5 ms·

Did you consider Neovim? You get the benefit of vim while also being able to mix in as much LSP tooling as you like. The tradeoff is that it takes some time t

by wrasee 2y ago

Did you consider Neovim? You get the benefit of vim while also being able to mix in as much LSP tooling as you like. The tradeoff is that it takes some time to set up, although that is getting easier. That won’t make LSP go any faster though. There’s still something interesting in the fact that a ripgrep of every line in the codebase can still be faster than a dedicated tool.

gen220 2y ago
You can use a tool like ALE (the Asynchronous Linting Engine) to run LSPs in normal-Vim; I've been doing it for years and have no complaints! It's rapid.
gregjor 2y ago
Considered it and have tried repeatedly to get it to work with mixed success. As you wrote, it takes "some time" to set up. In my case it would only offer marginal improvements over plain vim, since I'm not that interested in the LSP integration (and vim has that too, through a plugin). In the environments I often work in I can't install anything or run processes like node. I ssh into a server and have to use whatever came with the Linux distro, which means sticking with the tools I will find everywhere. I can't copy the code from the server either. If I get lucky they used version control. I know not everyone works with those constraints. I specialize in working on abandoned and legacy code.
- wrasee 2y ago
  Yes ok. And legacy code might be a good example where grep works well, if it's fair to argue a greater propensity for things like preprocessors, older languages and custom builds that may not play as well with semantic-level tools, let alone be written with modern tooling in mind.
  - gregjor 2y ago
    Lol, I'm not working with COBOL or Fortran. Legacy code in my world means the original developers have left, not that it dates from the 1970s. Mostly I work with PHP, shell scripts, various flavors of SQL, Python, sometimes Rails or other stuff. All things modern LSPs can handle.
- kragen 2y ago
  can you not upload executables over ssh, say for policy reasons or disk-space reasons? how about shell scripts? i mean, i doubt i'm going to come up with some brilliant breakthrough that makes your life easier that you've somehow overlooked, but i'd like to understand what kinds of constraints people like you often confront i'm just glad you don't have to use teamviewer
  - gregjor 2y ago
    I don't have to use TeamViewer, though I very occasionally have to use Windows RDP. You can transfer any kind of file over ssh. scp, sftp, rsync will all copy binaries. Mainly the issues come down to policy and billable time. Many of my customers simply don't allow installing anything on their servers without a tedious approval process. Even if I can install things I might spin my wheels trying to get it to work in an environment I don't have root privileges on, with no one willing to help, and I can't bill for that time. I don't work for free to get an editor installed. I use the tools I know I can find on any Linux/BSD server. With some customers I have root privileges and manage the server for them. With others their IT dept has rules I have to follow (I freelance) if I want to keep a good relationship. Since I juggle multiple customers and environments I find it simpler not having to manage different editors and environments, so I mostly stick with the defaults. I do have a .profile and .vimrc I copy around if allowed to, that's about it. I can't lose time/money and possibly goodwill whining about not having everything just-so for me. I recently worked on a server over ssh that didn't have tmux installed. Fortunately it did have screen, and I can use that too, no big deal. I spent less than 60 seconds figuring that out and getting to work rather than wasting hours of non-billable time annoying someone about how I needed tmux installed.
    - kragen 2y ago
      i see, thanks! wrt rdp, i feel like rdp is actually better than vnc or x11-over-ssh, but for cases where regular ssh works, i'd rather use ssh i wasn't thinking in terms of installing tmux, more like a self-contained binary that doesn't require any kind of 'installation'
      - 2y ago
VHRanger 2y ago
There's also helix now, which requires next to no setup, but requires learning new motions (subject is before the verb in helix)
- gregjor 2y ago
  I looked at Helix but since I dream in vim motions at this point (vi user since it came out) I'd have to see a 10x improvement to switch. VSCode didn't give me a 10X improvement, I doubt Helix would.
  - VHRanger 2y ago
    Helix certainly won't give you a 10x improvement. It tends to convert a lot of people moving "up" from VS Code, and still a decent chunk, but certainly fewer neovim users moving "down". Advantages of Helix are pretty straightforward: 1. Very little configuration bullshit to deal with. There's not even a plugin system yet! You just paste your favorite config file and language/LSP config file and you're good to go. For anything else, submit a pull request. 2. Built in LSP support for basically anything an LSP exists for. 3. There's a bit of a new generation command line IDE forming itself around zellij (tmux that doesn't suck) + helix + yazi (basically nnn or mc on crack, highly recommended). That whole zellij+helix+yazi environment is frankly a joy to work in, and might be the 2-3x improvement over neovim that makes the switch worth it.
    - gregjor 2y ago
      Like I wrote, I looked at Helix. Seems cool but not enough for me to switch. And I would have to install it on the machines I work on, which very often I can't do because of company policies, or can't waste the non-billable time on. I only recently moved from screen to tmux, and I still have to fall back to screen sometimes because tmux doesn't come with every Linux distro. I expect I will retire before I think tmux (or screen, for that matter) "sucks" to the point I would look at something else. And again I very often can't install things on customer servers anyway.
      - 2y ago

by wrasee 2y ago

gen220 2y ago

You can use a tool like ALE (the Asynchronous Linting Engine) to run LSPs in normal-Vim; I've been doing it for years and have no complaints! It's rapid.

