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by arcanemachiner 1214 days ago
I'm happy to dump NeoVim if Helix is actually better. But is the ecosystem _really_ there yet?
3 comments

As with most engineering tools, I think using the word "better" is not necessarily correct. It's a matter of tradeoffs.

For me, I was fed up maintaining code to run my neovim setup the way I want, so I was looking for a configuration distribution or... something else.

Helix was the dead simplicity I was looking for. It has its own warts and drawbacks, but the tradeoffs are well worth it in my experience. I absolutely love Helix!

But if you want your editor to work exactly the way you want and having maximum flexibility is more important, you will not like Helix, which is extremely opinionated and has 95% of what you want in a modern text editor. The other 5% may be a deal breaker for you.

And that's fine! Use the tools you love!

Unfortunately there is no ecosystem. Helix does not provide an extension interface.
Huge downside for me.

Not that I want to muck around with plugins all day, but having the ability to add a few helper plugins to ease certain tasks is a godsend in terminal editors.

Especially if you really dislike certain defaults packaged with the editor.

That is too bad. If they did then they would probably garner huge community support and the gaps would be quickly filled in.
They're actively discussing/working on it: https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/discussions/3806
No neovim is much better and easier and retains most of the vi keystrokes while helix breaks some common vi keystrokes

And no extension interface for helix another big positive for neovim and even vi