Comment by dpc_01234 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dpc_01234 | Hacker News Reader

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I was using Kakoune for 3-4 years, and switched a year ago to Helix.

Kakoune is OK, but:

Some details of editing are too optimized for counting keystrokes in vim golf, less for thinking-free editing experience.

Configuring and extending text editor with shell scripts is ridiculous.

It's in C++. I want to be able to debug and submit changes to my most used dev tool and I don't want to be touching C++.

Having said that, I still miss the visual-mode-first experience of Kakoune (most moves in Kakoune change/modify selection, while Vim/Helix have visual mode instead).

Otherwise I think Helix already leaped over Kakoune in terms of functionality and polish, because it's just easier to contribute to (in Rust).

BTW. The difference between Vim and Kakoune/Helix is not that big. For basic Vim modes in shells and other tools, I don't really notice it. `hjkl` works all the same.

Agreed on all points. And one more issue with Kakoune: while delegating all windowing functionality to the terminal emulator probably sounds great to the editor implementer, for a user it is fucking annoying. An editor should be able to manage splits and tabs. It should have a basic concept of some kind of UI pop ups.

Kakoune can feel _amazing_ to use at times, but it is at the same time a case study on why brutalist minimalism isn't the best design goal.

"An editor should be able to manage splits and tabs. It should have a basic concept of some kind of UI pop.."

Couldn't disagree more.

Of course, it is currently necessary for apps themselves to handle splits, tabs, etc, because the windowing systems and terminals are so lacking.

But in an ideal world, the windowing systems would handle all that consistently, and the apps could just focus on their own domain, interacting with the windowing system as necessary.

It would be nice if this could be done by terminal multiplexers such as screen or tmux. Some users might not be able to depend on a window manager, i.e. if they're working with a physical VT100 terminal over a serial connection.

Could I ask what Vim can do that Kakoune + Tmux can't?

I don't doubt there's something, I've just never encountered it.

I mean you definitely can manage splits and tabs and even pop up ui with tmux, just like you can extend kakoune by writing shell scripts with kakoune’s eldrich horror nesting of editor contexts. I just think both of those things are a huge pain in the ass to deal with.

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