YHK - yet another hacker news clone

https://github.com/neovim/neovim.github.io/issues/501

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It doesn't matter whether or not you can think of a reason you would want to enable it, but it should be pretty trivial to do so. Once you've enabled it, it should work.

Moreover, the vim history tracking is amazingly advanced. It's almost like a mini version control system. I highly recommend getting to know it.

I can give some as well. IDE crashes. Computer reboots at an undesired time. Even if my work is saved, I am not “finished”. I would like my undo history to extend before file / open time.

They have very vocal and entrenched users that basically no defaults can be changed lest the single Amiga user will start a huge uproar.

And since they don't really have a BDFL or commercial pressure, they can be super detached even from standards or expectations that appeared 40 years ago.

Neovim was basically a reaction to that, for Vim, where they updated defaults to stuff basically every Unix editor since 2005 has.

Making privacy-sensitive features opt-in is a form of duty of care as well, to avert harm from the user.

Persistent undo exists to recover from an accidental write-and-quit mid-session nuking some stuff you really didn't intend to delete. If you care about its contents beyond a handful of hours, you either need to adopt proper version management, or start making backups.

Reading the PR the change was needed because the old undofile format was fundamentally broken. They considered making an undofile-upgrade mechanism, but it would've caused more issues that it would've solved. In other words: stuck between a rock and a hard place.

A duty of care also means occasionally having to break things to make it better, or else you end up being stuck with spacebar heating[0] forever. As a user it does suck, but that's the price you have to pay for using actively-developed software.

[0]: https://xkcd.com/1172/

Relax for a second. Get some perspective.

```markdown

abhorrent

/əbˈhɒr(ə)nt/

Abhorrent is an adjective that means morally very bad, hateful, or causing strong disgust and loathing.

```

I realise that this causes strong disgust and loathing in you, but can you please expand upon how it's morally very bad to prioritise speed and ease of use over undelete capability in Neovim? Are you unable to make backups or use Git?

On that board, silently deleting a user's files is obviously justified. What would be out of line is complaining about software silently deleting user files.

[1] Galaxy far away.

People are making it sound like this is a huge company with a product and not a grouping of curious people with a couple hours of free time on a Sunday.

Most likely they never thought about it, then it broke, then it was not impactful enough to fix on their free time compared to other stuff.

I dream of a Vim that wóuld guide and teach me how to use it, so that it does not scare away people because they can’t close it.

I dream of a Vim that embraces the needs of editing contemporary programming languages and fills in its UX gaps correspondingly (changes single to double quotes, anyone? Function argument order?).

I dream of a Vim with native Git gutters.

I dream of a Vim with sane default leader commands.

I dream of a Vim where I see line numbers by default.

I dream of a Vim where “Y” is consistent with other commands.

I dream of a Vim that detects correct indentation by default. And that can visualise whitespace.

I dream of a Vim where Ctrl+V does not have an assigned action that looks like it blocks input.

I dream of a Vim that experiments with keyboard ergonomics, not just mnemonics.

I dream of a Vim where quintuple-tapping Escape is not a habit I subconsciously form why learning it.

I dream of a Vim I stumble on people discovering and exploring, and not have to persuade people for months just to try it.