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Leaving Neovim for Zed

• bibanez 2y ago
  I used Zed on Linux and liked it a lot... until I couldn't write a space in english layout (still worked on alternative layouts). Strange
• ycombinatrix 2y ago
  opens newspaper i should try using a vim plugin at some point
• tengbretson 2y ago
  I've found Zed's vim mode to be great for learning vim without having to give up all of my muscle memory built up from using vscode for so long.
• squidsoup 2y ago
  I’m currently using VS Code with the Neovim extension. Has anyone migrated to Zed from Code? Curious what your experience has been.
  • saghm 2y ago
    I've used VS Code for my Rust development for several years, and I tried out Zed for a couple weeks earlier in the summer. The integration with `rust-analyzer` wasn't super smooth though, so I've switched back for now but would consider trying it again when it's more mature.
  • MrJohz 2y ago
    I've tried it a few times, and each time there's been something missing that was too irritating to live without - stuff like git integration, or extensions that I use a lot. It's nice, but I don't really notice the speed much once the application is open and running, and so I just ended up back at vscode every time.
• jmclnx 2y ago
  When I hear about zed, I have to think for a bit to realize it is not zed.exe that came with Zortech c v1.0 for MS-DOS :)
• bww 2y ago
  I’ve also recently switched (largely) from Vim to Zed and I also think that Zed is in many ways great. At the same time it’s been pretty frustrating to use an editor that is spending so much time building AI integrations, REPLs, and so fourth when basic things like cut and paste and common Vim motions still have so many bugs. I’d love to see them prioritize getting the basics solid first.
  • jph00 2y ago
    Yeah I feel the same way. The fact that Zed uses the system clipboard as the default register in vim mode, for instance, made it impossible to use in practice for me -- having every yank replace my clipboard was a bit of a nightmare!
    • jack_pp 2y ago
      And then there's me that configs vim to use the system clipboard by default
      • metaltyphoon 2y ago
        Same. I can’t stand not having A clipboard for the entire OS
        • Jenk 2y ago
          The `+` register is the system clipboard in vim already. What you're referring to is remapping the `+` register as the default register (in place of the 'unnamed' register, which is accessed explicitly as the `"` register) for some operations - typically yank and paste.
          • metaltyphoon 2y ago
            Yes :)
    • Aeolun 2y ago
      I don’t know. That feels perfectly reasonable for what I imagine is 99% of all developers, so while sad, I can imagine why that use case is not very high on their list of priorities.
• riz_ 2y ago
  I'm wondering if the author ever tried one of the many neovim distributions, which solve a lot of the problem they're describing. All of the plugins and integrations necessary are already set up to create a nice fully featured IDE-style environment. E.g. LazyVim, AstroVim or NvChad
  • wyclif 2y ago
    After years of using Vim as a keyboard assassin, then Neovim (with a custom config initially based on kickstart.nvim), about a month ago I started using LazyVim. After test-driving the default config for just a few hours, I found myself nodding my head and saying to myself, "Yes, this is the way." I had seen some of the other "Neovim as IDE" projects but after looking at them carefully, I decided that LazyVim is generally the most polished one out there. Folke deserves a lot of credit. The breakthrough for me was realising that it's a totally acceptable tradeoff to let other developers who know what they're doing, keep up with the bleeding edge plugin scene, and have generally good opinions make decisions about configuration so I can get real work done and not spend time getting bogged down in ricing and config files.
    • djasnowski 2y ago
      Agreed. I use to switch on and off between vim, neovim and VS Code vim-keybindings until I found AstroVim. When I use AstroVim, I can modify what little I need to knowing the base and foundation is taken care of and I can focus on what matters.
    • Filligree 2y ago
      I tries LazyVim, but on every startup it nags me about version updates, and :x somehow takes 2-3 seconds extra as well. I don't live in the editor; vim is only useful to me if it starts up and quits instantly.
      • wyclif 2y ago
        It sounds like you don't have lazy loading enabled. No way it should take that long to start up, and version updates shouldn't be that frequent.
• AlexErrant 2y ago
  I die inside whenever I use `\<` and `\>` for word boundary regex. Neovim has no plans to change this either. I'll likely switch eventually so I don't have to know two flavors of regex. One is hard enough.
  • dgellow 2y ago
    Only two?! *cry in posix BRE, posix ERE, PCRE, JS regexp, .NET regexp, emacs regexp*
    • AlexErrant 2y ago
      ...you just made me realize I know (some of) the differences between JS and .NET regexp, in addition to vim and PCRE. Profanity.
  • frou_dh 2y ago
    I gather that in really old regex syntax the word boundary syntax used to be like this: [[:<:]]foo[[:>:]] ...so it could be worse!
  • orbisvicis 2y ago
    Use `\v` then `<` and `>`, and you can make it default.
  • oktoberpaard 2y ago
    I just add `\v` (very magic) to make it interpret regex more strictly. I’ve just tested it and you don’t need to escape these anymore to match word boundaries.
  • djaouen 2y ago
    Use \b lol
    • arp242 2y ago
      That doesn't work in Vim. Or rather: it matches the backspace character, which isn't what you want.
• alberth 2y ago
  I initially loved Zed. But as their focus has shifted to building Collaboration & AI features, and still haven’t yet nailed just being a good/great base editor, its become less useful to me. I still have a lot of hope for Zed. But for the time being, I’ve switched back to my old editor & IDE … and I’ll try Zed again at a much later date.
  • sph 2y ago
    To paraphrase an old quote, "every new text editor grows until it is bloated with collaboration and AI features." Thank god we still have vim and Emacs.
    • User23 2y ago
      Emacs[1] has been bloated with collaboration (gnus, etc) and AI features (doctor, lisp in general) for decades! [1] Eight Megabytes and Constantly Swapping
      • ninkendo 2y ago
        -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed -rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970 /usr/ucb/vi -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990 /usr/bin/emacs
        • deleted 2y ago
          [deleted]
        • Natfan 2y ago
          I'm not getting the same results for ed? $ whereis -b ed | cut -d' ' -f 2 | xargs ls -l -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 55504 Feb 22 2020 /usr/bin/ed
          • codetrotter 2y ago
            But your emacs is still 5.89824 * 10^37 bytes in size like parent commenter, right?