gregjor 2y ago

Considered it and have tried repeatedly to get it to work with mixed success. As you wrote, it takes "some time" to set up. In my case it would only offer marginal improvements over plain vim, since I'm not that interested in the LSP integration (and vim has that too, through a plugin). In the environments I often work in I can't install anything or run processes like node. I ssh into a server and have to use whatever came with the Linux distro, which means sticking with the tools I will find everywhere. I can't copy the code from the server either. If I get lucky they used version control. I know not everyone works with those constraints. I specialize in working on abandoned and legacy code.

wrasee 2y ago
Yes ok. And legacy code might be a good example where grep works well, if it's fair to argue a greater propensity for things like preprocessors, older languages and custom builds that may not play as well with semantic-level tools, let alone be written with modern tooling in mind.
- gregjor 2y ago
  Lol, I'm not working with COBOL or Fortran. Legacy code in my world means the original developers have left, not that it dates from the 1970s. Mostly I work with PHP, shell scripts, various flavors of SQL, Python, sometimes Rails or other stuff. All things modern LSPs can handle.
kragen 2y ago
can you not upload executables over ssh, say for policy reasons or disk-space reasons? how about shell scripts? i mean, i doubt i'm going to come up with some brilliant breakthrough that makes your life easier that you've somehow overlooked, but i'd like to understand what kinds of constraints people like you often confront i'm just glad you don't have to use teamviewer
- gregjor 2y ago
  I don't have to use TeamViewer, though I very occasionally have to use Windows RDP. You can transfer any kind of file over ssh. scp, sftp, rsync will all copy binaries. Mainly the issues come down to policy and billable time. Many of my customers simply don't allow installing anything on their servers without a tedious approval process. Even if I can install things I might spin my wheels trying to get it to work in an environment I don't have root privileges on, with no one willing to help, and I can't bill for that time. I don't work for free to get an editor installed. I use the tools I know I can find on any Linux/BSD server. With some customers I have root privileges and manage the server for them. With others their IT dept has rules I have to follow (I freelance) if I want to keep a good relationship. Since I juggle multiple customers and environments I find it simpler not having to manage different editors and environments, so I mostly stick with the defaults. I do have a .profile and .vimrc I copy around if allowed to, that's about it. I can't lose time/money and possibly goodwill whining about not having everything just-so for me. I recently worked on a server over ssh that didn't have tmux installed. Fortunately it did have screen, and I can use that too, no big deal. I spent less than 60 seconds figuring that out and getting to work rather than wasting hours of non-billable time annoying someone about how I needed tmux installed.
  - kragen 2y ago
    i see, thanks! wrt rdp, i feel like rdp is actually better than vnc or x11-over-ssh, but for cases where regular ssh works, i'd rather use ssh i wasn't thinking in terms of installing tmux, more like a self-contained binary that doesn't require any kind of 'installation'
    - 2y ago

VHRanger 2y ago

There's also helix now, which requires next to no setup, but requires learning new motions (subject is before the verb in helix)

gregjor 2y ago
I looked at Helix but since I dream in vim motions at this point (vi user since it came out) I'd have to see a 10x improvement to switch. VSCode didn't give me a 10X improvement, I doubt Helix would.
- VHRanger 2y ago
  Helix certainly won't give you a 10x improvement. It tends to convert a lot of people moving "up" from VS Code, and still a decent chunk, but certainly fewer neovim users moving "down". Advantages of Helix are pretty straightforward: 1. Very little configuration bullshit to deal with. There's not even a plugin system yet! You just paste your favorite config file and language/LSP config file and you're good to go. For anything else, submit a pull request. 2. Built in LSP support for basically anything an LSP exists for. 3. There's a bit of a new generation command line IDE forming itself around zellij (tmux that doesn't suck) + helix + yazi (basically nnn or mc on crack, highly recommended). That whole zellij+helix+yazi environment is frankly a joy to work in, and might be the 2-3x improvement over neovim that makes the switch worth it.
  - gregjor 2y ago
    Like I wrote, I looked at Helix. Seems cool but not enough for me to switch. And I would have to install it on the machines I work on, which very often I can't do because of company policies, or can't waste the non-billable time on. I only recently moved from screen to tmux, and I still have to fall back to screen sometimes because tmux doesn't come with every Linux distro. I expect I will retire before I think tmux (or screen, for that matter) "sucks" to the point I would look at something else. And again I very often can't install things on customer servers anyway.
    - 2y ago