I Love Neovim, but I NEVER Use It for Coding.
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- Опубліковано 4 лип 2024
- Why you should use VSCodium instead of VS Code: • Using VSCode without t...
Is it still worth it to learn vim? • Is it worth it to lear...
Why Neovim is better than vim: • Why Neovim is so much ...
Neovim is probably my favorite text editor of all time, but I could just never get into it for doing any major projects. When I'm working on something big, I'm always reaching for VSCodium (VSCode). But why am I not using Neovim as my IDE like all of the rest of the cool kids? Let me explain myself in this video...
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0:00 Intro
1:34 The painful setup
2:27 Plugin woes
4:09 Web tooling
5:19 Is it worth the setup?
6:24 Muh bloat
6:56 Why I switched
7:33 Vim bindings forever
8:18 VSCodium is valid - Наука та технологія
Interesting take. I think what matters is really Vim Motions. the way you navigate your code is the key here. I use Neovim full-time, but I mainly use non-JS languages. Go, Rust and things like that. I rarely have any issues with it, and I stopped adding plugins. it just works.
IMO, once your Neovim config is doing what its supposed to do, you should stop configuring it.
Exactly, as I developed my config I realised how much more stable and streamlined the tools are than vscode's. That is unless you need to work with this week's latest and "greatest" js framework
@@theglowpt3 It’s almost as if the problem is with JS itself, not Neovim. We’ve built tools like VSCode and others just to figure out a way to deal with a broken language.
It's even worse for Webstorm. Webstorm is so good it will hide and magically work around TS/JS issues whereas in vscode you only get your LSP just like in neovim.
How do you usually maintain updates of plugins? I sometimes suffer from breaking down my nvim due to updates.
@@keisukemurota604 if it works - don't break it. Unless you absolutely need some specific update, why do you even need to update? It's fine to not have the latest version of somethings for the sake of having the latest version.
A tool is a tool
I am a tool.
💀
but text editor is religion
@@mgk-metalgearkelly5054 Oh you got me 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I use neovim plugin in VSCode, because vim is about the motions and powerful commands like sed, not about the UI or whatever
Neovim itself would definitely be faster (as in both lightweight and probably productivity if I got used to it), but for me VSCode is the perfect balance between fast and good configuration, after I set up neovim plugin that's pretty much it, I can start coding
I like programming Rust in Neovim.
No language server.
No mega config.
No advanced features and plugins.
Just me and the code (and the crab that tries to kill me).
I bet you don't develop bigger applications.
But Rust's LSP is great
Sorry for conflating Vim and Neovim a lot in this video, but I'm mainly talking about Neovim and its ecosystem. Of course, what I say in the video can also be applied towards Vim as well.
I agree 100%. I spent more time trying to configure/fix VIM/NEOVIM instead of coding.
i was there.. but lazyvim changed that... now i don't think about my config at all...
my own config always breaks and i hated configuring lunavim vim or any other distro.. due to it's needless amount of abstraction...
but lazyvim provided really minimal abstraction yet soo much stable and powerful out of the box..
I find most the devs who love NeoVim spend an inordinate amount of time configuring it.
I cannot justify this. I need to get shit done. The editor is a means to an end, not the end itself.
I think that at the end of the day, it is at everyone's best interest to use the tools (ecosystems) that have first class support over their specific area of programming.
So if you're a frontend webdev, it makes a lot of sense to use vscodium.
And if you're a low level programmer (c++, rust, zig) then neovim it's most likely the better choice.
It all depends really.
why would you say that vim is better for low-level programming? I'm a neovim user and a (aspiring) low-level programmer but im still relatively new to this, so I dont see exactly what makes vim better for low-level coding.