• twp 2y ago
  If you want true Neovim in VSCode check out https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=asvetliakov.vscode-neovim You get a real, actual VIM (no half-assed bindings), and all the bells and whistles that come with VSCode.
  • agumonkey 2y ago
    they emulate the whole command / move / location layer in js ?
    • Quiark 2y ago
      I think that's the usual approach for Vim mode in other editors. But this extension in particular: > This extension uses a fully embedded Neovim instance, no more half-complete Vim emulation!
    • AprilArcus 2y ago
      No, they run a headless neovim process in the background and sync its state with vscode
    • wis 2y ago
      To add to what sibling commenters have said, you can also configure this extension to use a specific Neovim binary on your system, and you can also configure it to use/load the same Neovim config you use when you use Neovim in the terminal. That's what I do. It's really the better (Neo)?vim extension in my opinion, but it has a lot less installs than the other popular extension, called just "Vim" (6.656M installs vs. 400K installs) that extension AFAIK actually emulates Vim in JavaScript, I used it for about a year in 2018, before the other extension "VSCode Neovim" was released in 2019 and remember not having a good experience using it then (to compare, the extension "Vim" was released in Nov. 2015).
  • agosz 2y ago
    Can I use the VS Code C++ extensions still?
    • 2y ago
• jasoneckert 2y ago
  I explored Zed on macOS when it was posted here previously, and my impression was that it was a fast and fully-featured editor. However, it's not as ubiquitous on *nix systems as editors such as vi/vim. And for those of us who work with various infrastructures and deployment constraints, it's much easier to focus our efforts on an editor that is also ubiquitous. And vi/vim fits that mould. In other words, while Zed is a vi-able alternative, I doubt most vi/vim users will switch to it exclusively.
• tipsytoad 2y ago
  Just another +1 that if you’re going to give vscode a fair shot, it’s much better to go with vscode-neovim than the standard vim extension. You can even map most of your config right over. E.g. (mine) https://github.com/tom-pollak/dotfiles/tree/master/nvim https://github.com/tom-pollak/dotfiles/tree/master/nvim
• beginnings 2y ago
  I started using Zed in the last month and I had a feeling it would end up taking a lot of Neovim users. Neovim gets a lot of users who need better performance than VSCode, like me, but the config is such a pain and there was a gap in the market for a blazingly fast GUI editor which Zed looks like filling. Supermaven still has some issues on Zed, but apart from that its been rock solid and ive fully switched from Neovim.
  • phatskat 2y ago
    If you ever go back to Neovim, I’ve had a lot of fun with NVChad. I still had to configure a little bit for LSP but that’s part of the ethos - sane defaults and most stuff off by default for performance and to reduce clutter.
    • beginnings 2y ago
      I have my Neovim setup the way I like it, the problem is every so often something breaks, and I have to dig back into the config and ive completely forgot how everything works. Theres just a complexity with neovim config that id rather not deal with, its a bad DX in this day and age.
  • fallowx 2y ago
    I would love a modern Emacs with a better modern GUI similar to Zeds.
• irusensei 2y ago
  I tried leaving vim for Helix but turns out it's not curated at my employer's site so I'm back to using vim. Zed would be even worse considering it's a desktop app. There is the option of using vscode but I'm one of those aliens who absolutely dislike that program.
  • Lyngbakr 2y ago
    > Helix would be even worse considering it's a desktop app. Helix is a terminal app.
    • irusensei 2y ago
      Sorry I meant to say Zed. Edit fixed.
  • jrpelkonen 2y ago
    If your employer allows for you to build rust projects, Helix build and installation process from source is pretty straightforward, so that might be an option.
  • phatskat 2y ago
    I’m with you on VSCode, I just can’t get into it. 20+ years of vim does mean there’s a lot of muscle memory I’m not willing to put aside, and last I checked (admittedly years ago), the vim plugin for VSCode was meh
    • adv_zxy 2y ago
      Maybe you can give the neovim plugin for vscode a try. As a long time vim/neovim user who occasionally do some C# modding stuffs in vscode I find it one of the best "vim" mode plugin out there. The fact that it spawns a real neovim instance makes it working great with your existing neovim config, no need to learn how to add your custom other-than-default vim keymaps using some json config files, it just works, even for navigation plugin like leap.nvim (if my memory is correct). Zed seems to be using its own vim emulation and config syntax is a huge caveat to me.
• kristiandupont 2y ago
  Over the summer I got an interest in Kakoune and Helix and discovered a number of extensions for VSCode that enable modal editing(1), but not VIM-style per default. I got excited about this and ended up writing my own extension instead. At this point, it supports most of the VIM subset that I care about, and I have added a number of new motions and modes that do clever things based on the AST. I am kicking myself for not doing this sooner and I think I need to write up a blog post about it. It's surprisingly easy. 1. e.g. https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DCsunset.vscode-modal-editor https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DCsunset...
  • dcre 2y ago
    That's very interesting. Very cool to look at the source and see how simple it is. I may have just answered my own question, but I'm curious why you prefer this over the popular vim or neovim extensions, which have quite good coverage of vim features, and the neovim one even lets you use real neovim plugins because it is powered by a real neovim instance.
    • kristiandupont 2y ago
      I was using the other vim extension for years. I had tried the neovim one as well a few years ago and I ran into so many bugs that I switched back after 1/2 day. I am sure it's better today, but I can see that there is still an open issue with folding, for instance. The thing is that I used to consider headless Neovim to be the ultimate solution to "vim but with IDE conveniences" but I am no longer so sure. Keeping everything in sync between the two editors just seems like a task that's doomed to fail in many small paper-cut like ways. What I am doing now is much more like adding a few things on top but leaving VSCode in charge, letting it do its thing the way it was designed to.
      • dcre 2y ago
        Cool, thanks for the answer. Simplicity and predictability can definitely beat long feature lists.
