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TIL about Kate editor, but after 30 years of just using vi in a terminal (Unix, Mac, even Windows in cmd.exe) I switched to Zed editor (https://zed.dev https://

TIL about Kate editor, but after 30 years of just using vi in a terminal (Unix, Mac, even Windows in cmd.exe) I switched to Zed editor (https://zed.dev https://zed.dev). I had tried other editors in the past, but quickly fell back to vi/vim after a few hours or days, for various reasons. Been using Zed for a couple of months now and no plans to go back. It also uses LSPs, but whenever I connect to some (Linux) dev host from Zed on my Mac, it autoinstalls clangd to a .local directory and so far I haven’t had to manually install any extra software. Just took a while to figure out the best Zed config for me. It’s very configurable, customizable, but the UI itself is snappy & clean (written in Rust, for those who care about it).

israrkhan 1y ago
I also really like Zed. But what prevents me from switching to Zed, is my workflow. I tend not to run desktop GUI applications on my main development machine (headless and sometimes remote). nvim is excellent in such circumstances. Also nvim is available on all platforms. I know Zed is also recently available on Linux, but I really doubt it will be as good as Zed on Mac.
- ash-ali 1y ago
  One of the biggest problems i have with running basic text editors like vim/nvim is the investment time to spin up a fully loaded workable development env; esp since i've never done it before. basic vim with some modifications in .vimrc is all i have and i know some of my colleagues are also this way! nowadays though i really want to use LLMs to write code for me instead of switching contexts on different platforms. can i ask what you use for LLM stuff on nvim? how do you like it compared to running bare bones vim and switching platforms?
  - israrkhan 1y ago
    Github copilot has an official [1] neovim extension. There are also third-party plugins for Copilot, Chat, Next edit etc. [1] https://github.com/github/copilot.vim https://github.com/github/copilot.vim
    - tanelpoder 1y ago
      It works with vanilla vim (and MacVim) these days too. "Vim 9.0.0185 or newer" is mentioned in the Getting Started section. I was about to install it a couple of years ago, but then started thinking about the privacy threat model. I realized that having a "copilot" in my everyday editor (not just for public open source coding!) is never gonna fly. I may end up accidentally uploading any file I open to a 3rd party for tab completion and "AI stuff". Even if I can configure it to hopefully ignore some directories, too risky for me. With a separate editor just for coding (Zed in my case), the risk of accidentally opening and uploading a wrong file would be much lower for me, as I'll keep using vim without any AI for everything other than OSS coding. Edit: I'm sure there's an option only manually load the copilot plugin when you explicitly want it, but it still makes me too uneasy.
      - pxc 1y ago
        How hard would it be to have an editor just ignore files that aren't in source control (at least staged)?
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]

israrkhan 1y ago

I also really like Zed. But what prevents me from switching to Zed, is my workflow. I tend not to run desktop GUI applications on my main development machine (headless and sometimes remote). nvim is excellent in such circumstances. Also nvim is available on all platforms. I know Zed is also recently available on Linux, but I really doubt it will be as good as Zed on Mac.

ash-ali 1y ago
One of the biggest problems i have with running basic text editors like vim/nvim is the investment time to spin up a fully loaded workable development env; esp since i've never done it before. basic vim with some modifications in .vimrc is all i have and i know some of my colleagues are also this way! nowadays though i really want to use LLMs to write code for me instead of switching contexts on different platforms. can i ask what you use for LLM stuff on nvim? how do you like it compared to running bare bones vim and switching platforms?
- israrkhan 1y ago
  Github copilot has an official [1] neovim extension. There are also third-party plugins for Copilot, Chat, Next edit etc. [1] https://github.com/github/copilot.vim https://github.com/github/copilot.vim
  - tanelpoder 1y ago
    It works with vanilla vim (and MacVim) these days too. "Vim 9.0.0185 or newer" is mentioned in the Getting Started section. I was about to install it a couple of years ago, but then started thinking about the privacy threat model. I realized that having a "copilot" in my everyday editor (not just for public open source coding!) is never gonna fly. I may end up accidentally uploading any file I open to a 3rd party for tab completion and "AI stuff". Even if I can configure it to hopefully ignore some directories, too risky for me. With a separate editor just for coding (Zed in my case), the risk of accidentally opening and uploading a wrong file would be much lower for me, as I'll keep using vim without any AI for everything other than OSS coding. Edit: I'm sure there's an option only manually load the copilot plugin when you explicitly want it, but it still makes me too uneasy.
    - pxc 1y ago
      How hard would it be to have an editor just ignore files that aren't in source control (at least staged)?
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]