Efficiency Once learned, Vim can significantly speed up text editing with its modal editing, keyboard shortcuts, and commands that allow for quick navigation and manipulation of text.
Lightweight Vim is a very lightweight editor, consuming minimal system resources, making it highly performant even on systems with lower specifications.
Customizability Vim is highly configurable and extensible through plugins and user-defined settings, allowing users to tailor the editor to their specific needs.
Ubiquity Vim is available on almost every Unix-like system and even on Windows, making it a ubiquitous tool that you can rely on being available in most environments.
Support for Multiple Programming Languages Vim supports a wide range of programming languages out of the box and offers syntax highlighting, which can be enhanced through plugins.
Powerful Search and Replace Vim offers robust searching and replacing functionalities, including support for regular expressions, which can be a powerful tool for developers.
Possible disadvantages
Steep Learning Curve Vim's modal editing and extensive set of commands can be daunting for new users, requiring significant time and effort to master.
Minimal Default Config The default configuration of Vim is quite minimalistic, which may necessitate additional setup and customization to meet modern development needs.
Limited GUI Vim primarily operates in a terminal, and while there are graphical variants like GVim, they are not as feature-rich or user-friendly as modern GUI editors.
Plugin Management While Vim is highly extensible, managing and configuring plugins can be cumbersome compared to more modern editors that offer integrated plugin management.
Inconsistent Behavior Across Platforms There may be inconsistencies in behavior or available features of Vim across different operating systems, which can complicate its use in certain environments.
Lack of Integrated Modern Features Vim lacks some modern IDE features like integrated debugging, advanced code introspection, and refined autocompletion, which often require third-party plugins to achieve.
Python Interoperability Hy seamlessly integrates with Python, allowing you to use the entire Python ecosystem while writing your code in a Lisp-like syntax. This interoperability makes it easier for developers familiar with Python to experiment with Lisp's syntax and ideas.
Lisp Syntax and Macros Hy provides Lisp's powerful macro system and syntax, enabling more expressive and concise code. The ability to create macros can lead to highly customizable and domain-specific solutions.
Readability For those familiar with Lisp, Hy offers increased readability due to its minimal syntax and symbolic expressions. This can lead to more straightforward reasoning about the code and reduced syntactic noise.
Compiles to Python Hy code is compiled to Python bytecode, allowing it to run on any environment where Python is available. This ensures good performance and compatibility with existing Python tools and utilities.
Possible disadvantages
Steep Learning Curve For developers not familiar with Lisp, Hy's syntax and concepts (like macros) can be difficult to grasp initially. This can slow down development time as developers need to learn new paradigms.
Limited Adoption Hy is not as widely adopted or supported as some other languages or even other Lisp implementations. This can lead to less community support, fewer third-party libraries written specifically for Hy, and potentially more difficulty finding solutions to problems.
Debugging Complexity Debugging in Hy can sometimes be more challenging because errors may occur in the compiled Python code rather than the original Hy code, which can complicate traceback and error understanding.
Macro Overuse While macros are a powerful feature, their misuse can lead to code that is hard to read and maintain. This can become a con if developers do not exercise restraint and best practices in their use.
Performance Overhead While Hy compiles to Python, the added layer of abstraction and translation may introduce small performance overheads compared to writing natively in Python, especially for performance-critical applications.
Analysis
An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.
VimHy
Overall verdict
Yes, Vim is a good text editor, especially for users who invest the time to learn its powerful commands and features. Its steep learning curve may be challenging initially, but once mastered, it significantly enhances productivity.
Why this product is good
Vim is considered a powerful text editor because of its efficiency and versatility. It offers extensive features, such as syntax highlighting, a robust plugin system, and support for numerous programming languages. Vim is highly configurable, enabling users to customize its environment to fit their needs. It is particularly appreciated for its speed and the ability to perform complex text manipulations using simple commands.
Recommended for
Vim is recommended for programmers, developers, and system administrators who require a highly efficient and customizable text editing experience. It is especially useful for those who work extensively in terminal environments or need a quick, resource-light text editor for remote systems.
Vim offers a variety of features like split windows, macros, and extensive customization options. It has a steep learning curve, but once you master it, you’ll be amazed at the speed and productivity it brings to your...
It’s tough to say which developers would enjoy Vim as a text editor. It’s an old system with an outdated interface. Yet, it still has the charm and powerful feature-set that the average developer needs. I would...
The entire installation process is perfectly documented on their Sourceforge page, which you must definitely pay a visit. There is another standalone Vim software, known as the gVim that brings a GUI-based interface...
Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.
Vim10 mentionsHy9 mentions
regular Vim has lua?!
Lua is quite small, encouraging distros to include it. The ubuntu gvim has, and the gvim AppImage linked from vim.org does. The default Makefile from github is set up to not include it, but you can uncomment one line there to get it.
Source:
over 3 years ago
is there a way to make highlighted text persistent after quit when using something like [match Search /\%'.line('.').'l/] ?
I've not used vimwiki locally (tho I'm old enough to remember the Vim wiki on vim.org :), but I think what you are wanting to do is extend vimwiki's syntax file. I presume it installs one at $VIMRUNTIM/syntax or or ~/.vim/syntax. If...
Source:
almost 4 years ago
Vim.org has 242k total visitors, tailwindcss.com has 4.4m, planetscale.com has 412k, jpl.nasa.gov has 2.6m, all built with Tailwind, all several years younger than Vim's website. Unnecessary comparison, unnecessary defence. It's a...
Source:
about 4 years ago
Hy: https://docs.hylang.org/en/stable/ I tend to stick to vanilla python though, mainly because Hy is too much of an hassle for my use cases.
- Source: Hacker News
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almost 4 years ago
Q: is there any game dev happening in Lisp? A: https://kandria.com/ and https://itch.io/jam/lisp-game-jam-2022 Q: how do I write a website with Lisp? A: https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/web.html#easy-routes-hunchentoot and...
- Source: Hacker News
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about 4 years ago
I really like Hy because it's fully inter-operable with Python. But its documentation is insufficient for anything moderately complex, and its tooling support is pretty basic. If Hy were well documented and supported I'd use it for all...
Source:
about 4 years ago
Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features. Fully customizable with macros, and syntax highlighting for most major languages.
Sublime Text
VS Code
Notepad++
GNU Emacs
Microsoft Visual Studio
Netbeans
IntelliJ IDEA
CLISP
Racket Lang
Chicken
MIT Scheme
Steel Bank Common Lisp
