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by Slackwise 4289 days ago
- It is a fork of Vim. - It is omitting some features. - It is adding a number of high level features. - It will not be fully backwards compatible.

Prefixing 'new' to the name of the forked project is as lazy as it can get [1]. 'Neo' is one step from that.

Vim itself wouldn't be a good name if it was just meaning "Vi iMproved", but 'Vim' is also a dictionary word meaning "energy; enthusiasm". A positive dictionary word, and a pseudo-acronym. That works well.

The dictionary has many words that start with Vi, or have it as a substring: http://www.scrabblefinder.com/starts-with/vi/

While just using a dictionary word may be a bit lazy, it is the allusion I was referring to in my previous comment. It would be an allusion to Vim also being a dictionary word, chosen because it starts with 'vi'. The cycle of improvement would continue.

For example, 'Vigor' would be a decent name, as "Vim and Vigor"[2] are a common phrase.

Definitely not saying that should be the name, but it's a path to try and see what the community might like.

[1]: The laziest is Nintendo's "New 3DS": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Nintendo_3DS [2]: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vim+and+vigor

2 comments

Vim wasn't backwards compatible with vi. And your reasoning lacks a logical basis, with all points being subjective.
> Vim wasn't backwards compatible with vi.

Yes, but, it tried to be with the 'compatible' option: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/options.html#'compatib... (Not to say it fully succeeded.)

> And your reasoning lacks a logical basis, with all points being subjective.

If by points you mean my list at the top, those are facts. Past the list, everything else is subjective, yes. Liking and disliking a name is a subjective matter. Whether a name is 'appropriate' is very subjective. Should I have made a disclaimer that it was my opinion?

Um, no, they aren't facts at all.
Vigor already exists as a cruel parody of vi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigor_(software)

But I like your idea. Something like Vittle as a whittled-down version of vim.