
Show HN: A Vim distribution inspired by Spacemacs - liuchengxu
http://vim.liuchengxu.org/
======
z1mm32m4n
In general, I think people really sell themselves short by using an editor
"distribution." It's a "teach a man to fish" situation. The whole point of
being able to configure Emacs or Vim is so that each person can make it into
the tool he or she wants it to be.

That's sort of why I recommend Vim as an IDE[1] to people. It teaches people
how to configure Vim for themselves, so they can better understand how the
pieces come together.

[1]: [https://github.com/jez/vim-as-an-ide](https://github.com/jez/vim-as-an-
ide)

~~~
chongli
This is also why I decided to use Keith Bostic's nvi [0], also known as vi
from BSD. I got so tired of endless configuring and bikeshedding my own editor
instead of getting work done.

Since I switched to nvi I've learned way more about the powerful features of
the base editor as well as shell tools like grep, fzf, fmt, column, wc,
expand, pdftotext, pandoc, make, git... With tmux I have easy access to any
REPLs and man pages I need. The main feature of nvi I need over the original
vi is unlimited undo, though ex command history and file name completion are
nice as well.

Part of the inspiration for me to switch from vim (and spacemacs) _down to_
nvi was this post on stack overflow [1]. When I really grokked the power of
this system I picked up O'Reilly's book on vi and vim [2] and read every page
of the vi and ex stuff. There is soooooo much you can do with this editor that
doesn't require plugins yet people reinvent them, often in a less
powerful/flexible way.

Since learning to be productive in nvi, it's going to be very hard to go back
to those bigger, more extensible editors. The temptation for bikeshedding is
too great... Oh, and learning to read code with syntax highlighting turned off
is really nice. It helps you write more clearly since you aren't relying on
the highlighting to help the reader.

[0]
[https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi/](https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi/)

[1] [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-
mos...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-most-
productive-shortcut-with-vim/1220118#1220118)

[2]
[https://shop.oreilly.com/product/mobile/9780596529833.do](https://shop.oreilly.com/product/mobile/9780596529833.do)

~~~
hammerandtongs
As far as I remember you are foregoing text objects which are really one of
the most powerful things in vim.

[http://blog.carbonfive.com/2011/10/17/vim-text-objects-
the-d...](http://blog.carbonfive.com/2011/10/17/vim-text-objects-the-
definitive-guide/)

Ironically I think most of the IDE (ie intellij etc) vim plugins have them
while you do not.

~~~
chongli
Yeah, I'm aware of text objects (I used vim for years). I don't miss them as
much as I thought I would. Most of them can be replaced by compositions of the
primitive motion commands. Heck, you could probably even outright replace them
with macros. I just haven't felt the need to.

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israrkhan
I tried spacemacs and some other distributions/vimrc config files. The problem
is if you do not know the reason for each line in vimrc and each key
mapping/plugin in your vim environment, you wont be able to appreciate the
beauty of vim no matter which distro you use. A distro is sort of similar to
MS office, where a typical user will need less than 10% of the features, and
remaining 90% stuff just adds to the bloat.

~~~
nerdponx
Which of course defeats the purpose in using a complicated but customizable
program like Vim in the first place.

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winestock
There's another distribution of Vim which also claims to be inspired by
Spacemacs and is called SpaceVim (not space-vim as in this case).

Homepage: [http://spacevim.org/](http://spacevim.org/)

Hacker News discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13315845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13315845)

~~~
liuchengxu
Thanks for the pointer. I do have seen that before. But I think it's not
difficult to see the difference. First of all, they are maintained by
different people with a distinct goal. SpaceVim is aiming to serve a
counterpart to spacemacs, which more suitable for pure vimmers, I guess.
However, space-vim is intended for switching between spacemacs and vim
painlessly. I'm both a vimmer and spacemacs user, and I really like the
interface and philosophy from spacemacs.