@@not_kode_kun I say it mostly because (as far as i know) most of the official and community tooling for those languages is built to be used in the terminal, so it makes the most sense to use an editor that also lives on the terminal, as oposed to vscodium which only has a terminal
@@not_kode_kunA lot of low-level coders love tinkering and customizing their setups, developing on the latest standard, etc.. But that doesn’t mean Neovim is the best for C, C++, Rust, etc. for you. In fact, I know many who like Visual Studio or JetBrains, both even heavier than VSCode.
Vim (or neovim) is always better, the problem is that you are most likely trying to emulate the gui editor with cli editor. Which obviously he wouldn't be able to do as good as original gui editor. Instead you need to change the way you do navigating code and solving other problems that you usually do when coding, just like you needed to change the way you think about editing when you started using vim motions and vim modes. If you do that, you wouldn't even think of getting back to vscode or sublime or whatever.
Your VScodium looks amazing!! would you mind to share how to customize it to look something like this?
great vid. why do you recommend the neovim vscode extension over just the vim one? is it purely because you'd already setup neovim how you like, or did you run it many bugs with the plain vim one??
Yes, the plain vim extension just has a lot of bugs. Some things just don't work like they do in native vim, sometimes the vim plugin's undo history will conflict with VSCode's undo history, etc. You don't have to configure neovim at all to use vscode-neovim.
Interesting. I have been using Code for a while, but now I also want to try Neovim. Truth is, I would code in whatever editor is already installed, but I enjoy trying different ones.
Hey Eric, just dropping to let you know that The Primeagen made a reaction video to this one.
It was a nice surprise for me because I actually found his channel through yours 😅
Thanks for letting me know! That was a nice surprise :)
For me coding with neovim works because my config is very keyboard driven a thing that vscode or any gui editor cannot fully adopt. The biggest advantage is the ability to use tmux with neovim that makes the workflow a lot better: I can have a terminal, restoring sessions all keyboard driven. But I get why you think the way explained in the video I was on the same boat a month ago for Java development with IntelliJ but after a lot of effort configuring neovim lsp I got it working and it changed everything.
Can you elaborate on VSCode neovim plugin vs vscodevim "emulation"? I have much better experience with "emulation", being much more sane around working with selection (guilty of ocassionally using mouse)
One thing I don't get is how can you call neovim is slow with plugins if it is till faster than vscodium.
Use whatever works best for you, i switched to neovim cause i used to code over ssh on a server and vscode was really laggy and slow on my old pc, on new one it probably would work great
Interesting use case, didn't even think about that.
Actually I was thinking about that bcs rust took a lot of time to compile
Which vps provider should I use?
@@simoachangli the server in this case was my old pc ehich i used remotely using zerotier
As many say, the best tool is the one that works best for your workflow. With nvim it takes a lot of time to build your config and manage it, a few months starting from scratch I guess. A lot even more time one can spend with configuring Emacs. But, at the end of the day, the more time you invest in your skill, the more you get proficient in something. The more you fix smth, the quicker you fix it when you face smth similar again or do smth to not face it again. So it's about the motivation, being ready to spend time on this. For me it was like a breathe of fresh air to be able to switch between dozens of projects in a blink of an eye in nvim than in IntelliJ. Though a hard and expensive skill requires much more dedication to it. And when one builds muscles to lift heavier things, it gets much easier.
Hey just a suggestion but could you make a video on opera gx as it’s very different than the base opera browser
Whatever floats your boat. I personally use vim, not neovim, and I've only got one plugin, supertab. Quite frankly, I'm curious as to what all of these plugins are that you would use with neovim, and I don't understand why people need so many. My typical workflow is either two or four terminal windows open on the given desktop I'm working on and I'll have multiple files open in most terminals. I use tabs in vim and I've bound the tab key in normal mode to cycle forward and s-tab to cycle back with \t to open a new one and I find that to be the best method so far. I'm assuming since VS Code emulates vim that you can bind the keys in that way too, but you'll have to tell me since I've never used it.
