8 ms·

Pure Python Vim clone

255 points by efbbbf 11y ago

morekozhambu 11y ago
awesome !! Does it work with unicode Indic characters?
- jonathan_s 11y ago
  Yes, it should normally work with all unicode characters. (If not, please file a bug.)
marktangotango 11y ago
Fyi there's a similar project here: https://github.com/stefanoborini/vai https://github.com/stefanoborini/vai
rch 11y ago
This looks great - very hackable. I think I'd like to try adding support for HDF5 files via h5py.
tomp 11y ago
Like vim, just slower.™
- andybak 11y ago
  From the readme: Why did I create Pyvim? There are several reasons. The main reason is maybe because it was a small step after I created the Python prompt-toolkit library. That is a library which is actually only a simply pure Python readline replacement, but with some nice additions like syntax highlighting and multiline editing. It was never intended to be a toolkit for full-screen terminal applications, but at some point I realised that everything we need for an editor was in there and I liked to challenge its design. So, I started an editor and the first proof of concept was literally just a few hundred lines of code, but it was already a working editor. The creation of pyvim will make sure that we have a solid architecture for prompt-toolkit, but it also aims to demonstrate the flexibility of the library. When it makes sense, features of pyvim will move back to prompt-toolkit, which in turn also results in a better Python REPL. (see ptpython, an alternative REPL.) Above all, it is really fun to create an editor.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
evmar 11y ago
My thought process upon seeing this: "Python, huh? Seems like typos in uncommon branches of the code would cause it to randomly fail at runtime, losing your work!" "Now evmar, don't be such a internet nay-sayer, plenty of people write reliable Python code. You just need tests and... yep, there's a tests directory right there in the repository." "Let's take a look. ...there's only one test!?" It looks pretty neat other than that, though.
- david-given 11y ago
  I am, right now, or at least two minutes ago before I started reading HN, refactoring big chunks of _my_ text editor, WordGrinder. It's a almost-pure-Lua word processor. In the process I have been writing unit tests. Previously the program didn't have any, which was really dumb. It was dumb because, in the three days I've spent doing this, I have found (and fixed) so, _so_ many bugs. And now I have a decent set of tests, I can change something, rerun them, and have a pretty good idea of whether it worked or not. I don't even have to run the program! Unit tests. They Will Save You Time™.
  - teacup50 11y ago
    Types. They Will Save You Tests™ :-)
    - keslag 11y ago
      Types will create a false sense of security...
      - vhost- 11y ago
        Can you elaborate?
        _yosefk 11y ago
        print(arr[i]) Compiles, runs, fails if i is out of bounds. Which means that you need to test the code that you write, and that even if you have 100% line coverage (or branch coverage or MC/DC coverage or...), it doesn't mean i won't get the wrong value. People who claim that "once my C++/Haskell/Agda/whatever program compiles, I know it probably has no bugs" thus tempt others to mention "a false sense of security." (Agda might be going further than anyone else with proving that i cannot be out of bounds, AFAIK... though a generally undecidable problem will remain generally undecidable.)
mkonecny 11y ago
Was this more of a blackbox re-implementation, or is more of a 1:1 code port?
- jonathan_s 11y ago
  It's a blackbox re-implementation. In Python, things are done different from C and there are other libraries are available (Pygments for instance). I also don't want to claim that it is as powerful as Vim is. But it should be stable, easy to install, and especially usable for Python development.
eivarv 11y ago
Very cool!
kgadek 11y ago
Q: Why Python? A: The only alternative would be Haskell, but I still have to learn that. Wow, that would be interesting.
- fadsasda432 11y ago
  Hi, I once tried that, but I ran into problems with lazyness. In particular my data structure was rather simple (famous gap data structure), but editing "large" files (>1000LOC) became rather unpleasant (too big input-feedback latency). However I managed to build a _very_ basic proof-of-concept editor (no dependencies) in just a few hundreds lines of code which I could explain, but until now I was too shy to share it as it did not involve magic abstract Haskell-foo ... ;)
  - implicit 11y ago
