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The Future of the Vim Project
- junon 3y agoBest of luck, this transition period is going to be chaotic for a while I'm sure. Glad to see the project in the hands of someone who seems to be on top of things. I also appreciate the carefulness of changes to the codebase after assuming leadership.
- meitham 3y agoI do hope this gets taken as a chance to merge Vim and Neovim, otherwise a divided community is not great for the editor
- ctenb 3y agoYes, although the forks have diverged quite a bit by now :(
- oblio 3y agoTrue, but if there's a will, there's a way. They can compromise on the process and maybe aim for a medium to long term merge. I.e. they start aligning coding conventions, standards, etc, and when they're ready 1-2 years from now they pull the switch and re-merge the code bases.
- halostatue 3y agoThere is one thing that vim provides that the neovim folks have said that they will never provide, and that’s a GUI. Unless the vim project gives that up (and there will be significant outrage over that), or unless the neovim folks give up that particularly shortsighted stance (having a first-party cross-platform pluggable GUI is a good thing), I do not see a merge ever happening.
- kzrdude 3y agoWhy not? vim and neovim have been separate for a long time already, wouldn't it work to continue like that?
- meitham 3y agoThere’s no future to Vim without Bram. A merge of the two fork’s isn’t what Bram has wanted, but it’s the best way to keep Vim alive
- oblio 3y agoI wouldn't be so dismissive. Vim is a marquee project, tons of hackers will want to contribute because it's cool or because they want to have that name on their CV.
- krossitalk 3y agoPretty much this. I'd like to take a crack at updating that vim.org page away from PHP5/MySQL.
- The_Colonel 3y ago> tons of hackers will want to contribute because it's cool It's one thing to contribute a couple of PRs/patches, a very different thing to spend a large part of your free time on the project for years (which is what Bram did to make vim what it is). These projects are no joke and a few hurray contributors not lasting more than a couple of months won't cut it.
- ftaghn 3y ago> These projects are no joke and a few hurray contributors not lasting more than a couple of months won't cut it. Those same contributors that remained on vim instead of neovim didn't put much effort into vim9 ecosystem either. I can't imagine them being willing to maintain all of vim's baggage when literally nobody writes vim9script. Classic vimmers tend to stick to the old vimscript. As you said, contributing a few patches to classic vim is one thing, but becoming an actual maintainer of the behemoth that comes with a ton of useless baggage is a whole another thing. Maintaining a programming language no one uses.. sisyphus would be proud.
- nerdponx 3y agoThey're already getting to the point of being two different editors with a common lineage and legacy support for Vimscript. The Neovim people also probably don't want to re-merge with Vim, it would probably have to be Vim basically winding down development. Doesn't seem likely.
- bhaak 3y ago> They're already getting to the point of being two different editors with a common lineage and legacy support for Vimscript. Let's see how much traction Vimscript9 will get. From the distant view of an outsider I got strong NIH vibes from that. > it would probably have to be Vim basically winding down development. Doesn't seem likely. It depends on how much Bram was the main focus point of development and if the remaining contributors are able to transition to a less centric development structure. I would rather expect a EGCS/GCC "merger" than a true code merger. But only time will tell.
- ftaghn 3y ago> Let's see how much traction Vimscript9 will get. In practice, none. It's a wasteland. Extensions that aim to be compatible with both vim / neovim use the old vimscript, while lua has very, very significant traction in the neovim world among people who try to bring IDE like feature to vim. The amount of people willing to write extensions that only work on vim proper, which is what would happen if they used vim9script, is close to non existent. > I would rather expect a EGCS/GCC "merger" Or libav vs ffmpeg.
- Legion 3y ago> Let's see how much traction Vimscript9 will get. From the distant view of an outsider I got strong NIH vibes from that. Honestly, that's what most recent Vim development in the Neovim era looks like to me. Bram rejected async patches for years. Neovim gets made and proves out the demand for async. Vim suddenly is motivated to cook up their own, incompatible version of async. When Neovim began, I thought the inevitable future was the Vim project cherry-picking the best features from Neovim each time such a feature reached sufficient maturity and popularity, and merging Neovim's implementations back into the core project. I underestimated how strong the NIH syndrome was with Vim proper.