Hey Eric, I was thrown into a terminal environment (formerly I had only used Windows and the Powershell terrified me) and found Vim to be enjoyable. I've held off in the past for VS Code and VSCodium because I've heard from people more tech literate than I, that my data will simply be yanked and telemetrized by Microsoft. This disincentivizes me to train my own models or programs, as I would like to be the only person who views the conversations between me and my locally trained models, or whatever code I create, is only viewable for my eyes (ideally).
My background is in chemical engineering and not software development, so my programming ability is quite lobotomized. A couple weeks back, I finally took the plunge and wiped Windows 11 from my laptop and switched to Arch Linux (btw) and it was the best thing I did for my scientific computing workflow! I already used LaTeX & beamer to make documents and presentations in the past without a terminal workflow and found there to be a lot less mental overhead in that regard.
Keep up with the great content! Your videos are quite informative and give some nice insight into the Linux/tech community :)
-Dylan
Hi,
Just a correction in your comment. VSCodium is the telemetry free version of VSCode.
No data will be sent to Microsoft. Microsoft can't really get any data off your code if you use VSCodium.
@@pdcrew2 Hi,
Are there any resources/references you'd suggest I look at to learn more about telemetry and how data can, and in practice, be collected telemetrically?
Thanks for the correction, always looking to learn more.
@@becktronics ur words - especially about laptop - give me confidence... did you write a blog about it somewhere?
> _"My background is in chemical engineering and not software development, so my programming ability is quite lobotomized. A couple weeks back, I finally took the plunge and wiped Windows 11 from my laptop and switched to Arch Linux (btw) and it was the best thing"_
Even though I always stick to a personal neovim setup, your reasons are perfectly valid. Especially the plugins. Use the tool that works best for you and thats fine. Always enjoy your videos!
What is the Icon theme maan?
I had a very similar experience when trying to setup nvim to behave exactly like an IDE. This worked well enough for my first projects in C++ at university where LSP support was all I needed, but I when I then learnt java, the processnof setting everything I needed was just unbearable, at least for me. Of course I still use the vim keybindings because for me they're the best way to navigate and edit text efficiently. It's just that i use them inside IntelliJ instead of nvim.
I tried Vscodium and still occasionally use it, however, I experience a significant input delay when using any vim plugin, making it a pain to work with. Some are better than others but as it is I don't really enjoy writing code inside vscodium. Never had any issues with it in IntelliJ, which makes me believe that the plugins for vscode don't integrate as nicely with the IDE, but who knows, maybe there's a fix for it I don't know about yet.
Also, great video as always.
So the real problem is that some programming languages have unbearably bloated syntax and require huge text editors with basically code generation tools.
@@youtubeenjoyer1743 I think that's part of the problem, but even conceptually I think trying to make a code editor do the same things as an IDE is just an uphill battle, and that's especially true for java development. If you don't need all the tools of an IDE and want personalization then nvim can be perfect you, maybe even better than an IDE given that you have a lot less distracting features.
Nvim isn't really a replacement for IntelliJ. However it kinda is for VSCode
Absolutely 💯 😊
I think I have the same issue with LINUX in general, I learned a lot configuring my Linux desktop but I feel like like I am not moving forward. I like having all the knowledge but zero implementation, because when I do get into building something, a new distro, wm or DE update pulls me back
The problem isn't Linux then, it's shinny object syndrome
Could you make an emails tier list? I've been a long time user of Gmail and I'm starting to reconsider my life choices.
can you make a video about staying private for example like an starter pack like use this browser or use this or that that would be really nice
0:18 ain't this helix editor?? the file picker, the preview, the purplish theme etc look soo much same as the helix-editor.
I would love if someone could point me to which window manager he is using.
It's hyprland! I have to make a video on it eventually...
@@EricMurphyxyz already looking forward for that
I feel like I see this a lot, web developers are interested in vim and the hype over neovim but the drawbacks/downsides and limitations of neovim bring them back to VScode. Its not vims fault, its the work flows fault. If you want to go a more free path like vim I would honestly suggest emacs/doom emacs. It gives you the workflow/feature set of VScode (even more features) but with a lot less hacking and alot more stability. Also It functions alot like a browser when you can write code, evaluate it and instantly alter editor behavior.
