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Comment by lemonwaterlime | Hacker News Reader

It would be nice if specific offending portions of the codebase were highlighted. As of now, it’s hard to see why one should use this fork. Also, since the source is available, anyone can just compile a past version of vim.

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Agreed. Without the context it just feels like a petty reaction. For all the reader knows, it could be completely unrelated to AI. The repository owner could’ve had a falling out with the maintainers regarding features or may be trying to inject their own malicious code into the fork.

A cursory search didn't turn anything up in the vim repo or elsewhere. I can see why the authors of the fork wouldn't want to stir up drama, but I am really curious too.

It’s not about specific offending portions, it’s the principle of having any LLM contributions at all. There’s a group of people who are so opposed to this stuff that they object to its mere presence anywhere.

The issue with that stance, practically speaking, is that anyone could have hand-submitted generated code at any time, so why this January cutoff date?

I would expect a decrease in code quality in a specific part of the repo or at least a quote/link to a changelog stating that generated code is being used as part of the fork making its case.

They're already talking about pushing it back farther, trying to revert/rewrite every commit from users suspected of ever using LLMs. Practicality doesn't really enter into it, this is an ideologically driven project that insists on getting rid of the "taint." https://codeberg.org/NerdNextDoor/evi/issues/19

I understand it is an ideological project. My point is that given their intent, there are things they should do to make their case. They should provide the evidence in the README etc.

If they are correct and things must be done, they aren’t providing the evidence. That’s not the same as saying there’s no evidence or reason to take this stance. Do you see the distinction I am making?

Are you talking about evidence that LLM contributions are harmful, or evidence that there are any? The former is unnecessary, as this is not an evangelism project, it's for people who already believe LLMs are bad. For the latter, I think the project is aimed at people who are already plugged into the issue, or suffers from the usual mistake of thinking everyone is plugged into a specific issue. In any case, it takes about five seconds to search for "claude" in the main vim repo's PRs and find that evidence.

It’s about demonstrating via the diligence that you are a good steward of a fork. This is a requirement of any fork for it to take and be stable.

That’s the trouble with ideological projects. They tend to focus on the one thing and neglect the rest.

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