- suprjami 3y agoI don't. Neovim have dropped "old useless" features which are the entire reason I use Vim.
- djtango 3y agoI've not tried neovim mostly because I'm hopelessly loyal. curious what features were cut?
- suprjami 3y agovim-cscope, which is the only reasonable way to read large C projects like the Linux kernel or BSD
- School-Cotton 3y agoWhat’s wrong with clangd via lsp?
- devnullbrain 3y agon.b. LSP support was the reason cscope support was dropped
- kps 3y agoFor one thing, LSP (last I checked) was still unable to distinguish between read and write.
- suprjami 3y agoYou need to build the project to generate compilation database. I switch around kernel versions far too often for that to be viable.
- random_mutex 3y agoWhat features?
- 3y ago
- vxNsr 3y agoEveryone puts off estate planning in general for obvious reasons (most people don’t want to think about their own mortality) all the more so, most don’t give a thought to digital estate planning, it’s especially hard because there are very few resources to do it and most apps/websites don’t have that workflow planned out (Afaik, really only Facebook does anything for this). My wife and I share a password manager account so theoretically she should have access to every site I use, but will she know where to go? Will she have any clue how to maintain our local self hosted services? Let alone the hardware? I’ve walked her through restarting the esxi server and ssh’ing into the main docker server to restart it, but I haven’t documented any of this anywhere for her…
- RobertSponge 3y agoI scrapped my self built server that runs snowflake TrueNAS with zfs doodads and replaced it with simple synology. It has mostly default settings with no encryption. My wife has no idea about tech and I want it to be easy for her to access our digitised family media and documents, once I no longer around. Any tech literate people/shop can figure out how to pull data out of synology.
- em-bee 3y agoas long as she has the passwords she can ask others for help. if you have kids, maybe they can learn how to run your things.
- oblio 3y agoI hope both Vim and Neovim extend olive branches (and Git branches where it makes sense! :-D ). Even if the fork doesn't heal, if they could align the code bases to bring them closer, both sides win.
- goku12 3y agoNeovim team has always been positive towards Vim. This post doesn't paint the Vim team as being hostile either. However, I really wonder how practical a merge is, considering that neovim isn't a fork or Vim, rather an implementation from scratch. Edit: Looks like I'm wrong about neovim not being a fork of vim.
- bombcar 3y agoThese types of mergers have occurred in the past and it usually is the dominant project adopting the use and feel of the features the other has different. Shells acting differently depending on how you call them, for example.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y agoI am not sure how you reconcile some of the philosophical differences between the projects. One of the first objectives of NeoVIM was to dump code for obsolete computing platforms. A ton of legacy code was deliberately removed so as to streamline the project. If I recall correctly, one of the reasons the original async patch was ostensibly rejected was because it would rely on a C89(?) compiler. That was considered too disruptive a change that would make Vim accessible on fewer platforms.
- bombcar 3y agoIt’s brutal to say it, but often you handle it by some of the people involved passing away. Even if neovim basically takes over the older vim code wouldn’t disappear, so it would continue to exist for older platforms. People still keep certain versions of GCC around for similar reasons. Or you abuse the preprocessor and automake.
- OskarS 3y agoMy brother passed away very suddenly a few years ago, and I was put in charge of wrapping up and archiving his "digital" life. We were very lucky that we had access to a recovery email for his main gmail account (as well as a couple of passwords that his partner knew) and was able to access and archive virtually all data we could think of (services like Google Takeout were invaluable). I realized that if this had happened to me, it would have been virtually impossible to do, as all my passwords and credentials are in my password manager, and the password to that was only in my head. It's a good thing to plan for this eventuality, to make it easy for your family and friends to wind up your "digital life" after you've passed. 1Password has a very good solution for this, with a "recovery document" you can print out and write down your password on, which contains instructions anyone else would need to access your 1Password account. I gave a copy of this document printed out to a small number of people I trust implicitly. You never know when something sudden can happen to you. For the sake of those you leave behind, it's a nice gift to plan for this eventuality, even if it seems far off at the moment.
