On the fence about Neovim

I’ve been using vim for the last 5 years. I’ve written about trying this out 5 years ago and stuck to it. It’s a fantastic experience and I truly enjoy working with this editor. I’ve been rethinking it this week though, as I was updating my configuration to get auto-completion to work.

I needed to get my editor ready as I haven’t needed to do any serious coding in the last two years. We’re trying out a new requirement at work: all engineering leaders should contribute a medium-sized piece of code in a 3 month period. I’ll try an write more about this, but in simple terms, I have to make sure that I’m spending a little more time coding.

The Neovim editor was forked from Vim (the code has been copied and is currently being changed into something better or different). Its been around since 2015, so this blog post is late to the party. Many people have already embraced Neovim.

I see how amazing it is, but really, I’m not sure that I want to change it. It’s a big commitment. It will take time to learn about the “new” editor and its features. It will also take focus away from other things, so I’m two minds. It is also a new project that is slowly moving away from the Vim I’ve come to enjoy. Maybe this is just me overthinking.

The one pain I currently have is language server support. Vim can do this, but it requires configuration and running a few things on my device. I like a simpler editor setup, but I’m missing the simple built-in features modern editors come with.

I’ll try out my current setup for the next few months and see if I miss anything. If I do, I’ll try out Neovim.