Unfortunately the previous thread I saw about this issue seemed to
have degraded to a programming language debate for LISP, FORTH and so
on, intermingled with some comments about the spell checking
functionality.
I 'd like to present my point of view as a vim user. IMHO, it is a
fact that users would really like a reasonable, official way for
external processes to call vim.
Note that this is nothing new, the "netbeans" interface already exists
but the big problem with it is that it won't work with console vim and
console vim is the most useful from its flavors.
(In fact I practically never use gvim, it only adds menus which is an
irrelevant feature if you already have muscle memory for the commands
contained in them. So it is just a waste of precious vertical screen
real estate)
Also note, that adding this facility doesn't really require anything
as dramatic as rearchitecting vim to be thread-safe / multithreaded
or Model View Controller or the like (such a refactoring would be
equivalent to a rewrite anyway - clearly impractical and the
usefulness is also debatable).
The "only" thing needed is the equivalent of the X netbeans mechanism,
i.e., an input multiplexing layer "in front" of the
current input handling code in the console. Pretty much
everything in vim can be done if you just send the right
input characters to it and from what I 've seen the plugin
authors would be really happy with just having that functionality.
(I.e., not having to use screen for console, netbeans/server gvim for
X, something else for windows, you get the picture).
There will be a need for the app that integrates with vim to maintain
a copy of some of vim state for such a way of
communication to work, but I think many people could live
with that compromise.
It was asked what would be the "killer app" for such functionality.
Let's list some:
* Debugger integration (having the debugger instruct vim to
"step through" for example.
* REPL integration: communicating with bash, ipython, irb,
the lisp repl, firefox through mozrepl, ...
* Background compilation / static analysis / running test
suites.
* Code Suggestions in the IDE sense
* Integration to existing IDEs would be more feasible.
* Shared editing (ggobi / Eclipse style), very useful for
teaching programming remotely.
* Even spell checking (integrating with custom spell-checkers
for uncommon languages).
* Several more.
Note that for some (lots?) of vim users these may not be exactly
"killer applications" and that is perfectly understandable. But
then again, almost nobody uses even all the *existing* features,
so this should be no reason to deny the new ones from the users
that do think they are valuable.
Also, there is already at least one useful user who changed camp to
emacs out of frustration from lack of this functionality and as
a result we missed some nice debian packaging work for vim plugins ;)
Just my 0.02 euro,
Pantelis
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist.
For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
