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Comment by canistel | Hacker News Reader

Do have a look at the second question in the FAQ :).

I do find Helix very impressive. I remember the Python LSP working without any configuration whatsoever.

However, I have vim muscle memory built over 25 years of use. I already struggle switching between Emacs and vim (or its equivalents) - for example, after a period of vim usage, I would press ESC repeatedly in Emacs, three of which are enough close a window. While Helix borrows modal editing from vim, it introduces subtle (and meaningful - I have to admit) variations, which unfortunately wreaks havoc with my muscle memory. Maybe the worst part about muscle memory is that unlearning is almost impossible. My dilemma, not Helix's fault...

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I have been using an ergonomics keyboard for a while and find it impossible to go back to normal keyboard.

For the last two weeks, I was forced to work at a normal keyboard. After initial pain for one day, I got back to typing at normal speed. Without losing my comfort with the ergonomic one. I can now just context switch. It wasn't easy though.

Perhaps you will also become comfortable with both vim and helix after the initial struggle?

> I would press ESC repeatedly in Emacs, three of which are enough close a window.

You can configure every combination of keystrokes in Emacs - just bind M-ESC ESC to something harmless (such as, e.g., not function at all).

One possibility would be the following line in your ~/.emacs file:

    (global-set-key (kbd "M-ESC ESC") 'keyboard-quit)

Is this kind of comment not just a tautological rebuttal to any criticism of emacs

No.

Thank you for mentioning this. I do have something similar...

    (global-unset-key (kbd "ESC ESC ESC"))

...which is probably the better alternative, since having to hit ESC three times just in order to quit the current command seems excessive.

"However, I have vim muscle memory built over 25 years of use."

Me too and it took a view attempts but I'm on Helix now and don't regret it. Once you are over the most prominent discrepancies like dd and G it's an uphill battle.

agreed, it wasn't more than a few days/a week. The real annoyance is if you use other coding environments too which do not have hx bindings (VScode, Google Colab) and have to constantly switch between hx and vim keys. Zed has had very good hx keybindings support for a few months now so this became less of an issue.

Have you tried Emacs' Extensible Vi Layer ("Evil" mode)? My muscle memory switched almost seamlessly from Vim to Emacs with Evil mode

I have in fact. I use Emacs for org-mode and markdown. Because of some reason, evil and org-mode did not mix well - for me. There is evil-org, which I did not try.

I think Zed editor has helix phylosophy of supporting LSP out of the box while having exact vi bindings if it is important.

[1] https://zed.dev/

It actually has Helix bindings as well which makes the investment in Helix not that risky anymore. I use both.

Neovim supports LSP out of the box since version 0.11. It requires very little configuration to enable and configure it.

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