• jchw 2y ago
  Neovim has felt frustrating. I still sort of manage a Neovim configuration, but have been gradually moving to Zed as well. (Similar reasons overall.) I think everyone has their own personal list of gripes and wants for a text editor. Here's some issues that I think many people will immediately be struck by: - Zed does not yet support EditorConfig. https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/8534 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/8534 - Zed does not yet support auto-detecting indentation in the current file. https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/4681 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/4681 - Zed does not yet support configuring indentation in the current file. (edit: clarified wording) https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/4867 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/4867 - The core editing experience is still less polished than Monaco. Example: Selecting a block of spaces and striking "delete" may lead to an uneven number of characters being deleted. It seems to interact poorly with indentation. - No settings UI (yet?). As a Linux (and specifically NixOS) user, there's also a few other problems that I would love to have solved: - Zed can't be configured to not auto-update, which can simply never work on immutable distros or e.g. inside of Flatpak. It just tries and fails, wasting bandwidth. https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/9224 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/9224 - Zed can't re-use all already-installed language servers yet, so some language servers can't be used on platforms where the auto-download feature can not work. https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/4978 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/4978 - Zed doesn't really integrate well with direnv. VSCode is in the same boat, but Vim is not. https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/4977 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/4977 Overall Zed has been very nice. It definitely feels like it's still pre 1.0, but it is a very strong pre 1.0 to me. I am a bit weary on the focus on collaboration and AI features so soon, but I do realize that people actually like these features, so hopefully it's not a sign that the core editing experience is going to be neglected.
  • beginnings 2y ago
    On indentation, most files are going to be autoformatted by the LSP, and there are tab_size settings in the languages section, needing specific file settings seems like an edge case. As for collaboration and AI features, I have no use for them personally, but I think that's their avenue for future monetization, so I can't really complain that they are focussing on that when I get an amazing piece of software for free.
• toastercat 2y ago
  Echoing similar sentiments that I'm optimistic for Zed to become more polished and stable. Till then, Sublime Text 4 is still the best non-terminal text editor I've ever used and I continue to daily drive it. Sure its paid and non-FOSS, but its incredibly performant on Linux and Windows and its LSP extension + Sublime Merge fill the gap left by VSCode for me. Well worth the price tag IMO.
  • 8fingerlouie 2y ago
    My only gripe with Sublime Text is that they've changed to a "semi subscription" license model, where licenses expire after 2-3 years, and you essentially need to buy it again after that time. It's essentially the same model used by other editors like the Jetbrains suite, but unlike Jetbrains, updates to Sublime Text (and Merge) are few and usually don't contain much other than bugfixes. I've faithfully purchased Sublime Text licenses since the initial versions (switched over from Textmate), but as my ST4 license recently expired, it has forced me to review just what i get for the money i pay. ST was excellent when it first arrived, and it's still one of the fastest loading editors out there, but pretty much every other editor has more or less caught up, including free ones like Zed and VSCode, making a recurring cost harder to justify.
    • keybits 2y ago
      I'm in the same situation. The upgrade price for Sublime Text and Sublime Merge is $152 whereas the full license is $168. As you say, it feels more like a subscription model. I'd renew if the discount was bigger. I can of course continue to use the versions released while my license was valid, but it would be nice to get bug fixes and new feature while still supporting the developers.
      • 8fingerlouie 2y ago
        I wouldn't mind the license fee as much if there was actually any development going on, but for the past 3-4 years, there has basically been 4-10 months between releases, and each release has been more or less bugfixes and rewrites [1]. There has been 4 updates in 3 years. The issue tracker for ST has 1863 open issues, or 41% open vs closed issues [2], and the issue tracker for SM has 1055 open issues [3]. I have no problem paying for software, and i understand that most developers don't work for free, but with this software it doesn't even appear i'm paying for "work", and instead it appears to be more or less a passive source of income for the developer. As i wrote earlier, i'm not entirely sure what i'm gonna do, but given the slow pace of improvements to ST, i guess i can easily wait a couple of years before updating, if ever. [1]: https://www.sublimetext.com/blog/ https://www.sublimetext.com/blog/ [2]: https://github.com/sublimehq/sublime_text/issues https://github.com/sublimehq/sublime_text/issues [3]: https://github.com/sublimehq/sublime_merge/issues https://github.com/sublimehq/sublime_merge/issues
• 38 2y ago
  no windows https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/5394 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/5394
• djaouen 2y ago
  I have a few default keybindings coming from Spacemacs/AstroNvim. In case anybody finds them useful, you can find them here: https://github.com/danieljaouen/dotfiles/blob/main/topics/zed/keymap.json https://github.com/danieljaouen/dotfiles/blob/main/topics/ze...
• llIIllIIllIIl 2y ago
  Does Zed support remote/containers development now? It was the major blocker for me when i tried it, so i had to retreat back to VSCode. I’m not sure if programming is a social activity so their focus on collaboration is a little odd to me.
  • corntoole 2y ago
    The remote editing features are in preview: https://zed.dev/docs/remote-development https://zed.dev/docs/remote-development
• RandomThoughts3 2y ago
  I’m going to somehow misuse this discussion to ask for the readership help about something: I don’t understand the appeal of VSCode or more exactly I don’t understand the appeal of the text editor propped with plugins to be a semi-IDE so I guess that would also include Neovim with plugins. In my career, I have used text editors including vim which I still very much enjoy and both Eclipse and IntelliJ when I used to code in Java which I also enjoyed. VSCode seems to me to be as slow than a full IDE - too slow to be a nice editor - while having less features and an inferior UI to a full IDE. I don’t get it. Is it because so many languages don’t have a good IDE so people have come to accept the subpar editor+plugin experience?
  • paradite 2y ago
    The reason is simple: You write Java. People using VS Code are writing JavaScript/TypeScript/Python that doesn't need full IDE features. And VS Code is much faster than Eclipse / IDEA kinds.