    That's a shame! "Gets the job done in just a few hundred lines of easily-explained code" is a terrific standard to meet. "Magic abstract Haskell-fu" cannot improve such a program very much.
  - codygman 11y ago
    > I was too shy to share it as it did not involve magic abstract Haskell-foo Please don't be, simple understandable Haskell code is very nice :) Plus if there is a better way of doing it you get to find that out too.
- wz1000 11y ago
  Yi[0] is an editor written in Haskell. [0]: https://github.com/yi-editor/yi https://github.com/yi-editor/yi
  - euid 11y ago
    Emulates Vim quite nicely, too.
    - bsummer4 11y ago
Yadi 11y ago
This is awesome, I just tested it out :)! It would be cool to have the possibility creating the extensions in future.
chestervonwinch 11y ago
Tried it on OS X. Everything blinks - as in blink-tag blinks. Not sure what's going on with that...
- jonathan_s 11y ago
  Can you tell me what terminal application you are using? Does it happen as well in a new terminal?
  - chestervonwinch 11y ago
    default terminal app on osx 10.6. happens in a new terminal.
    - avinassh 11y ago
      Is there any reason you are still using 10.6?
      - chestervonwinch 11y ago
        old laptop. no $$.
krick 11y ago
So is it vi clone on vim clone, exactly? I just noticed some usual things are not working (ZQ, for example), but I don't remember, maybe it's supposed to be that way in vi.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
rhapsodyv 11y ago
Is there any vim clone that actually have full support to vimfiles?
- afarrell 11y ago
  Does https://github.com/neovim/neovim https://github.com/neovim/neovim not?
  - rhapsodyv 11y ago
    But it isn't a clone. Every clone I see try to reproduce vim usage, but none really try to run vimfiles. I think running vimfiles is a must have for a clone to get real users.
amelius 11y ago
Why not decouple the following things: - Core editor (internal representation, etc.) - Key bindings (so you could easily create an emacs instead of a vi) - Rendering - Scripting language (for customized behavior) Finally, make sure you thoroughly document these building blocks, so others can create really cool stuff with it. Also, think of possible use-cases when defining the modules. A smart architecture could allow for a collaborative editor, for example.
- jonathan_s 11y ago
  Hi, thanks for the suggestions! Actually, the internal representation, is completely separate from the layout. It's not in another repository, but it's decoupled. The key bindings are also separate. Getting emacs bindings is not much more than changing this line [0]. Only adding the bindings for the window management and emacs command line is still to be done. (I know that emacs is actually much more than only its key bindings, but you know what I mean.) The rendering is also independent. There are two backends: vt100 terminals and the windows console. (Honesly, my main focus is vt100, but any render back-end is possible. I think even graphical) The same for the event loops by the way, it can run on a couple of event loops. For instance asyncio. Documentation will follow. prompt-toolkit has already quite a lot of examples, and there's a lot of documentation in the code itself. But I agree that we should keep improving. Cheers! [0] https://github.com/jonathanslenders/pyvim/blob/master/pyvim/key_bindings.py#L26 https://github.com/jonathanslenders/pyvim/blob/master/pyvim/...
  - AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
    I want to compliment you on your code. It's so rare to see clean python code. I am almost never able to be able to jump into a file in a module and understand exactly what's happening, but you fucking nailed it. Well done!
    - notfoss 11y ago
      I believe he follows pep8 ;)
- 11y ago
marco2357 11y ago
There's a Java version of Vim here: https://www.mtsystems.ch/#section2 https://www.mtsystems.ch/#section2 It's an automatic translation of the C version. Like tomp said 4 hours ago: Like vim, just slower.™
- haches 11y ago
  Could you make it available as a Github repo? Would allow to browse it without requiring a download.
andor 11y ago
This is really nice. Does anybody know whether there's a comparable (real time, asynchronous, highlighting symbols not lines) syntax checker for neovim?
esbio 11y ago
Here is vai https://github.com/stefanoborini/vai https://github.com/stefanoborini/vai , a similar project I started a year and a half ago.
yoanizer 11y ago
Hello, I have a question, what made you want to start this project? What do you not like about main branch vim?