~~~
jmcdiesel
So you saw a previously existing library and literally just stepped all over
its name confusingly? That's just plain rude.

~~~
liuchengxu
I think you have a little misunderstanding here. Actually, space-vim is
earlier than SpaceVim. You can check that.

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vr46
I think it's a great effort and it's looks really good, both visually and
metaphorically. However, my reservations:

Beginners may find it hard to learn and extract its secrets. The code is
wrapped up like a pass-the-parcel game. My .vimrc/init.vim files are
comprehensive yet easy to read in one hit. One use-case for my config is that
I frequently lob the whole thing at friends and colleagues and they have a
complete picture - plugins and configuration - immediately.

This system is a completely different path for using Vim, and will definitely
work for many people, but one of the major problems of any configuration
distribution is that users make a choice by selecting it, to work with its
abstraction and often only that. Hacking things in quickly might work, but it
might make a mess. The first update or git pull/rebase after a hack... well,
it could go wrong.

Appealing if you never want to do anything to Vim.

------
vsviridov
I'm a firm believer of knowing what each line in .vimrc does. But I'm not
above rummaging though other people's .vimrc files and plundering without
shame :D

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Walkman
Nice project. A little pun: if the author intended to follow the naming scheme
of spacemacs project he or she should name this spacvim :D

~~~
shock
Or rather spaceim :)

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dvcrn
It is quite simple to add something similar to your existing setup. Just split
your configurations into logical packages and include them from your main.

Here is for example my Go "layer":
[https://github.com/dvcrn/dotfiles/blob/master/vim/lang/go.vi...](https://github.com/dvcrn/dotfiles/blob/master/vim/lang/go.vim)

The top is describing plugins, the middle configuration and the bottom key
bindings, including "mode keys" accessible over comma.

Also shameless plug to "proton", my atom plugin which tries to do the same
thing. [https://github.com/dvcrn/proton](https://github.com/dvcrn/proton)

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sdnguyen90
Can anyone share their experience using this coming from Spacemacs? I've tried
the other Spacevim package but the key bindings were weird for me. I switched
from Vim to Spacemacs about 2 years ago and I've forgotten everything besides
the text editing stuff.

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pzone
Interesting. If there is a workable org-mode replacement that gets org-agenda
I would consider switching away from Emacs to Vim or Neovim. I'm sick of using
such slow and crash prone software. (Emacs is much better on Linux. I would
love to use Linux as my daily driver but it's just not an option.) Since I've
switched to Spacemacs it wouldn't be hard to port my small tweaks to recreate
my personal preferences. But I really can't give up org-mode!

~~~
danieldk
_But I really can 't give up org-mode!_

...and inline LaTeX/image previews!

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/hf5x3p9bne3tqbg/Screen%20Shot%2020...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/hf5x3p9bne3tqbg/Screen%20Shot%202017-03-08%20at%2008.20.36.png?dl=0)

~~~
shocks
And apparently nyan cat.

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johndoe4589
> Beautiful interface

Lol? It's 2017 and you're describing a text mode UI.

A "Beautiful theme" would be more appropriate.

~~~
ClashTheBunny
Not a graphical user interface, but a text user interface?

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notheguyouthink
This looks cool! Recently i switched to Kakoune editor because i wanted to try
something a bit different than Vim (after using Vim for years of course).
Always appreciate new work in the editor space!

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mablap
As a moderately good emacs&vim user, what can I do with this that I cannot
already do in a base spacemacs install?

~~~
jmcdiesel
You can use VIM to kinda feel like you're in emacs but not be quite in emacs
or vim... just a confusing middleground...

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SloppyStone
This looks friggin' awesome! Thanks!

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bgdkbtv
Looks sweet! Downloading!

~~~
bgdkbtv
Installed, very cool installation process! 5/5!

And also, holy shit this vim config is great. I thought mine was great but
this is just on another level!

Loving it so far!

~~~
bgdkbtv
Damn, this looks super sleek!
[http://imgur.com/a/0JF7B](http://imgur.com/a/0JF7B)

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clircle
daddy likes

