jvns, authored by Julia Evans, offers a delightful mix of comics, articles, and tutorials on systems programming, debugging, and Linux internals. Through engaging storytelling and clear explanations, Julia dives into the intricacies of system administration, networking, and performance optimization, making complex technical concepts accessible to readers of all backgrounds. Whether you're a seasoned sysadmin or a curious beginner, jvns provides knowledge and inspiration.

Julia Evans

A developer shares their experience transitioning from Vim to Helix after 20 years. Key highlights include Helix's built-in language server support, superior search functionality with full context, helpful keyboard shortcut popups, and minimal configuration requirements. The switch proved easier than expected, taking only a week or two to adjust. Notable drawbacks include inferior text reflowing compared to Vim, lack of persistent undo, occasional crashes, and no automatic file reloading. The author appreciates the simplicity of their 4-shortcut configuration versus hundreds of lines in Neovim, and has adapted to using a terminal-based workflow with project-specific windows.

Notes on switching to Helix from vim

The point with low conf is completely fair. But the rest of it are just missing knowledge about the ecosystem.
Ripgrep also has a telescope integration. Same UI and functionality you showed. If you want to go further, there is even a VSCode like plugin called GurFar (<a href="https://github.com/MagicDuck/grug-far.nvim" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">https://github.com/MagicDuck/grug-far.nvim</a>). It works like a charm once you understand the local leader keys.
Then there is which key that lets you define all shortcuts for the popup (<a href="https://github.com/folke/which-key.nvim" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">https://github.com/folke/which-key.nvim</a>).
Mason (<a href="https://github.com/mason-org/mason.nvim" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">https://github.com/mason-org/mason.nvim</a>) also works fluently. After my switch a year ago i didn’t have a single problem with nvim LSPs. Most of the time it was just a CLI export missing but nothing that didn’t instantly show up in the LspLog.
TLDR if it comes to low conf, i think LazyVim does a great job including solutions to all drawbacks out of the box with 0 config effort and eliminating all Helix drawbacks.

Nice! Helix is awesome. Still have to finish learning it.

Nice! Helix is awesome with lower config. The features you mentioned that you like are still available on Vim; LazyVim already has them with its default setup. However, if you want more advanced features and a better fit for your specific work environment, you still have to add quite a bit of extra configuration.