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Comment by pault | Hacker News Reader

I know it sounds snarky, but at some point of vimrc complexity it’s worth considering just switching to vscode with the vim extension. It can use neovim as a back end and you get mountains of features out of the box. I created vim-idiomatic key mappings to all the vscode features and extensions I commonly use. It’s not vim, it uses a shit ton of memory, and you can’t run it in the terminal, but I love it. For context, I was formerly a vim snob for 10 years. I’m also mainly a typescript guy so YMMV.

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I don't see this often talked about, but some of the biggest value that (n)vim provides for me is that I've configured it myself. I know what's in my .vimrc because I'm the one that put it there. It takes me longer to add new features [0], but once it is set up how I want it, I understand it more deeply.

My data is purely anecdotal but I've noticed a correlation: people who spend the added time to configure their editor (be it vim or vscode) tend to be better at using their editor. It naturally follows that the time spent configuring it leads to a better understanding (and better recall) of how it works.

In my mind, the big "omnibus" plugin bundles for (n)vim prevent that understanding just as much as a default vscode config does [1].

[0]: Either by adding a plugin or, in most cases, by incorporating what I want into (n)vim's existing systems.

[1]: And no judgement for that -- not everybody has time or patience to deeply learn every tool they use.

>I know it sounds snarky, but at some point of vimrc complexity it’s worth considering just switching to vscode with the vim extension.

i've been using vim for 10+ years. i tried vsc with a vim extensions and it's just not the same. maybe it's just because i'm super used to my vim config, but vsc + vim plugin feels so awkward and slow.

> at some point of vimrc complexity it’s worth considering just switching to vscode with the vim extension

Sure, it’s worth considering…

> It’s not vim, it uses a shit ton of memory, and you can’t run it in the terminal

You just answered your own question on why it’s not necessarily a good idea ;-)

Another nice aspect of Neovim 0.5 is that you can do the entire configuration in Lua, so you can break out your config into multiple files and have things more organized and compartmentalized.

To each their own. I personally love my monolith init.lua :)

You can also break up your config with Vim script

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