And yes.. People use vim because "What if I need to ssh on a server?!?! Every server has vim!" (not true). In emacs just open the file with tramp protocol, same workflow as opening any other file.
What os is this? How does his top bar look like that ?
Linux
You should do a video on a C2PA
vim is a skill. its not about the configuration or plugins. pure skill. if you practice enough and if you do put on effort vim will reward you !
The same is true for me; I write content in markdown, and for that I use Neovim, but for my coding Project I have to use Visual Studio Code. I love both products because they help me do my job faster and more effectively.
I agree, neovim is ok for small edits and code changes, but when I need to do bigger project, I choose vscodium
I had the same take on neovim/vim.
My problem was with git support and test runners. I always run back to Intillij because of that.
Try helix. It's like a combination of vscode and neovim. With all the needed features out of the box (LSP, fuzzy file picker, git signs), a fast editing experience with first class modal editing, and a simple configuration file (mine is under 100 lines of TOML.)
At the end of the day, there are more important things than which editor you choose. I used to be a major Emacs fan. It was great for Lisp. I also love IDEs. Compiler, documentation, debugger, profiler, all in one package. Vi for quick in and out changes. Any programmer worth their salt will find what is most productive for them and go that way.
So not an Emacs fan anymore... Good.
What about DOOM Emacs?
I would love to see someone do Doom in vim. Have vim keybindings to move around, yank ammo from wherever you find it and paste it at enemies. Imagine managing your inventory by yanking to specific registers and then pasting that ammunition. Of course it would be infinite ammo, and everything would be white text on black background until you entered visual mode when you'd get colors.
Why not give a try to Emacs
your desktop so good please a video how i can have it
Hyprland animations are so fking smooth!
I personally find neovim distributions to be quite nice instead.
Some of them handle the annoying and difficult part while letting the user configure their editor just as deeply as they could with a normal config.
I wanted to like distributions..... but every time i use it and start to configure somthing, i just hate it...
That's untile i discovered Lazyvim.. wow.. it changed my mind.. if it wasn't there, i would go back to vscode or any other ides...
NvChad been the most painless for me and has the best default configuration for my workload. Even still, there are plugins that only exists for VSCode that make me use it more than I should. At the end of the day a tool is a tool.
@@anonymousalexander6005 yes, i just tried vscode with nvim extention and used it with svelte for 1h
my config was painless and i thought of switching to it, but after 1h, compare to vim, i it felt sooo much friction,
I honestly don't care much about lsp or tree sitter, My nvim treesitter in svelte css won't work, but works in vscode
but i can easly ignore it... sooth typing exprince can't..
I agree with this. I want to be able to use ngoni but it’s just not meant to be an IDE
I just now installed and tired vscode one more time... installed catppuccin & nvim plugin and it looks nice..
but after trying for 1h, i can't use it, felt soo sluggish (maybe due to neovim plugin using my nvim config)... but i am constantly feeling the friction...
i was really happy in Lazyvim.. so i am continuing to use it... (yes webdev too... i am happy with community nvim plugins that works okk)
Lazyvim never braked for a update and too easy to configure that i never felt like its a distribution...
The neovim plugin can conflict with your neovim config. I have to disable all of my nvim plugins when using it inside VS Code. It will be slower on onler machines, though.
@@EricMurphyxyz Ho ok, thanks.. i will try making new minimal config and try again
This sounds like the problem isn't Neovim but configuring it. Do you really need all these plugins? Vim/Neovim work great out of the box (heck, even plain old vi works great), and I've been using them for years without ever having to figure out how to install a plugin.
you say that you can configure neovim to be like vs code, but the reality is you can make it soooo much more than that, while vscode has very limited plugin support.