255 points by efbbbf 11y ago

morekozhambu 11y ago

awesome !! Does it work with unicode Indic characters?

jonathan_s 11y ago
Yes, it should normally work with all unicode characters. (If not, please file a bug.)

marktangotango 11y ago

Fyi there's a similar project here: https://github.com/stefanoborini/vai https://github.com/stefanoborini/vai

rch 11y ago

This looks great - very hackable. I think I'd like to try adding support for HDF5 files via h5py.

tomp 11y ago

Like vim, just slower.™

andybak 11y ago
From the readme: Why did I create Pyvim? There are several reasons. The main reason is maybe because it was a small step after I created the Python prompt-toolkit library. That is a library which is actually only a simply pure Python readline replacement, but with some nice additions like syntax highlighting and multiline editing. It was never intended to be a toolkit for full-screen terminal applications, but at some point I realised that everything we need for an editor was in there and I liked to challenge its design. So, I started an editor and the first proof of concept was literally just a few hundred lines of code, but it was already a working editor. The creation of pyvim will make sure that we have a solid architecture for prompt-toolkit, but it also aims to demonstrate the flexibility of the library. When it makes sense, features of pyvim will move back to prompt-toolkit, which in turn also results in a better Python REPL. (see ptpython, an alternative REPL.) Above all, it is really fun to create an editor.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

evmar 11y ago

My thought process upon seeing this: "Python, huh? Seems like typos in uncommon branches of the code would cause it to randomly fail at runtime, losing your work!" "Now evmar, don't be such a internet nay-sayer, plenty of people write reliable Python code. You just need tests and... yep, there's a tests directory right there in the repository." "Let's take a look. ...there's only one test!?" It looks pretty neat other than that, though.

david-given 11y ago
I am, right now, or at least two minutes ago before I started reading HN, refactoring big chunks of _my_ text editor, WordGrinder. It's a almost-pure-Lua word processor. In the process I have been writing unit tests. Previously the program didn't have any, which was really dumb. It was dumb because, in the three days I've spent doing this, I have found (and fixed) so, _so_ many bugs. And now I have a decent set of tests, I can change something, rerun them, and have a pretty good idea of whether it worked or not. I don't even have to run the program! Unit tests. They Will Save You Time™.
- teacup50 11y ago
  Types. They Will Save You Tests™ :-)
  - keslag 11y ago
    Types will create a false sense of security...
    - vhost- 11y ago
      Can you elaborate?
      - _yosefk 11y ago
        print(arr[i]) Compiles, runs, fails if i is out of bounds. Which means that you need to test the code that you write, and that even if you have 100% line coverage (or branch coverage or MC/DC coverage or...), it doesn't mean i won't get the wrong value. People who claim that "once my C++/Haskell/Agda/whatever program compiles, I know it probably has no bugs" thus tempt others to mention "a false sense of security." (Agda might be going further than anyone else with proving that i cannot be out of bounds, AFAIK... though a generally undecidable problem will remain generally undecidable.)

mkonecny 11y ago

Was this more of a blackbox re-implementation, or is more of a 1:1 code port?

jonathan_s 11y ago
It's a blackbox re-implementation. In Python, things are done different from C and there are other libraries are available (Pygments for instance). I also don't want to claim that it is as powerful as Vim is. But it should be stable, easy to install, and especially usable for Python development.

eivarv 11y ago

Very cool!

kgadek 11y ago

Q: Why Python? A: The only alternative would be Haskell, but I still have to learn that. Wow, that would be interesting.

