So, I’ve been a Neovim user for a few years now. I started as most of you (I assume) with vim, and just kept on using and expanding that config file over the years.

I only recently realized there’s quite a split between the Vim and Neovim plugins and that the Neovim community is pushing Lua as a better development platform. From what I can see, some users are switching their configs from Vimscript to Lua. To be honest all I know about Lua is that it means moon in Portuguese…

Should I too? What would the advantages be? What would the disadvantages be? For those who did switch, why did you switch and what was your experience? For those who didn’t why did you not?

p.s. review (roast) my dotfiles

edit: thank you all for your input! I will consider slowly switching to lua by modifying only some parts of the config as some of you suggested.

  • lckdscl [they/them]English
    8•1 year ago

    Advantages

    • Large and growing ecosystem of plugins, documentation, community discussion
    • Better performance than VimScript
    • Lua is a versatile language and it is quite easy, just not as “human readable” as VimScript
    • You have this holy grail

    Disadvantages

    • Time & effort to make the switch
    • Time & effort browsing and installing for new development and plugin
    • Potentially developing an obsession with plugins
    • Time & effort developing plugins yourself
    • You will never get these lost hours back

    In all seriousness, I recommend checking out preconfigured “distros” like LunarVim or NvChad. Here’s my dotfiles.