I currently have a Packer config on one machine and Lazy on another and honestly don't know why I bothered switching to Lazy. What I really crave is simplicity so if NeoVim builds every thing in I think it will be good enough for me.
Replacing it with nixvim is on my forever growing todo list.
- pathogen in 2011
- vundle in 2013
- vim-plug in 2017
Haven't moved since, Plug still does the job, even after I moved to neovim in 2021. Will probably move to the new built-in package manager once the dust has settled.
neovim = {
enable = true;
vimAlias = true;
vimdiffAlias = true;
defaultEditor = true;
plugins = [
pkgs.vimPlugins.fugitive
pkgs.vimPlugins.fzf-vim
pkgs.vimPlugins.vim-gh-line
pkgs.vimPlugins.vim-gutentags
pkgs.vimPlugins.nvim-lspconfig
pkgs.pkgs-unstable.vimPlugins.vim-go
pkgs.pkgs-unstable.vimPlugins.zig-vim
];
extraConfig = builtins.readFile ./vimrc;
extraLuaConfig = builtins.readFile (pkgs.replaceVars ./dev.lua {
inherit (pkgs) ripgrep;
}).outPath;
}In the exceedingly-rare event I do want to add one... overwhelmed with choice. "Have to" is entirely self-imposed
I update my plugins when I want/need to.
Now I use vimplug though
https://github.com/azemetre/dotfiles/pull/61/files
It was worth it to me because I never relied on many features of lazy.nvim. The benefit of the approach linked in the PR is that it also defer's loading packages as well. The only one I initially load is alpha.nvim (a dashboard), everything else gets deferred. This brought down my startup time from around 300ms to sub 100ms.
ex: you can use this to checkout a repo @ a specific datetime: > git checkout 'master@{2025-05-26 18:30:00}'
just doing my share to help people steer away from another leftPad disaster (or the xz apocalypse that almost was...)
AFAIK this can be used for hashes, but friends don’t let friends use clocks in software developments (unless it’s last resort).
Pretty big supply chain risks here.
E.g.: what do you use to edit ~/.ssh/config or ~/.profile?
Could also just phone home everything a user edits using the text editor I bet.
Can someone tell me, when someone has a terminal buffer, using a vim plugin, could you potentially steal their root password when a user runs a sudo command?
And following up, could you, using that password, allow SSH connections and open ports in other system config files? Disable firewall? And potentially execute other commands using `:!` ?
> git checkout $(git rev-list -1 --before="YYYY-MM-DD" master)
but thought I found a shortcut - which turns out is not really one, and like you said: confusing.
I can't edit my post, but in any case; the point being: it would be nice if import statements are closer to "github.com/google/uuid@YYYY-MM-DD" or in this case you can pass a date to version: "YYYY-MM-DD" and the library would run the uglier nested command above to import the proper version.
I do wish there was at least the option to use vim keybindings in Helix though. The Helix keybindings are mostly the same but just different enough to be annoying if you're already used to vim.
Edit: typo
https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/20893#issuecomment-1...
I'm quite a fan of the nvim-neorocks plugin best practices as well[2]. In fact it seems like part of them got merged recently[3] hahaha.
[1] https://neovim.io/doc/user/lua-plugin.html#lua-plugin-lazy
Lazy loading is much easier with Vim’s model of configuring by setting variables. You just set variables in init.vim, and the plugin can auto-load when one of its functions is executed.
With lua this requires more orchestration; if many autocmd refer to the same plugin, they all need to explicitly remember to call setup().
Edit: The Neovim setup antipattern is the Lua equivalent of writing Vimscript functions in autoload and asking users to call them in their configs instead of doing so automatically.
I love lazy.nvim. It's great no doubt. But recently I felt like the author is taking an aggressive user retention behavior by re-imprementing every useful open-source community plugins out there (like snack.nvim, mini.nvim). That's a kill-zone/copycat strategy. I don't get it.
// mini.nvim is a completely different author though and doesn't have to do much with lazy
https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pulls?q=is%3Apr+pack+is%3Ac...
Snacks picker is now the best picker, for example.
That's exactly what they're doing.
Both tree-sitter and LSP are built in and the primary LSP/tree-sitter plugins only bundle default LSP configurations and tree-sitter queries respectively. They're also planning to include tree-sitter query bundling into Neovim natively somehow, to make it even less reliant on the nvim-treesitter plugin.
They recently simplified the LSP configuration and to configure a new LSP you basically do this:
vim.lsp.config("expert", {
cmd = { "expert" },
root_markers = { "mix.exs", ".git" },
filetypes = { "elixir", "eelixir", "heex" },
})
vim.lsp.enable("expert")
If you want. It also now ships with most auto-mapped.
