4 ms·

Viper mode is terrible though. Half the things I am used to in proper Vim do not work correctly in Viper mode. I don't remember those annoyances anymore but som

by distcs 4y ago

Viper mode is terrible though. Half the things I am used to in proper Vim do not work correctly in Viper mode. I don't remember those annoyances anymore but someone who has recently tried viper mode may be able to share the details. (Edit: Turns out I do remember some of the annoyances. See the grandchild comment below where I have noted some examples.) I found Evil mode is so much better at emulating Vim than viper mode.

jrootabega 4y ago
viper is just a vi layer, not vim, as far as I know. Being able to have basic vi movement and operators is where most of the value in vi[m] layers comes from, IMO, and I haven't yet found any problems there. The most recent bug I've been aware of in viper (not that I am any authority here) was when the Emacs maintainers broke basic Emacs alt/meta key sequences when viper was active, and that happened because they just weren't thinking/caring about viper, which is the reason I spoke up here in the first place - people don't really think about it and it gets neglected. It's a vicious cycle.
- distcs 4y ago
  So I fired up Emacs: emacs -q M-x viper-mode RET Chose expert level 1 for beginners so that it is closest to Vi behavior. (Recommended level is at least 3 but that does not make a difference for what I am about to explain.) C-x C-f foo.txt RET i hello world RET hello world RET hello world RET ESC Looking good so far. gg Does nothing!! Okay no problem. Let me try: :0 RET Good. I am back to the top line. V Instead of starting visual line mode, it brings up find file minibuffer. So that's 2 problems already from 2 minutes of using Viper. I have to admit though that I come from Vim (not Vi) so maybe my expectations are not fair for Viper. Is gg a Vi command or Vim? I can't remember. But I expect these basic things to work. It is this kind of stuff that used to trip me up often that I discontinued Viper and went with Evil. BTW this list of annoyances in Viper keeps going on and on. - dab, da(, di(, dib, etc. don't delete a block. - gqq, gqgq, etc. don't reformat paragraphs. - * does not search for the current word - and so on and so on Maybe I am being unfair to Viper but I guess you can see why in 2023, a Vim user might want to skip Viper completely and go straight to Evil.
  - aidenn0 4y ago
    I know that either G or gg was added in vim, but I don't remember which.
  - jrootabega 4y ago
    Yes, gg and v/V appear to be vim-only commands. One vi counterpart to gg is 1G. Visual mode is a vim-only concept, I believe. The rest of them, I would bet are vim-only. Yes, I can see why, if you require all of these vim features, viper would not be good for you. "Viper mode is terrible though." was not a good way to express this. The title of the thread, and the name of the package (incorrectly) state that it is a vi layer, so it's natural to mention the vi layer that's built into Emacs. It's definitely something that people should remain aware of and still provides value. IMO, Emacs + viper is significantly better than just Emacs, so it's worth knowing about. Comparing its vi functionality against vim is definitely good, but it being forgotten and neglected is not.
    - jrootabega 4y ago
      I should add that I would love to see viper mode enhanced to (perhaps optionally) support some vim functionality, and I admit I would find it silly if someone said that viper should only ever support strict vi functionality. But I would also be sad if people used the existence of Evil as a reason to declare viper dead.
    - distcs 4y ago
      > "Viper mode is terrible though." was not a good way to express this. Agreed and thanks for calling it out. Will be more careful next time.
- aidenn0 4y ago
  It is impossible for me to switch between vim and viper. My hands will just start doing a text manipulation that doesn't work in whichever I'm currently using, and it breaks my flow. Prior to evil-mode, when I used emacs for something, I used it without viper because at least then it was so very different that it didn't trick my subconscious into doing something that wouldn't work. With a few tweaks to my config, I never have that problem with evil.
- distcs 4y ago
  > "It sucks, but I can't substantiate that" is not really good discussion. Agreed! Fixed that. See sibling comment of mine.
  - jrootabega 4y ago
    adjusted mine as well

by distcs 4y ago

jrootabega 4y ago

viper is just a vi layer, not vim, as far as I know. Being able to have basic vi movement and operators is where most of the value in vi[m] layers comes from, IMO, and I haven't yet found any problems there. The most recent bug I've been aware of in viper (not that I am any authority here) was when the Emacs maintainers broke basic Emacs alt/meta key sequences when viper was active, and that happened because they just weren't thinking/caring about viper, which is the reason I spoke up here in the first place - people don't really think about it and it gets neglected. It's a vicious cycle.

distcs 4y ago
So I fired up Emacs: emacs -q M-x viper-mode RET Chose expert level 1 for beginners so that it is closest to Vi behavior. (Recommended level is at least 3 but that does not make a difference for what I am about to explain.) C-x C-f foo.txt RET i hello world RET hello world RET hello world RET ESC Looking good so far. gg Does nothing!! Okay no problem. Let me try: :0 RET Good. I am back to the top line. V Instead of starting visual line mode, it brings up find file minibuffer. So that's 2 problems already from 2 minutes of using Viper. I have to admit though that I come from Vim (not Vi) so maybe my expectations are not fair for Viper. Is gg a Vi command or Vim? I can't remember. But I expect these basic things to work. It is this kind of stuff that used to trip me up often that I discontinued Viper and went with Evil. BTW this list of annoyances in Viper keeps going on and on. - dab, da(, di(, dib, etc. don't delete a block. - gqq, gqgq, etc. don't reformat paragraphs. - * does not search for the current word - and so on and so on Maybe I am being unfair to Viper but I guess you can see why in 2023, a Vim user might want to skip Viper completely and go straight to Evil.
- aidenn0 4y ago
  I know that either G or gg was added in vim, but I don't remember which.
- jrootabega 4y ago
  Yes, gg and v/V appear to be vim-only commands. One vi counterpart to gg is 1G. Visual mode is a vim-only concept, I believe. The rest of them, I would bet are vim-only. Yes, I can see why, if you require all of these vim features, viper would not be good for you. "Viper mode is terrible though." was not a good way to express this. The title of the thread, and the name of the package (incorrectly) state that it is a vi layer, so it's natural to mention the vi layer that's built into Emacs. It's definitely something that people should remain aware of and still provides value. IMO, Emacs + viper is significantly better than just Emacs, so it's worth knowing about. Comparing its vi functionality against vim is definitely good, but it being forgotten and neglected is not.
  - jrootabega 4y ago
    I should add that I would love to see viper mode enhanced to (perhaps optionally) support some vim functionality, and I admit I would find it silly if someone said that viper should only ever support strict vi functionality. But I would also be sad if people used the existence of Evil as a reason to declare viper dead.
  - distcs 4y ago
    > "Viper mode is terrible though." was not a good way to express this. Agreed and thanks for calling it out. Will be more careful next time.
aidenn0 4y ago
It is impossible for me to switch between vim and viper. My hands will just start doing a text manipulation that doesn't work in whichever I'm currently using, and it breaks my flow. Prior to evil-mode, when I used emacs for something, I used it without viper because at least then it was so very different that it didn't trick my subconscious into doing something that wouldn't work. With a few tweaks to my config, I never have that problem with evil.
distcs 4y ago
> "It sucks, but I can't substantiate that" is not really good discussion. Agreed! Fixed that. See sibling comment of mine.
- jrootabega 4y ago
  adjusted mine as well