I agree with you :D
VSCodium is good
No problem
I use neovim every day but like you never for "software projects". I've tried to go fulltime neovim and it doesn't work for me at all. My biggest problem is that I really don't like writing code in the terminal all day.
I have a different take on this. I have one simple rule, either use vim/nvim if you want something lightweight and free or go full blown into Jetbrains. Nothing in between.
Customization is always nice, but if you use different computers frequently it can be a pain to set them up every time, specially if you don't have access to your config files, or the program you're using doesn't have them and doesn't let you export your settings. I think sometimes it's better to get used to the default settings and just customize things that are really necessary.
Great take. I find myself on this dilemma constantly, but I do like the idea of coding in neovim.
I will keep it until I can, because it feels like home and in VScode I don't. Since coding is a very personal place I feel like there is a "home" for each Dev, and it's not always the same.
Agreed! It's all about what works best for you
My home was this random C++ compiler I found online when in college. Nothing felt quite as nice ever since. :(
4:40 Typescript in nvim uses the *exact same* LSP as vscode. Unless you have actively misconfigured something, it should work out-of-the-box!
Also doesn't astro use a LSP as well? Should be the same thing as well.
I call skill issue!
5:30 Also I literally installed typescript-language-server using mason and had it autoconfigured using mason-lspconfig and it worked.
As wise man once said "we all gonna die oneday"
Daym your hyprland is looking very nice
Love this reasoned / experienced based take. Seems like your channel is crying for a How to use NeoVim in VSCode video :)
I havent coded any huge projects, so I just use nvim with minimal configuration, nothing too special. Never had the use for an IDE yet
I cannot learn vim motions. No matter how much I use it, I move in slow motion.
Like you, I've been using vim key bindings for years. I've just started trying vim as an IDE and it's a huge mess.
Not only I don't know Lua but also for ONE functionality there are TONS of plugins. Very confusing to configure for beginners and I'm blindly following tutorials at this point.
VS Code on the other hand, is terribly slow and for high performance computing, the performance decrease is unacceptable.
Since you are a web dev this is is a different story for you but for performance sensitive applications, you can't even debug the code properly in VS Code.
Unfortunately there aren't any great C++ IDEs in Linux. The landscape is terrible to be honest. I just hope I get used to neovim.......
SOYDEV KEKW
I'm definitely more soydev than author, i use intellij IDEs :)
How do I make vscode look like that ?
Download the Catppuccin color scheme (life changing)
It's my first time hearing the phrase "soy dev". So thanks both for that and your thoughts on the matter. It's a really valuable perspective :>
Why would someone want Vim to look like VSCode? Vim ist a different editor. It's a better editor.
I would never use a fat IDE.
IMO helix is becoming a viable alternative to neovim.
who buys a prius and and tries to drive it like a bmw?
Always with the hot takes
You know it
That is what makes Linux so great. Choice! Use what works for you. Life is too short to use Emacs.
ChatGPT is my VS Code Now
That's why I use Helix
I never update my plugins. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
No soy dev comments( but we still need to milk that UA-cam algorithm
Yes yes yes, same opinion. Don't try to replicate vscode using vim. Vim bring a differenent coding experience but doesn't mean we have to be too extreame on vim. After all there are efficient tools for problems, pick the right tool, it neccessary and its fun to try out new things doesn't mean you have to rice your dev host.
I just use spyder
Use Emacs!
I ALWAYS use it for coding. Jus sayn'.
I'm a huge fan of Vim, but not so much of Neovim. Back when I was still a Vim n00b, I saw all these content creators promoting Neovim, and how it's much better than the original. I resisted but had pretty bad FOMO. Last year I finally gave in and installed it... Man, what a bad first experience I had. I spent nearly two days trying to configure it in Lua (because that's what cool kids do, and you wanna sit with the cool kids, no?), but gave up in the end. Earlier this year I tried again, now knowing a little more about programming... And I still failed... sorta. I couldn't even make the pre-built distros work because they were not set up like I wanted to, and slimming them down required a lot of work. In the end, there were just too many errors, too many directories to work with, and a lot of out-of-date tutorials/configs out there. What is worse: I have since found that those content creators that touted Neovim back in the day all had their configs in vimscript and were kinda crappy using the vim keys, i.e. they were not power users. Let this be a lesson, kids!
