighting and basic autocomplete was simple to get up and running. However, I think this project has the same issue as basic VIM/NVIM, in that if you're coming from something like VS Code it's not super obvious what plugins account for what functionality, or how you can replicate your workflow. For example, I had to google "Treesitter", which seems to be an AST parser. Okay, that's awesome that they have that, but what exactly do that do for me? On top of that, immediately ran into issues with the autocomplete not picking up my venv, not completing function signatures, etc etc. And diving into the config now apparently means I need to learn the lua language. Sorry don't mean to rant to you specifically. Just secretly wish I was one of these 20 year VIM guys with perfectly honed configs, but not enough time in the day.
  - hossbeast 5y ago
    As a 20 year VIM guy, my configs are not perfectly honed, I still regularly learn new tricks, and I still feel like there's a ton I don't know.
    - askonomm 5y ago
      And will you, on your deathbed, not regret all the time put under making a coding environment work to your liking? I personally can't imagine putting so much of my most valuable asset under what is essentially just editor config. But then again I'm a millennial so what do I know.
      - thih9 5y ago
        The idea is to configure your editor so that it enhances your productivity. E.g. you spend 1 hour on editor config, but then you finish 8h of work in 6h because you work faster. More likely the improvement is minimal and it’s recovered across many sessions. But still, the net result is supposed to be positive by a large margin.
      - Lio 5y ago
        "The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life." It's a bit like trying to write the perfect piece of software. Some people wouldn't bother with the effort and would instead use something written by others, I mean we all do that to some extent. It comes down to, why do anything? If you do want to make anything or do anything, it's never a wasted effort, even though you'll never succeed in doing that perfectly.
      - michaelmrose 5y ago
        https://xkcd.com/1205/ https://xkcd.com/1205/ Over a 5 year time frame something that saves one second per day is worth about half an hour of time. Something that saves 5 seconds 20 times a day is worth 50 hours of work. Over 20 years its worth 2 hours and 200 hours respectively. It's probably pretty easy to find optimizations in any environment that are trivially a positive investment of what you correctly note is your most valuable asset.
petepete 5y ago
The easiest way to get up and running with autocomplete in Neovim is Coc. https://github.com/neoclide/coc.nvim https://github.com/neoclide/coc.nvim You can go down the native LSP route too but I suspect this is what gave you trouble. It certainly confused me.

armchairhacker 5y ago

Especially compare it to SpaceMacs (https://www.spacemacs.org https://www.spacemacs.org), another vim IDE with a similar name. I bet LunarVim is supposed to be an improvement of SpaceMacs, but how?

pxc 5y ago
There are already two Spacemacs-inspired vim distributions called 'spacevim' (maybe one has given way to the other by now, idr), so this might just be a similar project with a name that hopes to be more distinctive.
d3nj4l 5y ago
Space macs is an eMacs district with plugins to make it feel more like vim, so it definitely isn’t a “vim ide”
- garren 5y ago
  Spacemacs has holy-mode so it’s not just to make it emacs feel like vim. It’s curated and managed like a distribution, and in my opinion makes emacs much more accessible. I’d say in both cases, once you have editor support for syntax highlighting, refactoring, autocomplete/intellisense, live/interactive error reporting, etc. you’ve stepped out of the realm of text editing and squarely into IDE territory. A fully loaded Spacemacs install (and by the looks of it, LunarVim) is not Eclipse or VS with reSharper, but they compete and are well beyond a simple text editing.

chrisatmachine 5y ago

I plan to add a video in the future, I plan to add videos for every language supported some time soon.

mkl 5y ago
I think simple bullet points and screenshots would probably be both easier and better.