    • RandomThoughts3 2y ago
      I have written Ocaml, Java, C, C++, Ada and Python professionally in my career. I either used an editor or an IDE. I had a plugin for eMacs when doing Ocaml but the experience was really subpar (that was before Merlin - yes, I’m that old). I’m sorry but having used both. VSCode is not faster than Eclipse. It’s far less good at writing Java however. You are not really answering my question by the way. So people are indeed using VsCode because there are no proper IDE for JS and TypeScript?
      • meiraleal 2y ago
        > You are not really answering my question by the way. So people are indeed using VsCode because there are no proper IDE for JS and TypeScript? Yes, that's it. There are plugins for everything and mostly works. Not the biggest fan of it anymore tho so looking for my next IDE or develop one for my liking using AI.
      • dalmo3 2y ago
• jgb1984 2y ago
  Most of the negatives mentioned (fragility, bugs, plugins breaking often) are specific to neovim. It's one of the reasons why I am and will always keep using vim instead of neovim. Vim is a much more mature ecosystem, less chasing the newest "plugin du jour", my vimrc is stable, based on a few dozen plugins which are feature complete and rock solid stable.
  • Fethbita 2y ago
    Do you mind sharing that list of plugins you use? I have never used plugins with vim/neovim and only used them vanilla up to this point but interested in checking out the plugin ecosystem.
    • jgb1984 2y ago
      This is a copy paste from the relevant part of my vimrc. Keep in mind I mainly develop in python. Plug 'alvan/vim-closetag' Plug 'ap/vim-buftabline' Plug 'davidhalter/jedi-vim' Plug 'dense-analysis/ale' Plug 'dstein64/vim-startuptime' Plug 'itchyny/lightline.vim' Plug 'junegunn/fzf', { 'dir': '~/.fzf', 'do': { -> fzf#install() } } Plug 'junegunn/fzf.vim' Plug 'junegunn/vim-peekaboo' Plug 'machakann/vim-swap' Plug 'markonm/traces.vim' Plug 'mhinz/vim-signify' Plug 'preservim/nerdtree' Plug 'preservim/tagbar' Plug 'romainl/vim-cool' Plug 'simnalamburt/vim-mundo' Plug 'tpope/vim-characterize' Plug 'tpope/vim-commentary' Plug 'tpope/vim-fugitive' Plug 'tpope/vim-repeat' Plug 'tpope/vim-rhubarb' Plug 'tpope/vim-sensible' Plug 'tpope/vim-speeddating' Plug 'tpope/vim-surround' Plug 'vimwiki/vimwiki'
  • sph 2y ago
    neovim is what happens when the javascript kids decide to "improve" one of the best editors ever created. The entire Lua ecosystem standing on 50 unstable plugins that provide the entire kitchen sink, yet do not even have a 1.0 version is nightmarish. Follow any guide and either everything breaks, or you get an hodgepodge of automagic popups, stuff that autodownloads, flash messages and useless features that are completely antithetical to the slim, minimal philosophy of vim. At least the original vim is still around, and the js kids are allergic to parens so there's an alternative.
• deagle50 2y ago
  Has Zed started hiding the mouse cursor when typing? If not, I'll wait.
• commercialnix 2y ago
  I'm still down to seriously consider Zed, but this is one of the most inorganic posts I have ever seen.
  • Y_Y 2y ago
    I love the smell of freshly cut astroturf
  • Aeolun 2y ago
    How so?
  • owenpalmer 2y ago
    What do you mean? Give an example.
• poetril 2y ago
  I’m actually in the opposite camp, I had left VSCode for Zed about 6 months ago and used it exclusively at work/personal projects. I’ve customized it extensively, and loved its approach to Vim integration. But in the last two weeks I’ve made the switch to Neovim (using a customized LazyVim [0] setup). I really like Zed but as others have pointed out they are not prioritizing features around REPL’s, AI, and collaboration while many core features are lacking. Vim Cut/Copy and paste being bugged, and html tags not closing drove me crazy over time. I think Zed is wonderful, and would perhaps go back to it after it matures a bit. For what’s its worth the friction going from Zed -> Neo vim was quite seamless, and I’d expect going the other way would as well. 0: http://www.lazyvim.org/ http://www.lazyvim.org/
  • wyclif 2y ago
    Big fan of LazyVim here. The default config does everything I need it to do.
  • linsomniac 2y ago
    A couple years ago I got really tired of maintaining my own vim configs, like the author of this piece mentions (plugins and updates causing problems). I just wanted to get out of the business of maintaining my own configs, so I decided to try a bundle, and eventually ended up on LunarVim, with a small handful of "dealbreaker" config changes. As opposed to a basic vim and then a bunch of plugins and custom configs. I've been pretty happy with it, but other options are worth checking out (SpaceVim, NvChad, LazyVim, AstroVim). LunarVim has finally deivered a working LSP/TreeSitter which I always only got half working or would break once I had it working, in my self-managed configs.
    • cassepipe 2y ago
      I also settled on Lunarvim (ans stopped worrying) I kinda had the same journey as the author except that I clinged to the terminal workflow he had leave behind. Choosing a Neovim distro was the solution for me.
      • wadim 2y ago
• meiraleal 2y ago
  It is great to see new editors gaining traction after VSCode took most of the market.
• noncoml 2y ago
  Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.
• tecoholic 2y ago
  I tried Zed just yesterday and sadly my experience wasn’t “just works”. It just works if you haven’t used any of the Neovim configs/distributions. But for someone who already uses LazyVim, LunarVim..etc., it’s kind of meeting the expectations. The issue for me was with the Docker LSP. I have a codebase where a Dockerfile is a Jinja Template. Zed’s syntax highlighting broke at the first curly braces. Both my Doom EMacs and LazyVim seem to have no problem with it. I couldn’t work beyond that point.
  • magnio 2y ago
    > I have a codebase where a Dockerfile is a Jinja Template. Jesus
    • tecoholic 2y ago
      Trust me. I feel the same way.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  • seabrookmx 2y ago
    Is it named Dockerfile or Dockerfile.jinja?
    • tecoholic 2y ago
      It’s named Dockerfile. However, I suspect if it’s named jinja, the Docker parts won’t be syntax highlighted!?!?
