Wait, no panes? What about things like diffing two files? There are also plenty of other situations too where I’ve definitely wanted splits in the same client, so I can see multiple files at once but also copy between them (which requires shared registers), write macros that switch between the panes (which… well, I suppose Kakoune’s composability approach might be able to support such a concept, but I get the impression Helix really wouldn’t), &c.

Wow, https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/405, indeed no side-by-side diffing and the approach being suggested would be hopelessly crippled for even two-way diff (let alone three- or four-way diff, which are probably just total non-starters), since it would only support editing one of the documents!

Seriously, my mind is boggling at considering a “you don’t really need it” policy for at least splits. I really do need it: even on my base task load, tmux would be inadequate in painful ways multiple times per month; and I regularly (sometimes daily for weeks, though other times not for months on end) do things for which it would be completely debilitating so that I couldn’t possibly use Helix and would have to go back to Vim.