Comment by onehair | Hacker News Reader

Comment by onehair | Hacker News Reader

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> that a well configured Emacs can

Well, that's the real issue for me. I spent a month an a half working on "configuring" NeoVim. I got it to a somewhat ready to use state for my usual workflows. But I still had a big pile of tasks in my backlog to actually get it finally 100% mine.

Then I discovered Helix, which doesn't need any configuration, no plugins to play around with. Builtin LSP, Builtin Fuzzy Finding of files, TreeSitter and the list goes on.

Even though it's still not fully checking all the boxes I need to have a 1 to 1 mapping of my previous workflows to what Helix offers. I find not having to build my own editor out of the Lego pieces and always needing to improve what it can offer me, makes the editor actually enjoyable.

IMO, VIM, NeoVIM and Emacs should start looking into implementing a bit more than just the barebones, some of these new features that people are accustomed to in 2023, and more and more will flock to these good editors.

I'll admit I didn't look into it, but Helix sounds like something like LunarVim (https://www.lunarvim.org/)

Personally I much prefer that the editor NOT ship with something like that by default, especially when it's so easy to set up. I have several different vim config I use, including a pretty bare-bones one for headless systems, and I much prefer the ability to customize something very specifically.

Build tools that can compose together, rather than a single do-it-all tool. That is the power of the low level editors vs IDE's.

You can still leverage the power of low level editors, just like helix does, and still have access to important things that so not require pages upon pages of configuration and plugin stitching to just get up and running in most projects you want vim or emacs like editing capabilities.

Helix is different from Lunar in the sense that the features it comes with are part of the core editor and the editor still feeling like an editor

I counted the number of config lines it takes in Emacs to get LSP fo Python:

Maybe 2 lines, if you otherwise would not use company-mode.

1 line requiring lsp-mode.

1 line setting lsp diagnostics provider.

1 line adding lsp mode to python-mode-hook.

2 lines enabling the linter (if you want that) (I use flake8).

2 lines for setting an additional shortcut.

23 completely optional lines for marking some variables from .dir-locals as accepted/safe.

1 optional line for changing the color of the breadcrumbs header line.

Approximately 2/3 of a page, including all optional config I have.

Yes I think we are saying the same thing. I don’t think vim should ship with more than what it does either

That's what Doom Emacs is for.

That would be very unideal. That’s why distributions exist like lazy and kickstart etc

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