[qwertyuiop924]

That's certainly a way of thinking about things.

I guess what I really want is for Vim to decide what it wants to be. You can be simple, or you can be extensible. Vim is kind of trying to be both. Traditionally, Emacs did extensible, and Vi did simple. It's fine if Vim wants to go the emacs route, it's just that I'd rather it stopped doing it so badly: At this point, Vim's extensibility story is embarrassing. It's 2016, the built-in language is rubbish, the external language interfaces are second-class at best. This has to change if Vim really wants to go in that direction. And if doesn't, why bother pretending?

[Lio]

I don't want to discard your opinion but it does seem like a bit of a false dichotomy when we're talking about FOSS software.

No one is compelled to use Vim over Vi, you can just leave it in compatible mode or use another vi binary such as the one in busybox.

As far as the built in language and external API being second-class well you may have a point but both Vim and NeoVim are improving.

Whilst it's still useful and still provides, IMHO, nice ergonomics I'm probably going to stick with either Vim or NeoVim I think. I really don't mind if they never make up their mind what they want to be when they grow up. ;)

[qwertyuiop924]

That's a respectable opinion.

From my perspective, I want to see Vim/NeoVim differentiating itself from the competition. It's extensible... but emacs does that better. It's simple and modal... but nvi does that better. It's stuck somewhere in the middle, and mediocrity is a terrible, terrible fate.

Ow! Stop that! Okay, this is the last time I sneak a Dresden Files quote into my HN comments. I swear. :-D.