      • seabrookmx 2y ago
        In my experience, yes. But you can't really expect a syntax highlighter to support every combination of template language and file language, so this seems reasonable enough.
        • 2y ago
• koiueo 2y ago
  It was a great sales pitch until the Linux and Apple comparison. I can't take seriously someone, who says that Apple's stuff runs smoother (unless we are talking about useless animations).
• sghiassy 2y ago
  Honestly, I don’t understand when someone says VSCode is slow because it’s built on Electron. Are they talking about the 3 extra seconds on cold start? Is that really something to scoff at considering all its benefits??
  • sgarland 2y ago
    Depends how often you’re opening / closing it, I suppose. I work in an nvim + tmux environment, and am frequently opening and closing single files across disparate directories, so it does matter to me. I can spawn a new pane (or split existing), open nvim, and be editing before VSC has finished launching.
    • seabrookmx 2y ago
      You can open files from disparate directories within the same VSCode instance though.. you don't need to launch a new instance for each one.
  • skydhash 2y ago
    For what it does, it’s slow. I used Jetbrains IDEs and I understand the slowness because of all the linting and indexing. But I bear with it because they are tailored to the language that they support and provide you with great utilities. VSCode tries to be the kitchen sink and it’s not great at either. And it’s not just code editing, every interaction with the interface feels slow. If I have 12 cores and 32 GB of ram, slowness for the same thing I was doing on codeblocks with a P4 and 1 GB of ram is the last thing I would accept.
  • samatman 2y ago
    I've paralyzed VSCode by opening a 20MB file with test data. Not the tab, the whole workspace. Force quit and everything. VSCode has its upsides but it's a dog.
  • bendhoefs 2y ago
    On my laptop there is a noticeable keystroke delay compared to other editors.
• replete 2y ago
  I tried out Zed and really like it, but its still lacking things like EditorConfig support, so project switching sucks. Has strong potential to replace vscode entirely if they don't get carried away with fancy features
  • thomascountz 2y ago
    https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/pull/16349 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/pull/16349
• robertlf 2y ago
  A good article, but you really can't see the screenshots at all.
• tasuki 2y ago
  > Every now and then I would update a plugin [...] Why would you do that? I keep my plugins pinned at whatever old version I happened to use first...
• trostaft 2y ago
  Seems like the guy’s website got hugged?
• nelsonfigueroa 2y ago
  I like Zed too and use it on a daily basis. I've always wanted to take the opposite journey where I leave Zed/Sublime for Vim. While I have always to become a Vim expert, I never put in the time. There just hasn't been a situation in my career where I wish I could type faster than my thoughts. But maybe I'm just a scrub in this field.
  • keithnz 2y ago
    as a long time vimmer, the advantage isn't anything to do with editing speed, people can edit quickly in most any editor these days. It's more about having this editing "language" that allows you to be pretty expressive about the edits you want to do in a precise and concise way. This Verb+noun language takes a while to learn, but when you get reasonably fluent in it, other ways of editing just feel like more work. To me, this feels like it frees up my thought process. If you imagine refactoring tools, they let you make changes that you could do at a lower level, but they just make life easy. Vims language is like a mini editing refactoring tool that combos in a lot of different ways that just feels easy once you get the hang of it.
• icar 2y ago
  "It just works" is precisely why I use Jetbrains products. I'm amazed they are not that common in many developer communities. They are amazing tools.
  • kvark 2y ago
    Personally, it’s because they are not open source and not as fast.
    • hiyer 2y ago
      And not cheap either if you want the "ultimate" editions.
    • LtdJorge 2y ago
      Yesterday RustRover became so unresponsive that the UI would freeze for more than 15 seconds (as reported by their exception notifications) and completions would take 5 seconds to appear and be wrong or lacking most times. I was seriously doubting the internal Rust engine (they don’t use rust-analyzer or LSP), so I switched to VSCode with the rust-analyzer extension, and the same happened there too, although no freezing. Turns out some of my types were 80k characters long, and ‘cargo clippy’ was taking ~900 seconds of one core pegged at 100% for rustc. Oops. Now I know what they mean when complaining about super long compile times on Rust, and I wasn’t even doing async :)
      • beginnings 2y ago
        Rust Rover is terrible, they made it free and I still dont use it, Zed is great for Rust.
      • devsda 2y ago
        > Turns out some of my types were 80k characters long, I know Rust uses name/symbol mangling but what sort of type declaration in Rust ends up with that long names ?
        • LtdJorge 2y ago
• natrys 2y ago
  I don't really care about evangelising anything, but this bit: > Every now and then I would update a plugin in Neovim and everything would break, and I would have to spend time fixing it instead of getting work done. Would be a problem anywhere there is a plugin system. Just don't go around updating kitchen sink without having the ability to rollback. Full on version controlling 3rd party plugins could be annoying (unless you use a plugin manager specifically with that support e.g. straight.el or elpaca in Emacs), but simply taking a dumb snapshot of plugin directory may also do the trick.
  • lawn 2y ago
    Neovims most popular plugin manager lazy.nvim supports this (and I'm sure most other too).
• Voklen 2y ago
  For me this feels similar to why I use Helix[1]. I used to use VSCodium and had tried to switch to Vim or Neovim multiple times but didn't manage because of all the plugin configuration to be able to program. Then I saw an HN post about Helix, started it up and it just worked and so haven't used anything else since. I find the Helix keybindings easier to learn because you see what text will be affected by any operation before you do it. And by using Helix I've found I've been able to pick up Vim keybindings as well so can use it on a server. I think it would help if it didn't have such a jarring default colour scheme though. [1] https://helix-editor.com/ https://helix-editor.com/
  • danielvaughn 2y ago
    I also heard about Helix and have been curious about it, for the same reason. If I’m going to learn Vim keybindings, it’s because I want to move fast. Tweaking configuration files for an evening is the exact opposite of moving fast.