- bombcar 3y agoThis is one of the reasons that I’ve begun to pare down the number of online financial accounts I have, even though churning for bonuses is fun. Every single one will have to be dealt with eventually by someone, so if I can reduce the number of banks I deal with it’s worth it, even at some small cost of not being “perfectly optimal”.
- OJFord 3y agoBanks are the last thing I'd worry about (I wouldn't) - they're highly regulated, audited, and have been dealing with this forever, since before 'passwords'.
- bombcar 3y agoI have no worry about the funds being lost. It’s just imagining my heirs having to contact and close fifty+ accounts.
- thrownaway561 3y agodeepest sympathies for Bram and the VIM community. reading the post it seems that the project will continue after some growing pains from the lead. one thing to take from this is projects as popular as VIM need to hand the keys to the kingdom over to the community before anything drastic happens.
- fortunateregard 3y agoWhat is it that prevents the rest of the vim community from adopting neovim? From what I can observe, a great deal already have. But for the folks holding out, what is it that outweighs all that neovim has to offer?
- ALoverOfLats 3y agoCan’t speak for everyone but in my day to day most systems I work with already come with vim preinstalled or more convenient to install than neovim. I’d rather just pull my vimrc (If I even have to) and get down to editing quickly.
- suprjami 3y agocscope support
- sdfghswe 3y agoFrom my admittedly somewhat limited experience, neovim felt a bit more sluggish to launch. Not a good sign.
- petepete 3y agonvim --clean --startuptime /tmp/neovim 003.174 000.001: --- NVIM STARTED --- vs vim --clean --startuptime /tmp/vim 004.274 000.001: --- VIM STARTED --- Maybe your config had an impact on it, but config-free they're incredibly close.
- sylware 3y agoAny interpo noscript/basic (x)html link?
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37075688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37075688 links https://web.archive.org/web/20230810094255/groups.google.com/g/vim_dev/c/dq9Wu5jqVTw https://web.archive.org/web/20230810094255/groups.google.com... which seems to load for me without JS
- sylware 3y agoworking in links and lynx and etc. Thank you very much.
- gpvos 3y agoI'm getting "Something went wrong. Please try again later." (both latest FF and Chrome). I don't think HN can slashdot Google yet, any ideas?
- ritzaco 3y agoI get the same on firefox with ublock origin, but it works if I turn off ublock or use chrome. on my android firefox, I can't load any google properties - it just redirects to a help page about how to clear my cache (clearing the cache doesn't help)
- bondant 3y agoI had no problem browsing that page with firefox a few hours ago, but it's not working anymore. So yes, maybe the servers handling google groups are a little too busy.
- gpvos 3y agoIt's showing for me now, so apparently there was some kind of temporary problem, maybe busy servers indeed.
- bjord 3y agoI had to join the group in order to see the conversation(s).
- toastal 3y agoThis would have been the perfect time to pivot away from Google Groups & Microsoft GitHub
- jitl 3y agoShaking up the community right now would probably make efforts to continue Vim’s development more challenging, and make it more likely remaining contributors switch over to Neovim.
- marcthe12 3y agoGoogle groups I can't comment but Github is a relative new thing. They were also still accepting patches on the mailing list(I believe the github pull request were mirrored to the ml or something like that). Bram was often replying to issues and pull request via email so github adoption doesn't seem to what Bram wanted. So no migration away from github.
- majewsky 3y agoCan someone copy-paste the text, please? I cannot read it because Google hates Firefox users apparently. EDIT: The Internet Archive has a functional copy. https://web.archive.org/web/20230810094255/groups.google.com/g/vim_dev/c/dq9Wu5jqVTw https://web.archive.org/web/20230810094255/groups.google.com...
- hoten 3y agoThe page isn't loading on my mobile Chrome either.
- sigzero 3y agoNo issues with FF for me. Probably the HN effect maybe?
- thejammahimself 3y agoI've tried loading on Chromium but that doesn't work either it seems.
- jefftk 3y agoNot a Firefox-specific issue; I don't see it loading in Chrome either.
- GoblinSlayer 3y agoDidn't know web archive could see it. Google groups never worked for me, so I assumed it's yet another broken web 2.0 app.
