- cross-posted to:
- text_editors
- cross-posted to:
- text_editors
Helix does not aim to be a better vim / neovim. Thus, for example, there are officially no vim bindings and Helix follows the selection → action model. Helix is also a relatively new project.
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
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.
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.
I don’t feel like this is true anymore. Many distros do not ship vi(m) anymore but only nano.
Seems like most rpm based distro still ship vi/vim and don’t default to nano.
Good to know. In Debian and Gentoo nano is the only editor by default.
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.
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.
I agree, never understood why they changed a lot of basic shortcuts away from what vi/vim/neovim uses.