    • seanhunter 2y ago
      The idea that you constantly need to tweak your config files in vim/neovim is a bizarre myth that seems to have sprung up because vim is so flexible that some people love messing about with config. You can just copy something like vim-sensible to give sensible defaults and get going - you absolutely don't have to do a bunch of tinkering. I have used vim and then neovim for 24 years now and most of my config customization I did more than 15 years ago when I decided to add a bunch of extra keybindings. I very occasionally will add a plugin or tweak something (eg if I want a new snippet or something) but it's really not necessary to have a big complex config and I would say I spend well under 5 minutes per year on config. I really wanted to like helix but there are a few really fundamental things that are really crucial to most of my workflows that were just missing (eg reflow text) when I tried it.
      • _7tgr 2y ago
        Agreed. I've been using (n)vim for roughly 8 years now and only touch my config to put in bits of Lua I've hacked together to make my life slightly easier (~10 minutes every few months? I just do it as-needed). I use 5-6 plugins total. I think the most vocal users are probably responsible for the impression of constant churn, because they've got fancy tricked out configs loaded with alpha-quality plugins and probably do need to constantly update it. Nothing against doing that, but it need not be that way!
• desireco42 2y ago
  So I read this not expecting to like Zed that much. I remember initially it was only for Mac, which... is just not good enough for me. Anyhow, I reinstalled it and it is really good. Github, Copilot were integrated in no time... I really appreciate that and it is very clean and easy to use.
• BaculumMeumEst 2y ago
  You know you are a text editor enthusiast when you spend 60% of your time fiddling with your config, 30% of your time writing about it, and 10% of your time working on something useful/interesting. Just use VS Code.
  • sam29681749 2y ago
    I can fall into this trap(?). It's probably a simple equation along the lines of the time saved needing exceed the time spent optimising (and all associated activities). The same thing can apply to productivity software, hardware, etc. There are probably diminishing returns. There's also the opportunity cost of using the same time practicing a skill that could lead to a greater efficiency benefit. I do know people get a kick out of tinkering with their tools, however, so it's not just efficiency.
  • azthecx 2y ago
    It's a matter of discipline. I've been migrating slowly to nvim, initially through motions in vscode and later by using both whenever I was lacking some features. After the initial setup phase where things were constantly added and tweaked, LSPs configured and so on I've not made any sweeping changes to the config in the last year and a half. I even changed jobs and languages halfway through and everything remained fairly consistent other than adding the new LSP. Technical minimalism is a conscious choice, the same exact problem can come from vscode with fifty plugins and conflicting keybindings.
• oslem 2y ago
  I really enjoy using Zed whenever I can. It’s incredibly snappy and has a clean UI. I agree with some of the other sentiments in this thread that I wish that the developers would focus more on some core IDE features. If Zed had better Git integration and remote support, I could switch over to it full time.
  • keyle 2y ago
    For me it's the lack of support for more languages that is stopping me... But as I write this I just went to have a look and it looks like they've just added a whole bunch in the last few months! e.g. https://zed.dev/docs/languages/dart https://zed.dev/docs/languages/dart
• nsonha 2y ago
  I have started using Zed as the secondary editor, after VSCode, since they added the repl feature, which is based on Jupyter. It's not that it's a killer feature but that and AI, out of the box, and the cleaner UI attracted me. That said I actually been using Cursor more in my testing of AI code because they just have better AI (with regard to how they add things into the context, I use both with sonnet). Also the UI integration is more comprehensive.
• mhfs 2y ago
  Am I the only one scratching my head about how Zed will eventually monetize their business to satisfy the investors behind their $12M investment?
  • satvikpendem 2y ago
    Indeed, and that is why I will not use Zed. I don't need my editor being a VC led product.
• hakunin 2y ago
  I can't escape Sublime Text's grip. The editor is incredibly smooth and gets out of the way like no other. (Tried a bunch of them). However, lately I started opening Zed on occasion just to ask ChatGPT to make a non-trivial edit on a bunch of code. The way Zed does inline AI assist is unmatched. That's why I can't wait for Sublime to gain this functionality, so that I can calm down and stay with it.
  • WhereIsTheTruth 2y ago
    Same, ST is the best But they really need to speed up the pace of their updates and offer plugin API that interacts with the UI
• hello_computer 2y ago
  For a GUI editor, Zed is nice, but for me, the killer feature of vim is that it runs inside a terminal emulator. Being able to SSH-in, or even dial-up, and work directly on a remote machine is huge. Some GUI editors have SSHFS integrations that make it easier to edit remote files, but I've found them to all be rather unreliable, and unavoidably so--given the inherently unreliable nature of networks.
• DarkBeing87 2y ago
  [dead]
• WuxiFingerHold 2y ago
  > Every now and then I would update a plugin in Neovim and everything would break, and I would have to spend time fixing it instead of getting work done. This is true, but only if you're not using one of the ready made distributions. I didn't switch to NeoVim until I discovered LazyVim and this amazing guide https://lazyvim-ambitious-devs.phillips.codes/ https://lazyvim-ambitious-devs.phillips.codes/. That changed everything. I just use LazyVim out of the box, as if it was a Jetbrains IDE. No config hassle, no issues with updates. It just works. Regarding Zed: It's a small niche they're trying to fill in a very competitive market. Currently they have the advantages of being the current cool thing. But that's not enough in the long run. If I would knew some killer feature, I'd go ahead and write it here. But that's the thing, I can't think of any. For simple, mainstream usage, VS Code is there. Ulimate IDE features: JetBrains IDEs. Ultimate productivity: LazyVim (or other NeoVim setups), ootb modal editing: Helix.
  • lanza 2y ago
    [flagged]
  • monus 2y ago
    > If I would knew some killer feature, I'd go ahead and write it here. But that's the thing, I can't think of any. Speed to open and general snappiness. Nothing comes close to Zed especially in larger codebases as most agree in the thread.
  • Tmpod 2y ago
    +1 for LazyVim I got fed up of tweaking my own config and keeping up with the very fast moving plugin ecosystem. Gave LazyVim a try (after using LunarVim for a bit) and it's been a breeze. It's very well polished and maintained by a prominent plugin author.