- javier_e06 3y agoI'm saddened by the news. Required reading: https://evrone.com/blog/bram-moolenaar-interview https://evrone.com/blog/bram-moolenaar-interview "Software development is much more of a craft. A craftsman uses whatever tools he thinks will get the best result, no matter if they are what everybody else is using or something different. And a good craftsman makes his own tools when needed" -B. Moolenar. As someone who had made vim is part of the development dna: Thank you.
- jauntywundrkind 3y agoEmbodies the most amazing part about vim well. From text-objects to macros to registers, vim is a dynamic programming environment where we are capturing state and invoking little scripts. Vim is spellcasting in the fly. Not puzzling out complex rotes to perform dutifully, but building a potent ether around us & then applying a little twist just so to alter the universe around us.
- fl0ki 3y agoThis is not a dig, just a concerned citizen: I would encourage you to check whether your microdose schedule has crept up from the standard 10-25µg into what looks like 50-75µg. It's one of those things that other people suspect long before you do. In any case, have fun, practice safe sorcery.
- pwpw 3y agoI never realized a tool I use every day was still being actively maintained. An endless amount of thanks to Bram Moolenaar, the many others that have contributed to it, and those that are now helping in the transition. —- As an aside, browsing this website on an iPad is terrible. It doesn’t respect my request to increase the font size, and when I zoom in, it starts moving and wrapping the text defeating the purpose of the zoom. That being said, the quote formatting and response is fantastic and how online communication should be.
- ducktective 3y agoDidn't Bram himself say anything on this matter? (I know of that one single quote "keep me alive"). RIP Bram, I learned a lot from you.
- fnord77 3y agogoogle groups won't even load > Something went wrong. Please try again later.
- earth2mars 3y agoWhy so many people love vim? I have a genuine question. I was trying to delete contents of a file and paste new content. It was nightmare for me to remember the 3 or 4 finger combination shortcuts with small and cap letters involved during the process. I like if the shortcuts using Ctrl or shift or Alt or Command or Windows buttons over 3 finger with caps changing keys. The cognitive load in remembering shortcuts is nightmare. Please give me a genuine opinion and justification. Does it really makes someone that productive? If they are keyboard wizards to type faster can't they do even faster with modern ides with similar proficiency. I know this topic is near and dear to many. Especially, the creator is died and folks can get even emotional. But I have same complaints about any terminal based ides. I just don't get complex long form keyboard shortcuts! Edit: typo
- artogahr 3y agoThe point is you don't remember them, they become second nature, intuition, and you just sort of... do it without thinking. Assuming you've given time to learn it, editing with vim takes less mental effort and is faster.
- tuwtuwtuwtuw 3y agoDo you have any source for that claim? I had a coworker who swore that X was the fastest way to do Y. Turned out it wasn't and X just made him very busy hitting keyboard quickly.
- medeshago 3y agoWhat source can he give you? It's clearly a personal annecdote that is shared between a lot of people that use vim. What kind of source are you thinking about?
- tuwtuwtuwtuw 3y agoI don't know, I'm not the one who made the claim that X was faster than Y. Are you saying that studying how efficient various text editors are for some groups of people is not possible? Here's what I believe to be an example of some study on how text editors compare: https://mjambon.github.io/vim-vs-emacs/ https://mjambon.github.io/vim-vs-emacs/ Not saying that this is a good study - I haven't even read it. Merely providing it as an example that at some point a study has been made in this area.
- nunez 3y agoGoogle webcached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EFAGYiTVo38J:https://groups.google.com/g/vim_dev/c/dq9Wu5jqVTw&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EFAGYiT...
- causi 3y agoI keep a couple of m-discs in my gun safe encrypted with a password most of my family knows, but they don't know the safe combination. If I kick the bucket they can cut the hinges off in a few minutes with my angle grinder. They could also use my corpse's finger to unlock my phone but that's a bit morbid.
- markstos 3y agoWith lazy.nvim, I started with like 60 plugins in 17 milliseconds. The resulting feature set was closer to VS Code than Vi. If that’s “slow”, it was still so fast it felt instant.
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- Nellyz 3y ago[dead]