• cally [he/they]@pawb.socialEnglish
    9·
    2 days ago

    I used to use Neovim until I got tired of it and switched to Helix. I tried Emacs for a bit but turns out that Helix does everything I need it to do without any extra configuration.

    And of course I use caps:swapescape because I am not reaching all the way to the Escape key all the time.

  • Alawami@lemmy.mlEnglish
    633·
    3 days ago

    May I introduce you to the simple life of just using whatever text editor and terminal that comes presintalled on your favoraite distro? It’s ridiculous how far this can get you, I’ve been enjoying gnome text ediotor with gnome terminal.

    • smiletolerantly@awful.systems
      101·
      2 days ago

      Yeah no thanks. Linting, formatting, LSP integration, Treesitter,… are just kind of essential for programming work. And the advantage of nvim/emacs/… is that you can bend them to your will and preferences.

      If you just want to edit some config files, sure, use literally anything. But I need something proper for work, and if I already set all of that up, might as well use it for the config files, too.

    • sepi@piefed.socialEnglish
      5·
      3 days ago

      Fake news. Emacs is the only text editor non-heathens and heathens should be using.

    • da_cow (she/her)@feddit.orgOP
      3·
      3 days ago

      I did this for the past 3 years. At some point I just got curious what all the hype is about, so I installed emacs and slowly started to use it. Now I am at a point, where Im getting comfortable around emacs and actually start to enjoy its features.

      Befor I usually used nano, since I mostly edited my text files from within my terminal.

        • UltraBlack@lemmy.world
          1·
          2 days ago

          I’m coming from kakoune. Language servers are something that’s shockingly hard to get running reliably. Helix has solved this for me

          • CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org
            1·
            2 days ago

            weird. I just use kakoune-lsp, and it works just fine out of the box, spare bit of copypasting from the readme on their github.

            I really like that i have to put in no effort for Helix to work, but unfortunately its just too rigid for me.

            And it also backs down on kakoune’s philosophy, returning back the necessity of selection mode. It really frustrates me in this aspect. Kakoune’s more heavy reliance on modifier keys seems way more handy and sensible to me. Helix’s way just creates unnecessary complications, and feels like a change for the sake of a change.

            • UltraBlack@lemmy.world
              1·
              1 day ago

              Helix pretty much shares the kakoune keymap and interactions, so no idea what you mean. If you mean the line select mode using x - you can bind that in the config.

              Also, plugin support using scheme is in the works. The dev still only sees it as a draft but it’s pretty usable already

              • CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org
                1·
                1 day ago

                no, what i mean is that they moved a whole list of motions into selection/extension mode. You can’t just press shift+w or shift+alt+i, you need to think “do i want to jump to the next selector, or do i want to extend the selection to it?”, press or not press v, and only then press w, alt+i or whatever. It’s literally vim2: the electric bogaloo in that aspect, because the user needs to think of a verb first: jump or extend in this case, then select nouns: word, paragraph, etc., then select the verb again, this time the actual operation i want to do to my selection. This practically defeats the whole point of the verb-noun motion reversal that the kakoune dev expressed first, and the helix dev repeated after.

                I learnt about helix first, so it wasn’t much of an issue, since a) i was just learning the motions, so i wasn’t striving for speed just yet b) i had no point of comparison… Until i tried kakoune. After that the idiocy of that design became apparent, and it can’t stop frustrating me ever since.

                P.S. i remember seeing the discussion about helix future plugin support back in 2023, when i just found it. Since it’s still just “in the works”, i’m feeling really skeptical about it, and about whether the plugin infrastructure will grow big enough. Kakoune is much more mature in that aspect

            • jollyrogue@lemmy.ml
              1·
              1 day ago

              I’ve thought about Doom, but I haven’t gotten around to trying it out. Finding the time to sit down and learn it hasn’t been a high priority.

              • [object Object]@lemmy.world
                1·
                1 day ago

                It’s very easy to pick up. Out of the box, it’s just Evil, Ivy/Vertico, Org-mode, and several programming modes. The spacebar is likewise employed for many actions, but I don’t use most of them myself: just have about a dozen that I invoke regularly. The enabled modules (readymade configuration) and installed packages are specified in config files, and doom sync handles installing them.

                It has some emacslisp helper functions/macros to add mappings, add hooks on modes, etc. — these are more convenient than those of raw Emacs.

                I’m not sure why the author switched Doom to Vertico in the upcoming version 3, when Ivy was working fine. I’ve made some configuration tailored to Ivy, so enabled it back via the config file.

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
        42·
        3 days ago

        That’s how the meme goes though. Anytime someone suggests, says something positive about one of vim or emacs, the response should be that they should use the other. 😄

        It’s an almost 40-year-old flame war.

  • TheRealKuni@piefed.socialEnglish
    31·
    3 days ago

    I’ve been using emacs for work for years because the proprietary language I have to work in was set up with emacs as the default editor. I bitched and moaned when I first started because I was used to more modern solutions.

    When they finally got VS Code support working…I stayed with emacs. Stockholm Syndrome, I suspect. But I know what I’m doing in emacs. I’m comfortable.

