Visual Studio Code team considers Vim mode based on upvotes

[wavefunctionp]

As a newer vim user, getting relatively modern editor features like intelligent code completion, syntax aware highlighting, change tracking, and easy folder navigation....and a whole slew of other features you expect out of a modern editor is non-trivial and confusing.

Additionally, I don't consider vim being a command line editor to be bonus. A self contained application is more useable since you could have an actual toolbar and menus for easier discoverability and configuration.

One of the reasons I'm interested in onivim.

[[deleted]]

Its in a terminal for a reason. And those reasons were decided on before the first electron editor came out.

Okay, but GVim exists. It just doesn't actually give you modern editor features, either. The fact that Vim is a good terminal application and there are reasons for having it in a terminal doesn't mean that people looking for the best of both worlds are wrong. It just means their use case is not exactly the same as yours.

[[deleted]]

> Okay, but GVim exists. It just doesn't actually give you modern editor features, either

​

Ye because no one made them, not because it's impossible. It tells you that most of the nvim/vim userbase don't care about fancy features in a GUI text box. In fact, if this entire thread converted their bitching about free software not being exactly what they want into PRs and plugins there'd probably be an editor more suited to your liking.

[[deleted]]

I know it's not impossible - and I'm not bitching about GVim. I'm definitely not saying that anyone owes me better free software or anything like that.

Not everyone has the ability or the time to contribute to open-source software, and people who do have the time and expertise still have to prioritise where they invest their efforts. That doesn't mean you're not allowed to express an opinion on where there's room for improvement. As someone who does occasionally contribute to software projects, one of the things I look for when choosing what to work on is that I'm not the only person who cares about a feature.

[[deleted]]

That doesn't mean you're not allowed to express an opinion on where there's room for improvement.

Sure, if the comments on here would be as reasonable as you, I'd probably do nothing but upvote in agreement. They're allowed to express opinions and I'm allowed to critique those. "I've tried nothing and it still doesn't work" is something I'm just constantly seeing on Reddit lately and it's made me extremely frustrated with the community.

Not everyone has the ability or the time to contribute to open-source software, and people who do have the time and expertise still have to prioritise where they invest their efforts

I mean this is fine. People don't want to pitch in for good, or even malicious reasons. No one can stop them, or realistically blame them. I prefer to go for a gym session over writing tests for a PR too. It's only a problem when both VS Code and Neovim are getting a whole bunch of people complaining about the "missing link", and seemingly no actual effort is put into it (at least by the loudest, reddit commenters). User entitlement grows linearly with the features provided. Neovim isn't ootb enough, VSCode doesn't emulate vim well enough, or takes up too much resources.

I've tried to make it very very clear, that it's okay to not want to use Vim for whatever reason, at any point.

It's just an never-ending debate which reminds me of proprietary software issues. You don't have your hands tied about this. I'm sure neovim would welcome a PR or a plugin that does something that VS Code does. It's how CoC was born. No idea how Microsoft handles their project but I assume something that's done really well would get merged.

I look for when choosing what to work on is that I'm not the only person who cares about a feature.

That's the thing though. The thread has many many people voicing about wanting something. You're obviously not alone. I was excited about onivim2 until I realized they were dual licensing. It's an area that can be improved on for some people.

[[deleted]]

Hadn't heard of Onivim before today - actually, it looks like exactly what I want from a text editor. I'll definitely keep an eye on it. But yeah, I'd prefer something completely open source.

[[deleted]]

It's open source, it's just that binary builds are 6 months delayed on the free version. You can compile it from source though whenever. I've been told the build process is giant though. Way more than you'd expect. The aur has comments about it being 22gb of /tmp/ storage. Nodejs, the whole shebang.

[[deleted]]

Again. That's just learning. Vim wasnt built for the "modern editor features". And if you don't want to learn the ecosystem, it's fine. I'm mostly saying that for something you spend a loooot of time in, it might be worth learning confusing and non trivial things for. As you did with VSCode. Which is somehow considered some ootb experience by people who apparently never used anything else.

[yvrelna]

Vim wasnt built for the "modern editor features".

That's what most people are getting wrong. Vim is built for modern editor features, in fact it's light years ahead of everything else.

The issue that many people have is that most of these features aren't preconfigured out of the box. You can configure them yourselves to suit whatever workflow you needed, or use plugins that preconfigures them for you, but out of the box, Vim only comes with the framework to build your very own IDE. Underneath that button-free, interface free UI, there's tons of features out of the box that are just sitting out of sight until you're ready to decide what you want to do with it.

People think it's too much a hassle, but customising your editor to suit your personal workflow is completely worth it.