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I actually had hoped "Neovim" would be a modern reimagining of a modal Texteditor for the modern time, along one of two paths. Path 1: An html5+javascript base

I actually had hoped "Neovim" would be a modern reimagining of a modal Texteditor for the modern time, along one of two paths. Path 1: An html5+javascript based modal editor where buffers are actually DOM trees, enabling both code and other data to be rendered/edited, and also offering much richer visual enhancements. Javascript is already a great way for enabling a rich plugin ecosystem. Path 2: Modal Textediting suited for mobile devices. For example based on python+kivy, or even C with SDL, it would be aimed to be portable and to extend the modal interface to touch-based gestures and speech recognition. Akin to "verbal vim", entering vim-like commands with touch or voice gestures, text editing on mobile devices like tablets would immediately suck a lot less...

deleted 13y ago
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standardfoil 13y ago
Can't tell if you are actually serious about the above or not, especially path 1.
- bayesianhorse 13y ago
  Even if it sounds like sacrilege to some, I am putting it out there for comment. Both ideas arose from the dissatisfaction with text editing, one in the browser, and the other in the mobile space where currently almost nobody uses a text editor. Especially the "modal html5 editor" would be useful across a variety of websites, either built into the site or the browser itself. For example it would be nice to have plugins that work about the same in IPython notebook, Chrome/Firefox Devtools, Udacity, latex-as-a-service, web-based admin tools, webmail etc. That being said I am not convinced these projects are worth investing time in. They are on my mind though.
  - jamesgeck0 13y ago
    Path 2 is actually something you could do with neovim. The editor's core and it's UI would be decoupled, so you could put whatever UI you wanted to build on top of it relatively easily.
    - ticviking 13y ago
      Ohh a modal vim with like wheel typing for taking notes on my iPad in meetings would be smexy
- haberman 13y ago
  I personally think path 1 is absolutely where editors should be going. Upvote from me. NeoVim is a step in the right direction, but not far enough. The future is a more Light Table like environment (http://www.lighttable.com/ http://www.lighttable.com/). But Light Table (as visionary as I think its UI is) is written (and extended, AFAIK) in ClojureScript, a LISP-like language that nobody knows. It it was written and could be extended in JavaScript instead, and configured to the extent that I could write VIM-like modal editor support for it, I might finally be able to give up VIM after 20 years for something better.
  - Foxboron 13y ago
    Getting a little ahead of ourselfs maybe? "Nobody knows", lets just compare IRC. #javascript on freenode got 951 users. #clojure on freenode got 651 users. Even tho its not a good comparison, saying "nobody" knows clojure is very far fetched. It has a ever growing community, with several books published, and the whole point on Chris choosing Clojure shows enough of its maturity.
    - haberman 13y ago
      Search Amazon.com books: ClojureScript: 10 results (only one of these actually has ClojureScript in the title) Clojure: 89 results JavaScript: 5,787 results Sorry, there is no comparison. I'm not saying Clojure sucks, I am just saying that it's not mainstream. ClojureScript even less so -- it's an offshoot of Clojure which was designed around the JVM, not browsers.
      - klibertp 13y ago
        > ClojureScript even less so -- it's an offshoot of Clojure which was designed around the JVM, not browsers. Clojure was designed as a Lisp friendly to it's hosting environment. JVM implementation is probably not purely accidental, but it's not the whole of original design either. And as I write this comment here I might as well add: non-mainstream languages are in many, many places a competitive advantage for those who use them. I know, use and frankly like many non-mainstream languages and the ROI of learning them was universally higher than with the most popular languages.

deleted 13y ago

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standardfoil 13y ago

Can't tell if you are actually serious about the above or not, especially path 1.

bayesianhorse 13y ago
Even if it sounds like sacrilege to some, I am putting it out there for comment. Both ideas arose from the dissatisfaction with text editing, one in the browser, and the other in the mobile space where currently almost nobody uses a text editor. Especially the "modal html5 editor" would be useful across a variety of websites, either built into the site or the browser itself. For example it would be nice to have plugins that work about the same in IPython notebook, Chrome/Firefox Devtools, Udacity, latex-as-a-service, web-based admin tools, webmail etc. That being said I am not convinced these projects are worth investing time in. They are on my mind though.
- jamesgeck0 13y ago
  Path 2 is actually something you could do with neovim. The editor's core and it's UI would be decoupled, so you could put whatever UI you wanted to build on top of it relatively easily.
  - ticviking 13y ago
    Ohh a modal vim with like wheel typing for taking notes on my iPad in meetings would be smexy
haberman 13y ago
I personally think path 1 is absolutely where editors should be going. Upvote from me. NeoVim is a step in the right direction, but not far enough. The future is a more Light Table like environment (http://www.lighttable.com/ http://www.lighttable.com/). But Light Table (as visionary as I think its UI is) is written (and extended, AFAIK) in ClojureScript, a LISP-like language that nobody knows. It it was written and could be extended in JavaScript instead, and configured to the extent that I could write VIM-like modal editor support for it, I might finally be able to give up VIM after 20 years for something better.
- Foxboron 13y ago
  Getting a little ahead of ourselfs maybe? "Nobody knows", lets just compare IRC. #javascript on freenode got 951 users. #clojure on freenode got 651 users. Even tho its not a good comparison, saying "nobody" knows clojure is very far fetched. It has a ever growing community, with several books published, and the whole point on Chris choosing Clojure shows enough of its maturity.
  - haberman 13y ago
    Search Amazon.com books: ClojureScript: 10 results (only one of these actually has ClojureScript in the title) Clojure: 89 results JavaScript: 5,787 results Sorry, there is no comparison. I'm not saying Clojure sucks, I am just saying that it's not mainstream. ClojureScript even less so -- it's an offshoot of Clojure which was designed around the JVM, not browsers.
    - klibertp 13y ago
      > ClojureScript even less so -- it's an offshoot of Clojure which was designed around the JVM, not browsers. Clojure was designed as a Lisp friendly to it's hosting environment. JVM implementation is probably not purely accidental, but it's not the whole of original design either. And as I write this comment here I might as well add: non-mainstream languages are in many, many places a competitive advantage for those who use them. I know, use and frankly like many non-mainstream languages and the ROI of learning them was universally higher than with the most popular languages.