fadsasda432 11y ago
Hi, I once tried that, but I ran into problems with lazyness. In particular my data structure was rather simple (famous gap data structure), but editing "large" files (>1000LOC) became rather unpleasant (too big input-feedback latency). However I managed to build a _very_ basic proof-of-concept editor (no dependencies) in just a few hundreds lines of code which I could explain, but until now I was too shy to share it as it did not involve magic abstract Haskell-foo ... ;)
- implicit 11y ago
  That's a shame! "Gets the job done in just a few hundred lines of easily-explained code" is a terrific standard to meet. "Magic abstract Haskell-fu" cannot improve such a program very much.
- codygman 11y ago
  > I was too shy to share it as it did not involve magic abstract Haskell-foo Please don't be, simple understandable Haskell code is very nice :) Plus if there is a better way of doing it you get to find that out too.
wz1000 11y ago
Yi[0] is an editor written in Haskell. [0]: https://github.com/yi-editor/yi https://github.com/yi-editor/yi
- euid 11y ago
  Emulates Vim quite nicely, too.
  - bsummer4 11y ago

Yadi 11y ago

This is awesome, I just tested it out :)! It would be cool to have the possibility creating the extensions in future.

chestervonwinch 11y ago

Tried it on OS X. Everything blinks - as in blink-tag blinks. Not sure what's going on with that...

jonathan_s 11y ago
Can you tell me what terminal application you are using? Does it happen as well in a new terminal?
- chestervonwinch 11y ago
  default terminal app on osx 10.6. happens in a new terminal.
  - avinassh 11y ago
    Is there any reason you are still using 10.6?
    - chestervonwinch 11y ago
      old laptop. no $$.

krick 11y ago

So is it vi clone on vim clone, exactly? I just noticed some usual things are not working (ZQ, for example), but I don't remember, maybe it's supposed to be that way in vi.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

rhapsodyv 11y ago

Is there any vim clone that actually have full support to vimfiles?

afarrell 11y ago
Does https://github.com/neovim/neovim https://github.com/neovim/neovim not?
- rhapsodyv 11y ago
  But it isn't a clone. Every clone I see try to reproduce vim usage, but none really try to run vimfiles. I think running vimfiles is a must have for a clone to get real users.

amelius 11y ago

Why not decouple the following things: - Core editor (internal representation, etc.) - Key bindings (so you could easily create an emacs instead of a vi) - Rendering - Scripting language (for customized behavior) Finally, make sure you thoroughly document these building blocks, so others can create really cool stuff with it. Also, think of possible use-cases when defining the modules. A smart architecture could allow for a collaborative editor, for example.

jonathan_s 11y ago
Hi, thanks for the suggestions! Actually, the internal representation, is completely separate from the layout. It's not in another repository, but it's decoupled. The key bindings are also separate. Getting emacs bindings is not much more than changing this line [0]. Only adding the bindings for the window management and emacs command line is still to be done. (I know that emacs is actually much more than only its key bindings, but you know what I mean.) The rendering is also independent. There are two backends: vt100 terminals and the windows console. (Honesly, my main focus is vt100, but any render back-end is possible. I think even graphical) The same for the event loops by the way, it can run on a couple of event loops. For instance asyncio. Documentation will follow. prompt-toolkit has already quite a lot of examples, and there's a lot of documentation in the code itself. But I agree that we should keep improving. Cheers! [0] https://github.com/jonathanslenders/pyvim/blob/master/pyvim/key_bindings.py#L26 https://github.com/jonathanslenders/pyvim/blob/master/pyvim/...
- AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
  I want to compliment you on your code. It's so rare to see clean python code. I am almost never able to be able to jump into a file in a module and understand exactly what's happening, but you fucking nailed it. Well done!
  - notfoss 11y ago
    I believe he follows pep8 ;)
11y ago

marco2357 11y ago

There's a Java version of Vim here: https://www.mtsystems.ch/#section2 https://www.mtsystems.ch/#section2 It's an automatic translation of the C version. Like tomp said 4 hours ago: Like vim, just slower.™

haches 11y ago
Could you make it available as a Github repo? Would allow to browse it without requiring a download.

andor 11y ago

This is really nice. Does anybody know whether there's a comparable (real time, asynchronous, highlighting symbols not lines) syntax checker for neovim?

esbio 11y ago

Here is vai https://github.com/stefanoborini/vai https://github.com/stefanoborini/vai , a similar project I started a year and a half ago.

yoanizer 11y ago

Hello, I have a question, what made you want to start this project? What do you not like about main branch vim?