It was definitely a trend that a lot of people hopped on last year (including me).
You talk so much about why vscode is better... but don't share your config! Please share your config it looks really nice :DD
It's nothing too special, just the Catppuccin theme.
Using a terminal based text editor for coding makes no sense to me, I'm looking at Java classes that are huge and being able to jump from function to function by just looking at the Outline tab in Eclipse (or any other IDE) is so useful I can't imagine doing it any other way. Being able to breakpoints and debug is huge also. IDEs just get you up and running much faster and make your life easier.
Jumping through functions and properties as you are describing is easily achievable in neovim or vim. But I agree that the debugging part is still not as good as in a IDE, that's my only reason for using vscode (only for debugging).
@@erlonpb Interesting, yea debugging is major when you're working with a big application. I'm sure it makes sense for some use cases when you're dealing with smaller files and you really prefer navigating using your keyboard..
meh. i never had any of your issues with nvim. im a super chad develover btw. web dev mostly.
I use neovim over VScode for everything that I would have previously used VScode for. That said, there has always been a few project types that I opt for a full-scale IDE over an editor. I am one of those psychopaths that regularly writes C# on Linux, and both neovim and VScode are severely lacking in support compared to a large IDE like Rider.
Other than that, while I respect your personal opinion, I disagree with most of your reasoning for it. neovim never will nor intends to be a "ready to run out of the box" editor. The entire point of is to customize it to your personal style, which obviously isn't for everyone. You might want to dismiss it as "I know there will be someone in the comments who says that I just need to configure it", but the factually true. The issue is not that it requires setup, it is supposed to by design, but that doing this simply doesn't appeal to you, which is understandable. While having to configure things turns some people off, for others it is what attracts them. It is all just personal taste.
It’s a little awkward hearing people debate between vim and vs code while I sit here with my Jetbrains all IDEs subscription. 😅
It's been so funny to watch so many people who fell for the linux meme on /g/ and luke smith and mental outlaw videos etc, now slowly realize that it was a meme all along and slowly go back to normal.
meh, another bait video where you end saying nothing and only want to provoke audience from both sides to click, argue and generate views.
Skill issue
Vs code is better.... Simple
In the end, almost all developers use and recommend VS Code over anything.
Average git clone lunarvim sheeple vs Chad Codium Better + json > lua alpha
neovim plugin for vs code is the best of both
I'm 46. The day I was able to move away from VIM was glorious. Neovim is an abomination. VSC works. It works well. The idea that it's bloated is some pure silliness. People using Neovim instead of simply using the VIM bindings in VSC are obnoxious contrarians and nothing else.
This is why you shouldn't attempt to put code across tons of different files. It makes everything so much harder to manage.
Someone should really make a Kakoune-like code editor by the way with first class support for lsp and tree-sitter in the editing language.
Helix
@@nikolamilenkovic9423 Helix is awesome, but I mean more like having tree-sitter be the base of its editing language. So for example, you could have a key to select the next node, or have a key to select the next string literal.
Soydev booo
Skill issue.
Lapce is worth looking into as a VSCode replacement. The plugin scene isn't quite there yet, but test drives are free. Helix is an interesting take on the terminal IDE with modified vim motions. It takes a little getting used to, but the amount it provides out of the box with no config is really impressive. kickstart.nvim is a wonderfully simple, single file, non-distribution neovim config that's easy to modify if you ever want to look down that path again.
7:43 asvetliakov.vscode-neovim extension for using neovim inside vs codium