• zamalek 2y ago
  There is one big issue with terminal editors that I keep running up against: single font size. One notable place where this is an issue is file listings, being able to have smaller proportional fonts makes a huge difference in usability. I have switched to Zed, but it sadly shares more in common with vscode than it does vim. I believe the ideal text editor would bring a small amount of GUI to the general idea of one of the popular nvim distros (especially telescope).
  • Tmpod 2y ago
    Yeah, it's definitely an issue I'd like to see tackled better. Neovim is already fully working under a client-server architecture, as far as I understand, i.e. the TUI is already "just" a client that connects to the main server process. There are some neovim GUIs such as Goneovim, Neovide, Fvim and even FireNvim (using neovim inside Firefox), but they mostly implement some windowing effects and whatnot, because I belive things are still somewhat tied to a cell based grid. Despite all this, I daily drive neovide.
  • finder83 2y ago
    Telescope feels so game-changing, and I've not found anything like it outside of Neovim and Emacs. Being able to fuzzy search a buffer or my project instantly makes navigation insanely fast. People talk about not needing to type fast when coding, but I do need to navigate quickly, especially to not lose context while thinking. Ivy/Helm/Telescope with one of the various jump libraries (and LSP of course) makes code navigation feel second nature.
    • ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
      I mean every single editor has fuzzy file finding these days.
• kstenerud 2y ago
  > I was already a keyboard maximalist from previous jobs where I learned speed = productivity I've never understood this. In over 30 years in the industry, I've not once held a job where my keyboard speed had a noticeable effect on my productivity. Even when I had to type one-handed for a month, my productivity was unchanged. The average developer averages 10 lines of finished code per day. And even with a raw 10x that amount to account for variance, changes, debugging etc, you'd be at 12 lines PER HOUR. Being generous at a full 80 chars per line, you have a maximum of 1000 keypresses per hour, or an average of one every 3 seconds. Even doubling your typing speed or keyboard response time would have no discernible effect. 90% of software development happens in the mind. The small amount of time spent actually writing it out seems kinda silly to optimize for.
  • meitham 2y ago
    I don’t touch type and I’m fully with you on speed doesn’t increase performance, but I have recently started writing c# after two decades of python and man the number of lines that you have to write before you get to the meat of the logic! So I think that 10 lines of code are only to expressive languages not globally
    • MrJohz 2y ago
      In fairness, I don't have so much experience with C#, but my experience with Java and OO-heavy JS codebases is that most of the boilerplate can be automated away without much problem - typing "cl<tab>" generates a class definition, and I can hit tab to jump between the different bits I need to fill in. With Copilot, this has become even easier because it is very good at guessing the relevant boilerplate to insert without needing to look through different options.
    • owenpalmer 2y ago
      Learning to touch type is hard, but worth it. Once you learn, you'll realize the difference it makes.
      • arunix 2y ago
• eviks 2y ago
  > Whenever I need to edit a configuration file for an app or just edit something really quickly while I’m already navigating in a terminal, nothing beats the convenience of whipping out Neovim. Opening Zed for every single file like that would get exhausting, but for longer term sessions or projects it’s perfect. Which part exactly would exhaust you? These editors are fast to close/open even is there not already running (also you could just leave it open h, and you get the benefit of not blocking the current terminal session, so that's the convenience that beats neovim. Another one is that you can have editor's window size independent of the terminal size
• pjmlp 2y ago
  I have used multiple stuff since 1986, if it isn't an IDE like tool, I won't bother. These kind of editors switching is like repairing that old covertible triumph from 1950 on the garage, interesting for some, not really something I care about.
• dominicrose 2y ago
  There was a time when I was learning how to use Vim and I saw my boss use the mouse to do a simple copy and paste and there was kind of a disconnect between these two ways of using the computer. From my experience a good mouse is better than a power tool like Vim, not for copy/paste, but just because it can reach the whole screen very fast and it works with all software although limited in text terminals. Learning Vi(m) was still helpful because it's installed even on most docker images but that's not the "default" way of typing text. Most software accepts mouse double clicks or triple clicks and standard ways of using the keyboard (including use shift+ctrl+left and things like that), so that's how I like my IDE to work as well. Multi-cursor is great and it's good that I don't miss it outside of the IDE because it wouldn't be useful outside of it anyway.
  • skydhash 2y ago
    That because with Vim (and Emacs) the main tool for navigation is search. Even vim’s text objects are just search related to the cursor. That’s why you want quick file search, quick find in files, and powerful search and replace utilities. The issue with the mouse is that it adds friction between searching and editing. That’s where vim bindings and emacs chords come into play.
• rldjbpin 2y ago
  i wish i could speak in length about how the ide i use helps me be the "10x" dev i am clearly not. i would say this as a mid-level dev in a team spread across geographies, however: when using a workflow that should work for all, it is more important to have a tool that works for all rather than the "best" one. unfortunately, neither (neo)vim nor zed seem to be in a place where an entire team could easily adopt to its workflow. the latter probably needs a while to marinate and become suitable for most.
• p4bl0 2y ago
  A lot of editors are being discussed here but I see nobody has mentioned Kate (KDE's Advanced Text Editor) [1] in the conversation yet, so I'm doing it. Kate is a very mature and capable editor, and even if I only use it on Linux I'm glad to know that it is also available on macOS and Windows. It natively supports LSP and has much, much more to offer in terms of project management, support for build system, support for working with Git (it's actually the only Git GUI that I found to be usable), SQL databases integration, and of course, advanced editing features. I started using it a few years back after a very long text editor journey: on Windows a bit more than 20 years ago: Notepad, HAPedit, then Notepad++ ; then I got a Mac and used TextMate (which introduced me to powerful text editors) for a few years ; then I switched to Linux ~15 years ago and used Gedit for a few months before diving head deep into Emacs and stayed fully there for… 12+ years (I actually still use it from time to time, but it's less and less the case and most importantly I stopped doing everything in it including my email, social networking, IRC, etc.) ; and now for a few years I've mainly been using Kate (and Kwrite for quick edits + Nano [2] in the terminal or on remote hosts). I even contributed a few features [3] to the project, KDE developers are very welcoming! [1] https://kate-editor.org/ https://kate-editor.org/ [2] I must say here too that Nano is actually an underappreciated gem. It supports a lot more features than people generally imagine: syntax hilighting, line numbering, auto-indent, multi buffers, mouse support, keyboard macros, … it's actually a decent simple code editor! [3] https://kate-editor.org/post/2022/2022-08-24-kate-new-features-august-2022/ https://kate-editor.org/post/2022/2022-08-24-kate-new-featur...