All that changed with web dev where you have to juggle with different syntaxes and tools... I decided I would just use a neovim distribution. I have tried many but Lunarvim (now inactive) and now Astronvim have served me well so far.
https://github.com/azemetre/dotfiles/pull/61/files
I followed the work of another neovimmer where he was able to replicate deferring with vim.pack. Brought my startup time down to sub 100ms.
Definitely worth it to me as it's one less "core" plugin to maintain. Having things like telescope or trouble are one thing, it's quite another to rely on a plugin that changes the way neovim interacts with loading.
> Freeze plugin from being updated:
> - Update 'init.lua' for plugin to have version set to current commit hash. You can get it by running vim.pack.update({ 'plugin-name' }) and yanking the word describing current state (looks like abc12345).
> - :restart.
Don't know if it helps but I recently migrated to vim.pack. With another neovimmer he helped me create a defer function and pack update. The only plugin I initially load is a dashboard while deferring everything else. Brought my startup time to sub 100ms.
Basically, only plugin manager can have a sane graph of plugins dependencies and know how to load them because that graph is in the end defined by the user (for the plugin manager) and plugins themselves have no clue what user might want.
https://github.com/azemetre/dotfiles/pull/61/files
I have had zero issues thus far, also don't use too many plugins (like 50ish). It was way easier than expected, also had help from another person making the plugins load similarly to "lazy" as well. This setup is way way way faster than using lazy.nvim IME, especially my work computer where it would take 300 ms to load. Now it's around 80ms.
Just trying to share the love.
Installing a plugin merely requires placing its files (eg: cloning its repository) into a well-known location. You can just do that.
If you track your config with git, you can track plugins with submodules. This has the added advantage of pinning the exact version (and tracking that version in for).
I did this for a year or so, with the motivation that submodules could replace all tool-specific package managers (for vim, tmux, zsh, etc.).
But honestly managing Git submodules felt like a chore compared to my old `vim-plug` setup. Basically because submodules are a neat concept but not implemented very ergonomically in Git. Eventually I just went back.
If someone has a setup using built-in vim pack that feels more ergonomic than vim-plug et al. then I’m very interested to hear.
Apparently this has been a long-time goal of the Neovim project, but it isn't really explained why. It feels like bloat in a space where existing plugins did a fantastic job, but apparently some people disagreed with that.
...
I don't really agree that "New users must look for a plugin manager and figure out how to install it". The only users who need to do that are the ones who have already found a plugin that they want to install, and which also doesn't provide installation instructions of its own. I don't agree that "Lack of a declarative way to specify plugins" is a valid problem, since this problem is actually introduced by bundling a plugin manager.
And this justification for creating the feature completely ignores the several high-quality existing, unbundled implementations of plugin managers. The installation of Lazy.nvim is entirely within your nvim init files, demonstrating that 3rd-party plugin managers can have simple installation instructions.
The bundled package manager also makes some trade-offs that 3rd-party ones don't have to make (e.g. support for non-git plugins). This is addressable, like the lack of lockfiles, automatic dependency management, and re-implementing every other feature that existing plugins already provide. That's why this is bloat. This task is better-served outside of the core project.
You need to ditch your heretical friend if he has broken the Holy Commandment of <Esc> to get to Normal mode.
That, and also it has to be specifically Semantic Versioning.
This way, _nothing_ changes ever. That's how I want it.
I used to use astro.nvim (a few years back), then at one point I upgraded it and they had changed all the keybinds (even for basic shit like go to references IIRC), it was absolutely insane. I lost my shit and deleted the whole thing and moved to this setup. I will never use an nvim distro or update nvim plugins ever again. If I really want something I will git pull it myself (I'm looking out for nvim 12's ghost text feature for example). But in the general case, I'm done with any changes whatsoever. Not one byte.
I actually open-sourced my "approach" and documented it but I left it midway, if others are interested I might stop procrastinating and actually finish it.
I'm currently still using vim pack with git submodules because I can't be bothered to trawl through tens of GitHub projects to work out what's the best supported / most liked / currently recommended third-party nvim package manager.
[1] https://github.com/bpierre/dotfiles/blob/main/nvim/lua/packa...
[1] https://github.com/AstroNvim/astrocommunity/tree/main/lua/as...
I’m writing a C package manager in exactly the same vein. Git based, no binaries, rolling release. It’s probably not such a coincidence, since I was inspired by Lazy in the first place.
I love Vim key bindings, and I'm happy to see the flagship of Vim keybindings improve.
Should it provide to backup/install local plugins? I mean, probably I can move the directory with it into the correct destination.