this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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Coders or lemmy, what editors do you use? Is it worth learning a new one? (programming.dev)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by verstra@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev
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When I was in high school I found Sublime Text and learned "multiple cursors". Since then, I've transitioned to vscode, mainly because I need LSP (without too much configuration work) for my work.

I keep hearing about how modal editing is faster and I would like to switch to a more performant editor. I've been looking at helix, as the 4th generation of the vi line of editors. Is anyone using it? Is it any good for the main code editor?

The problem that I have is that learning new editing keybindings would probably take me a month of time, before I get to the same amount of productivity (if I ever get here at all). So I'm looking for advice of people who have already done that before.

My code editing does involve a lot of "ctrl-arrow" to move around words, "ctrl-shift-arrow" to select words, "home/end" to move to beginning/end of the line, "ctrl-d" for "new cursor at next occurrence", "shift-alt-down" for "new cursor in the line below", "ctrl-shift-f" for "format file" and a few more to move around using LSP-provided "declaration"/"usages".

I would have to unlearn all of that.

Also, I do use "ctrl-arrow" to edit this post. Have you changed keybindings in firefox too?

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[–] uthredii@programming.dev 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I use Helix

TLDR: Yes I think helix is worth trying out. It has some missing features but it is an amazing piece of software.

Yes I use helix daily. It is very fun to use and you can do many things faster. It is particularly good when navigating a (large) codebase you know fairly well. You are able to jump around and find/edit relevant code very quickly.

Compared to vs code:

  • it is much faster and more minimal
  • It might be harder to get things up and running than in vs code, e.g. to get auto-completion working in helix you need to have the LSP for that language installed. It can be a bit confusing if you have never done it before but it is easy once you have done it a few times.

Compared to neovim I think it is:

  • easier to learn
  • slightly faster - especially with large files
  • you will have a much smaller/simpler configuration. AFAIK Helix has more features working out of the box than neovim (file picker, lsp support ect) and needs less configuration to get things to a workable state.

The downside of helix compared to both neovim and vscode is that it does not have plugin support yet so you will need to use other tools in combination with it to get an equivalent experience. Here are some tools that are commonly used with helix:

Helix really shines when:

  • performance matters - I have edited files with millions of lines and had no trouble on codebases where my colleagues IDE's become very slow.
  • You want to use multiple cursors at times
  • You want a simple or no configuration
  • It is taking too long to learn the vim keybindings - vim keybindings are more concise but less intuitive and harder to learn

I recommend you use the tutor (hx --tutor) for a few minutes each day to learn the keybidings.

[–] verstra@programming.dev 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thanks for the overview. I'll work with tutor and see how frustrated I get :D

Regarding language servers:

Recently, I got into this philosophy of "every project needs a declarative environment". It means that there is a committed file that should contain all tooling need to work with the project. Compilers, formatters, test runners and also: language servers.

This fights with vscode extensions which try to be clever and download their language server / bundle it into the extension itself. "No, rust-analyzer, I don't want your build because it does not work with xtensa target arch I'm using in this project".

So actually, this ties nicely with helix not providing the language servers itself, but allowing you to bring your own.

[–] uthredii@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah I agree, I like that aspect too!

[–] Deebster@programming.dev 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I happily use Helix for Rust, etc projects, and as a general editor. I switch back to VSCode for TypeScript/Svelte projects because the plugins make it more productive for me. I do miss the editing experience and need to check if there's a VSCode plugin that lets me not confuse my muscle memory.

Helix was the thing that finally made me remap my caps lock key to esc.

[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've recently taken to kakoune which was one of the inspirations for Helix.

It's not as fancy (in terms of built-in features) out of the box, but it's very performant, integrates with tmux well, and for the C++ and Python I'm writing I haven't felt the need for much beyond token based word completion and grep.

The client server model it uses has really let me improve my tmux skills because I'm working inside of it more and using it for editor splits.

I don't know if Helix does this, but I've also come to love the pipe operator (where you just pipe a selection into some external program and the selection gets replaced with the output, so you can use the e.g. the sort command to sort text). You can also pretty easily add in custom extensions via command line programs.

[–] uthredii@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ahhh nice, I have thought about trying out Kakoune as it supports plugins. Do you use many plugins/find them useful?

Helix does have a pipe command also.

[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 2 points 15 hours ago

I've mostly just tweaked the configuration and built my own comment formatter/reflow command based on the comment style at work.

It's almost more about what it doesn't have for me, because what I've run into a lot with trying newer editors is they try and manage the code too much and the code base at work has its own style guide that doesn't match what the editor tries to do. So the editor might make me slightly more productive ... until I find myself fighting with it every 3 lines because of auto formatting or some language server quirk.