  • kombine 2y ago
    After Kate was ported to Qt4, I was very impressed that it could handle extremely large files with no sweat. I don't use it, because I need a remote development capabilities and when compared to Neovim it simply lacks the plugin ecosystem and a large community driving it forward.
  • rd07 2y ago
    I agree that Kate is a good code editor. I have tried more than a year ago when I still use KDE Plasma (now switched to Gnome). Honestly, I am happy that there is at least one GUI Code Editor from a big community that actually on par with some popular code editor (VS Code, Sublime, etc). Because I see that most code editors made by the Linux community are always lacking in features when compared to other popular code editors. However, there are some things that make me not use Kate as my daily editor. One of them is the file browser feature which I find more complicated than its alternatives in Sublime Text or VSCode for example. In addition, the small number of plugins for Kate is also one of the reasons I do not use it.
• thomascountz 2y ago
  My dealbreaker with Zed is that it takes away my autonomy and agency. 1. Zed downloads binaries without user input as soon as you open a file; think LSPs and linters. This is a hot topic and has been for a while.[0] I would rather my editor break (or even better, fail gracefully and helpfully), than obscure what amounts to being a significant action that I believe warrants user involvement. 2. I can't tell what gets sent to Zed's servers. I don't have time to audit all the code, but as an example, this PR, [Allow Al interactions to be proxied through Zed's server so you don't need an API key][1], has +3,628 -8,918 changes and even just by the title seems to suggest that using the Assistant feature may result in requests being sent to Zed's servers. This is a dealbreaker for me because, not only is this not documented anywhere, it seems in contradiction to the EULA. "User Content is transmitted from Your environment only if You collaborate with other Zed users by electing to share a project in the Editor. Once You share a project, Zed may transmit User Content consisting of file paths, file contents, and metadata regarding the code returned by language servers."[2] It doesn't mention if using the Assistant feature is part of the network based solution or that it's the same as "sharing a project," but I'm not an Editor-EULA lawyer. Arguably, this is true is any open source project, though my stance is generally to be more alert to privacy concerns with software from newly-backed pre-profitable startups. I don't want to spend my rare editor-tweaking time on nonconfigurable privacy and security control workarounds. Edit: As if on cue, another PR to seemingly default to sending data to zed.dev: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/pull/16454 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/pull/16454 [0]: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/12589 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/12589 [1]: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/pull/7367 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/pull/7367 [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20240718140959/https://zed.dev/eula https://web.archive.org/web/20240718140959/https://zed.dev/e...
• __alias 2y ago
  Has anyone made the transition from VS Code to NeoVim or Zed and succeeded / recommend it? Years ago I saw a colleague operate as an absolute beast using VS Code with vim bindings and it was impressive to watch. But I've never watched anyone code in vim/emacs etc and felt it's a more effective editor than vs code.
  • skydhash 2y ago
    I made the switch from notepad++/sublime (even atom did not exist at the time). The plus side was quick editing. Most of the time you spend on a code is rewriting it (excluding reading it) and vim binding made that a breeze. And even tools provided by IDEs can be great for code massaging, VIM is still king for raw editing. And if you know the shell, you don’t miss much from IDEs. Nowadays, I’m exploring emacs because of how easy it is to build tools in it. Vim is great for working on text, but emacs is great for creating tools that work on text.
• BobJimmy 2y ago
  [dead]
• konart 2y ago
  >What normally required multiple plugins in Neovim is again ready out of the box with Zed, including feature like toggling Git Blame, viewing diffs, and gutter symbols showing the status of edited lines. Pretty sure Gitsigns for neovim can do all mentioned (diffthis, blame line of file adnd obivously gutter symbols). But if you need more you have Diffview and other plugins.
  • skydhash 2y ago
    I just drop back to the terminal and use git itself (or install Fugitive). What I like about Vim/Emacs is how easy it is to tailor them to your usage patterns. Boilerplate generation, tools integration, and other programmable workflows can be quickly implemented.
• Daunk 2y ago
  I personally use Vim because it lets me use the keyboard for everything. In Zed there are still lots of places I have to use the mouse.
• amitprayal 2y ago
  jEdit is the most underrated editor ever
• rd07 2y ago
  Talking about text/code editor journey, currently I am using Pragtical, a fork of Lite XL. I have always wanted a GUI editor that is lightweight but easy enough to extend with plugin. And Pragtical and Lite XL almost checks all the box for me. There is still some missing features like code folding that has not been implemented, but it is not a killer feature for me. I actually quite enjoy fiddling with it and I have been writing several plugins for Lite XL and Pragtical even though I have no experience on Lua before. Lite XL's Matrix rooms (which is bridged with their Discord) is quite active and their member usually responds to any question asked.
• smeg_it 2y ago
  I'm using neovim with lazyvim. It's still not "easy" to keep up with e.g. I have plugins that interfere with other plugins, some crash. Part of that is that I have a bad habit of installing tons of plugins that "sound good" without learning them or where they fit exactly. I probably need to go one by one slowly. I tried emacs but found the same issue with plugins. It's just hard to keep up and organize them, so far lazyvim is the easiest for me but not "easy". I'll have to try zed if it's foss. I do wish that some "standardized" plugins would just be integrated into the base application or a new application like Neovim from vim. I don't know the history, so I'm not sure how it came about, but it does feel like there is some stagnation with some of the gnu/linux stuff.
• deadlypointer 2y ago
  "Just works" is fine... Until it does not, and you have a hard time finding the issue. I prefer more control over my editor.