dotfiles.nix VS kickstart.nvim

I redid my config [0] using Tangerine recently and am very happy with it. Lisps are such a great thing just from a syntax and readability perspective alone. Can't understand all that startup time craze though, my Neovim has always been opening without any perceptible lag without me doing anything to optimize it. Maybe it's just me…

0: https://github.com/d12bb/dotfiles/tree/main/nvim

I can recommend using Fennel with Tangerine (integration) and Hibiscus (macros). My config here for inspiration.

Been using it for months, and as I’m trying Helix currently, I also ported it: Helix version.

Out of the box it offers almost nothing, but after 7 years of development I like that. I love the idea of customizing to my needs my IDE, so with the help of kickstart.nvim I have with 1 minute of installing and 10 extra minutes of configuration a complete IDE.

I recently started coding with Neovim using kickstart.nvim as the template for my editor configuration. I downloaded the python-lsp-server package using Mason, but I was disappointed to discover that the IntelliSense on my third party dependencies didn't work. The LSP was resolving to my global Python installation, which did not have the packages from my virtual environment (venv) installed.

First thing I did was get kickstart.nvim. I had heard it was extremely useful (and it was). It was very easy to install. I start reading through init.lua, and it told me to run :Tutor, which is almost 1,000 lines of learning how to use Neovim, to which I obviously ran that command and started reading. Obviously, it takes a bit of time to complete :Tutor, but it's well worth it. "hjkl" wasn't too hard to get used to, also repeating motions by using numbers was useful, such as using '5dd' to delete 5 lines. I highly suggest reading this file, especially since I didn't really know about the different modes, which is probably why I failed to switch the other times. You would start writing your code, then Neovim would say that it can't find that command, you would accidently type an i and then start typing, and so on, it was a nightmare. For those that don't know the modes, here is each mode and how to get between them.

I also suggest against using distributions. Instead of learning how to configure nvim itself you're learning to configure that specific distro.

I suggest to take someone's lua config and start from there. Kickstart.nvim is a good one: https://github.com/nvim-lua/kickstart.nvim

1) the option I wouldn’t chose, use Kickstarter. It’s a minimal starter config, using a single init.lua that helps you build a config slowly. https://github.com/nvim-lua/kickstart.nvim

I highly recommend Lazyvim for if you want to have a VSCode (ish) like experience that still exposes you to configuring in Lua. Or Kickstart.nvim if you want a more "from scratch" experience

In case it is helpful, I am using kickstart.nvim with only minor modifications.

One of the project goals is to become something like kickstart.nvim. Or, to be a reference if someone doesn't know how to do something.