• nachtigall@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I recently gave it a try after seeing dessalines recommending it. It is pretty cool but years of vim muscle memory won’t go away so easily :D

    • FryboyterOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      In my opinion, users who already use vim are not the primary target audience of Helix. I see the target group more among users who want to switch from a “normal” editor to a modal editor. The selection → action model and the easier shortcuts probably make the switch easier for many. I personally don’t like vim at all because of the handling (purely subjective view). Helix will definitely not be my default editor but I get along much better with it than with vim or neovim.

      • KiranWells@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        When I first tried Helix, my main concern (that prevented me from getting too far into it) was not going from Vim to Helix, but the other way around. Vim (or sometimes vi) is a standard editor on almost any Linux machine, so if I am ever working on a server if a VM, I would need to know/use Vim keybinds. That made Vim a more useful tool for me to learn at the time, as I could use the skills both on my machine and anywhere else.

        • nachtigall@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I don’t feel like this is true anymore. Many distros do not ship vi(m) anymore but only nano.

        • FryboyterOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Vim (or sometimes vi) is a standard editor on almost any Linux machine, so if I am ever working on a server if a VM, I would need to know/use Vim keybinds.

          I understand the argument, but in my opinion it is used far too often and is not always true.

          Not everyone works with servers on which they have no influence on the installed software.

          And in the few cases where I had to work with servers on which I had no influence on the installed software and on which actually only vim was installed, I could always use sshfs or rclone mount without any problems so that the editor I used didn’t matter.

          • KiranWells@pawb.social
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            In my (limited) experience, I most needed a CLI/TUI editor when working over ssh on a server or in a VM where I didn’t want to bother installing a new editor or setting up a remote editing connection, or inside of something like a docker container, where the image is somewhat immutable.

            If I needed to spend enough time editing that it made sense to set up an editor, then I could just spend the time getting VSCode or Neovim set up just as easily as Helix.

            I don’t really mean this as a criticism of Helix, just explaining why I did not initially want to invest time into learning it. Now that it has matured more and I have learned Vim enough to be comfortable, I would be interested in taking another look.

      • nous@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I disagree with that. Yes users new to modal is likely a target - but as a long time and heavy vim user I do find helix to be much nicer to use and have switch to it full time. So I think that vim users that are sick of all the configuration and plugins needed to get it into a good state are also a strong target for helix.

    • Kasion@lemmy.mackners.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I agree, never understood why they changed a lot of basic shortcuts away from what vi/vim/neovim uses.