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I'd honestly point folks towards Helix[0] these days if they don't already have something keeping them on neovim/vim. There's very little in the ways of needin

I'd honestly point folks towards Helix[0] these days if they don't already have something keeping them on neovim/vim. There's very little in the ways of needing to configure Helix; it has built-in most functionality that you'd find with batteries-included vim "distributions" and it works out of the box with the installed LSP servers on your system. [0]: https://github.com/helix-editor/helix https://github.com/helix-editor/helix

noloblo 4y ago
AFAIK is not fully compatible with Vim keystrokes
- jzelinskie 4y ago
  Correct. If you've got no background in vim, it might be a good thing Helix has broken "backwards compatibility" in order to have more cohesive key-bindings.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    But then you'd not be comfortable with the hundreds if not thousands of other packages out there that use vim bindings.
    - jzelinskie 4y ago
      I think folks might be over-estimating the difference between the Helix and vim. IME, adding "ge" to Vimium[0] was good enough to avoid any conflicting muscle-memory. I think many folks configuring their vimrc are deviating equally as far or farther than the Helix defaults. I'm not sure that I buy the purity argument -- almost all "vim modes" in other software are interpretations of the vim key-bindings and not an embeded vim/neovim engine. As a result, they all have their own caveats and folks using vim get used to functionality that exists exclusively in their vimrc. Often times vim mode just means supporting "hjkl". [0]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vimium/dbepggeogbaibhgnhhndojpepiihcmeb https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vimium/dbepggeogba...
  - noloblo 4y ago
    Yes my problem with helix is when the keystrokes that are muscle memory in Vim don't have any actions in helix this makes it problematic to move to helix over moving to neovim for example neovim retains most if not all the vi keystrokes not just out of respect to the vi authors
loveparade 4y ago
Helix itself looks amazing, but the keybindings make me stay away from it. Even if they are better than the original, I don't want to learn another set of "non-standard" keybindings that I need to switch between only to use an editor.
- ckolkey 4y ago
  Exactly. Vim keybinding are used in so many other places, it seems like a waste to learn a bespoke set of mapping just for a vim like editor.
- sundarurfriend 4y ago
  It's the opposite for me, the keybindings are the best feature IMO. It's like all the niggling little things that didn't make sense back when learning the Vim keybindings, have all been removed and replaced with things that make more of a coherent whole. I can't use it yet because of the lack of addons/an ecosystem, but I hope to one day either move to helix or bring as much of this sensible keybindings system over to neovim as possible.
extr 4y ago
I've been using helix the last week or so. I can confirm everything "just works". My config file is not a turing-complete nightmare, it's literally 10 lines and took about 15 minutes to set up, most of that being personal preference on UI. Great program. I've tried vim-as-IDE many times and personally I've found that I just don't have the patience/discipline to get it all set up and not have it become a huge time sink. I end up getting frustrated and start up VS code and what do you know, everything works absolutely perfectly with zero config. So why bother. New programming language? It literally pops up telling me what extension to install and < 5 seconds later it's working.
- wruza 4y ago
  What’s the selling point of helix then? Personally I have one hell of a config, but since you’re fine with vscode defaults, the only thing I’ve really done to vim that counts was cloning ale into a specific vimfiles directory. What was your package set?
  - extr 4y ago
    The selling point is that it's a solid editor with zero config I can use in the terminal for those "in between" tasks where it's not really worth pulling it up in an IDE but worth having some syntax highlighting and LSP support. Think like, I need to make a quick change to a python script in some far flung directory. In/out in less than a minute. Just the fact that you're asking what my package set was is a turnoff for me. There shouldn't be a package set. It should just work. In VS Code when I need the editor to have additional features I just click the button, pick the extension with the highest number of installs, and 99% of the time it immediately does what I want. In vim you play this whole game where you google for it, gather opinions on the "best" plugin for that task, read the README, "just simply add these lines to your lua config", figure out why the keybind is conflicting with your existing keybind setup, etc etc. Goodbye afternoon! I've tried lunarvim, astrovim, etc etc. Those work great! Until you actually do want to change something. Now you're back in config hell, and even worse, because you didn't even design this hell yourself, it's someone else's hell.
    - 4y ago

