Vim Boss (neovim.io)

Article summary

The article is a tribute to Bram Moolenaar, the creator of Vim, and discusses the relationship between Vim and Neovim, a fork of Vim. The author reflects on Bram's principles and values, such as modesty and a focus on results, and how they influenced the development of Neovim. Neovim is positioned as a derivative of Vim, continuing and diverging from it, with a focus on extensibility and usability. The article also touches on the idea that forks can create energy and lead to new developments, rather than destroying it.

Main themes

• Vim and Neovim relationship
• Forks and community splitting
• Extensibility and usability
• Open-source sustainability
• Developer community and collaboration
• Legacy and tribute to Bram Moolenaar

What commenters say

• The presence of a fork like Neovim splits the Vim community and takes people power away from Vim development, regardless of the merits of the fork.
• Forks can be beneficial, leading to the exploration of new ideas and the creation of new value, as seen in the case of Neovim and Vim.
• The alternative to a fork is a single project with fewer contributors, and the presence of a fork can lead to more total developers working on the ecosystem.
• The idea that forks are mostly bad is a prevalent wisdom in the FOSS community, but this may not always be the case.
• Neovim's non-compatible direction with Vim has made it harder for plugin developers to create community plugins that work with both versions.
• The fork of Neovim has influenced the development of Vim, with features like channels and jobs being adopted from Neovim.
• The loss of a core developer like Bram Moolenaar highlights the issue of death in software and the need for sustainable solutions for open-source projects.