      • TheRealKuni@piefed.socialEnglish
        5·
        3 days ago

        Nah, it’s called CM which I believe stands for Configura Magic. It’s a C-based language sort of similar to C#, but specifically made for use with Configura’s space-planning software.

        I actually like the language, I just hate that it’s extremely niche.

        Edit: the similarity between the names Magik and Configura Magic is not lost on me, but I don’t think they’re related.

        • Decq@lemmy.world
          4·
          3 days ago

          Hmm seems coincidence yes. Though Magik is also very niche… I think it was more Pascal inspired and later ported to jvm. I guess the name and Emacs were just a sign of the times.

  • outerspace@lemmy.zip
    9·
    2 days ago

    The problem with Emacs is that it sucks but there is nothing better, and you are getting stuck with it forever. Welcome!

    • lilith267@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      This is also my goal! …since 2020.

      I love vim/nvim but I’ve gotten used to using VIM more as a text editor then an IDE. Writing a script? Taking notes? Maybe even a small program? VIM all the way. Working on a big project that needs an LSP? Either spend the next 20 hours fucking with your VIM config and 20 plugins to get basic functionality… Or just open VSCode and install one plugin

      Heres to hoping since NVIM 0.11 with their LSP overhaul I can finnally make the full switch

  • Lyubo@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    Good, good! You’re on the right way! But remember, there is a world outside your Emacs, don’t forget about it.

  • AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip
    10·
    3 days ago

    I may be crazy, but for regular text file, VIM is usually my go to. But, because of tag auto completion Bluefish has been my HMTL/CSS editor for a while. Most other things are in VIM. Bash? VIM. Python? VIM. C? Trash bin! Did not like the C class I took last quarter!

    Exception being things like .docx or .odt files that have no business being opened in VIM.

  • Wofls@feddit.org
    12·
    3 days ago

    Save yourself the trouble and just skip ahead: real programmers use butterflies

    • clif@lemmy.world
      5·
      3 days ago

      I decided to give it an honest try after somebody mentioned it on lemmy a few weeks ago.

      … I really like it.

      I still pop open Theia if I’m just doing some research that has me hopping all around, or sometimes on a separate monitor for a referenced project/library associated with my work, but I do the actual work in Helix.

  • sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    I keep thinking that as I use vim, I’ll feel the need to learn more commands, but I hardly do anything except:

    • q, wq, or q!, quit with or without saving
    • i, insert
    • set:paste, preserves spacing
    • Shift-insert, pastes if shift-ctrl-v doesn’t work
    • / , search for a string (iirc, don’t really need it much).

    What are your vim GOTOs?

    • [object Object]@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 day ago

      I hope that you use the motion commands at least, because that’s the whole point of the separate modes. If not, you should look them up and add some of them to your workflow little by little.

      The most basic ones are wand b to go a word forward or back; 0 and $ to go to the start or end of the line, or g0 and g$ for the visual line. f to jump to a particular letter forward. { and } to go to the start/end of the paragraph.

      V is useful for selecting whole lines. ctrl-v for block selection (or ctrl-q, depending on your setup).

      % can jump or select to the matching parenthesis or brace. With matchit installed, it also jumps to matching keywords like end or HTML tags.

      gc comments out the selection (or uncomments it). Works with motions too, like gcc.

      For pasting, you should use p in the normal mode. Also P pastes before the cursor. This is useful for moving text around by deleting it with something like daw, jumping elsewhere, and doing p.

      And of course, the regex replacement with :s// is very useful if you have more than a few lines that need approximately the same change.

      • sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        This is all very advanced to me. I use Home and End to go forward and back in the line, but w and b sound good to m (just wish they made more intuitive sense), also p and P.

        I should print out a ref sheet.

        • [object Object]@lemmy.world
          2·
          1 day ago

          Vim has a built-in tutorial on the motion commands and such. I don’t remember how it’s invoked, but probably something like :help tutorial. You’ll get an overview of the commands and see which ones might be useful to you right away. As I mentioned, I recommend getting the hang of them one or a few at a time, so they are incorporated in your toolbox.

          Speaking of help, it’s generally useful in Vim to use :help {something} when you want to recall how something works. It has consistent naming for the help pages for various functionality, e.g. :help :s shows the page about the :s command, and there are pages for every motion command, etc. — I don’t remember the prefixes as it’s been a while since I used Vim proper, but just :help should give you an index.

          Also, if you’re coding in Vim, there are ways to integrate documentation for your language, so that K would show help for the function or whatever under the cursor. Back in the day I’ve had PHP docs plugged into Vim, but it’s been a while, so idk how it’s done now. Iirc there are dumps of docs from the Dash app, which might be available as vimdocs.

    • Stitch0815@feddit.org
      5·
      2 days ago

      My most used commands are also just the classics

      cw - delete the next word amd enter insert mode

      dd - delete line

      gg - go to first line

      G - go to last line

      :s/searchphrase/replacephrase - search and replace

      And a couple of visual mode commands do cut and paste blocks or comment out blocks of code