noloblo 4y ago

AFAIK is not fully compatible with Vim keystrokes

jzelinskie 4y ago
Correct. If you've got no background in vim, it might be a good thing Helix has broken "backwards compatibility" in order to have more cohesive key-bindings.
- colordrops 4y ago
  But then you'd not be comfortable with the hundreds if not thousands of other packages out there that use vim bindings.
  - jzelinskie 4y ago
    I think folks might be over-estimating the difference between the Helix and vim. IME, adding "ge" to Vimium[0] was good enough to avoid any conflicting muscle-memory. I think many folks configuring their vimrc are deviating equally as far or farther than the Helix defaults. I'm not sure that I buy the purity argument -- almost all "vim modes" in other software are interpretations of the vim key-bindings and not an embeded vim/neovim engine. As a result, they all have their own caveats and folks using vim get used to functionality that exists exclusively in their vimrc. Often times vim mode just means supporting "hjkl". [0]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vimium/dbepggeogbaibhgnhhndojpepiihcmeb https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vimium/dbepggeogba...
- noloblo 4y ago
  Yes my problem with helix is when the keystrokes that are muscle memory in Vim don't have any actions in helix this makes it problematic to move to helix over moving to neovim for example neovim retains most if not all the vi keystrokes not just out of respect to the vi authors

loveparade 4y ago

Helix itself looks amazing, but the keybindings make me stay away from it. Even if they are better than the original, I don't want to learn another set of "non-standard" keybindings that I need to switch between only to use an editor.

ckolkey 4y ago
Exactly. Vim keybinding are used in so many other places, it seems like a waste to learn a bespoke set of mapping just for a vim like editor.
sundarurfriend 4y ago
It's the opposite for me, the keybindings are the best feature IMO. It's like all the niggling little things that didn't make sense back when learning the Vim keybindings, have all been removed and replaced with things that make more of a coherent whole. I can't use it yet because of the lack of addons/an ecosystem, but I hope to one day either move to helix or bring as much of this sensible keybindings system over to neovim as possible.

extr 4y ago

I've been using helix the last week or so. I can confirm everything "just works". My config file is not a turing-complete nightmare, it's literally 10 lines and took about 15 minutes to set up, most of that being personal preference on UI. Great program. I've tried vim-as-IDE many times and personally I've found that I just don't have the patience/discipline to get it all set up and not have it become a huge time sink. I end up getting frustrated and start up VS code and what do you know, everything works absolutely perfectly with zero config. So why bother. New programming language? It literally pops up telling me what extension to install and < 5 seconds later it's working.

wruza 4y ago
What’s the selling point of helix then? Personally I have one hell of a config, but since you’re fine with vscode defaults, the only thing I’ve really done to vim that counts was cloning ale into a specific vimfiles directory. What was your package set?
- extr 4y ago
  The selling point is that it's a solid editor with zero config I can use in the terminal for those "in between" tasks where it's not really worth pulling it up in an IDE but worth having some syntax highlighting and LSP support. Think like, I need to make a quick change to a python script in some far flung directory. In/out in less than a minute. Just the fact that you're asking what my package set was is a turnoff for me. There shouldn't be a package set. It should just work. In VS Code when I need the editor to have additional features I just click the button, pick the extension with the highest number of installs, and 99% of the time it immediately does what I want. In vim you play this whole game where you google for it, gather opinions on the "best" plugin for that task, read the README, "just simply add these lines to your lua config", figure out why the keybind is conflicting with your existing keybind setup, etc etc. Goodbye afternoon! I've tried lunarvim, astrovim, etc etc. Those work great! Until you actually do want to change something. Now you're back in config hell, and even worse, because you didn't even design this hell yourself, it's someone else's hell.
  - 4y ago