Update: Added Configuration Video Part 1
Update 2: Added Configuration Video Part 2
Update 3: Added Configuration Video Part 3
In my professional career, I’ve exclusively used IDEs for software development even though they:
- have long startup times
- are bloated and slow
- have inefficient key bindings
- require a mouse
The reason for that is because I desperately needed (and still need) many of their features which plain text editors couldn’t properly provide, namely:
- language features for all my used languages (go to definition, autocompletion, etc.)
- a debugger
However, I really like the features of my favourite text editor Vim, it:
- is 100% keyboard driven
- has a command centric approach with a huge amount of commands
- is modal
- does not need a GUI and can run in your terminal
- is highly configurable using simple text files
- has a low memory footprint
So instead of adapting Vim to be more IDE-like, I tried to make my IDEs behave more like Vim using plugins and keybindings. Depending on the IDE, this worked to some extend, but I was never really happy with it because a lot of commands were not supported, keystrokes were occasionally ignored, many features still required a mouse and the problem of sluggishness persisted.
My most successful attempt was using VSCode with the Neo Vim extension where keybindings are not just mapped, but a complete instance of Neovim was run inside of VSCode. It worked really well, but the bloat of VSCode, which is an Electron app, still concerned me.
VSCode also introduced two very important innovations: The Language Server Protocol (LSP) and the lesser known Debug Adapter Protocol (DAP), which solve the problem of every editor/IDE having to support every programming language. Now, an editor/IDE only needs to support the LSP and the DAP. These innovations provide unified and standardised access to language and debugger features of specific programming languages.
Vim supports the LSP and DAP through plugins. Neovim is a fork of Vim and has a more modern governance structure (many contributors as opposed to only one), allowing the development of many new features, including native support for the LSP.
And now, after so many years, I finally managed to set up both the LSP and the DAP, providing Neovim with all the language features and debuggers I need. It wasn’t easy to set up and I had to write some scripts, but it works. Finally, there’s no reason to use IDEs anymore. I made the switch.
I created a short demo, showcasing some of the features.
I managed to make Neovim’s native LSP client use the LSP server of the SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP) and I added syntax highlighting for cds
files. DJ Adams‘ video on cds-lsp
was of great help for me.
I can confidently say, I learned a lot during this process and I’ve grown as a programmer. I’m finally comfortable with my development setup and I’m curious of Neovim’s future innovations.
Thanks a lot for your time and keep your programming tools sharp,
David
Now THIS is the sort of blog post that I love to see on a Monday morning! Awesome and inspiring work, David, thanks for that. And Iām already looking forward to the next installment of your video series šŖ(btw, subscribed!)
Thanks a lot, DJ!
Thanks for this super interesting post, David!
It's always nice to see how other developers set up their dev environments (even though I'm happy with mouse navigation š ).
Thanks a lot Marius Obert!
Regarding speed, I'm on the
Keyboard > Mouse > Touchpad
front šI actually only use the touchpad and almost never touch the mouse š
Hi David,
thanks for sharing. I'm also a fan of vim for years but missed a lot of things you mentioned in your video. Curious to read your next blog / watch your next video.
Hi Helmut,
I'm glad you found it useful, here's my video on the configuration.
Best regards,
David
Great video!!
Already copied most of it to my init.vim
Is there a repository with you configuration on github?
Can't await the next video. Don't have experience with DAP so far.
Thanks a lot, Helmut!
The configuration is available here: https://github.com/David-Kunz/vim/blob/master/init.vim
Best regards,
David
This is just such a treasure! And I thought I did pretty well with my vim configuration so far. I was so wrong š
I absolutely enjoy how you precisely focus and how you cover exactly what needs to be told.
Thank You!
Hi Nabi Zamani,
Thanks a lot for your kind words!