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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
by 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 agoI know that either G or gg was added in vim, but I don't remember which.
- jrootabega 4y agoYes, 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 agoI 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.