Re: need advice about fixing up my new vimpact-mode, a Vim emulation mode based on viper-mode

[Jason Spiro]

Hi Lennart,
Thanks for your reply before.

(Cc'ing some other individuals who have been active in the topic on
the mailing lists. Original thread is at
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2lcwpc or at
http://news.gmane.org/find-root.php?message_id=%3cc241693f0702190237s615bbef0p189b1b10516752cf%40mail.gmail.com%3e
. If you prefer not to be CCed in the future, please tell me.)

2007/2/19, Lennart Borgman (gmail) <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jason Spiro wrote:
> > I have created a mode called vimpact-mode, a Vim emulation mode based
> > on viper-mode.  It is based mainly on snippets of code from around the
> > Web.  The pre-alpha is at:
> > http://www.jspiro.com/files/sw/vimpact-mode/vimpact-mode-0.0.1.el
...
> > Here are my design goals:
> >
> > * I plan for all all viper and vimpact functions and customizable
> > variables to have the same prefix, "viper-".  I don't want some to
> > begin with "viper-" and some to begin with "vimpact-".  That'd be
> > confusing.
> >
> > Question 1:  Do you think I am right: is my way better than the other
> > option of having a mix of prefixes?
>
> I think it would be better to use something like vimpact for the add-ons
> you make. But why not just vim- ?

IMO, vim- seems more obvious to learners since the mode is called
vimpact.  :-)  Why don't you think it would be best to use the single
prefix viper- for everything?

> > * I'd prefer vimpact to be an add-on to viper, not a fork of it, since
> > I want vimpact to contain only vim-derived features, not all-new ones.
> >
> > Question 2:  Do you think I am right about my add-on idea?  Or would
> > it be better if all or most of the vimpact-mode changes could somehow
> > be merged into viper-mode (perhaps I could do it)?
>
> Yes, it must be an add-on and it can not be a major mode. (Merging with
> Viper would come much later when the add-on is stable and mature.)

OK.  Would it be easier:

* if I fork Viper now then do a computer-assisted merge later,

* or if my mode, when it is loaded, loads viper and all its little
minor modes?  (Any later merge would then have to be manually done by
me.  I wonder if I'd ever get around to it.  :-)  )

> > Question 3:  How much time would it take me, a mediocre elisp coder,
> > to make vimpact into a proper minor mode that starts up viper-mode
> > then adds the vimpact customizations (the add-on idea from before)?
> > How much time would it take me to merge the vimpact-mode changes into
> > the viper source code?
>
> Maybe the biggest problem is that you may need to familiarize yourself
> with the latest version of Viper and maybe its code too.

OK, I guess I'll have to dig in. :-)  But do any of you know of any
good Emacs or viper hackers in my city (Toronto) by any chance?  Or
will there likely be any viper people at Ottawa Linux Symposium this
summer?

> And I believe it would be a merit if you understand how to get the
> add-ons working smoothly with Viper.

I'd be glad to hear people's feedback about how it works now, as well
as contributions  :-)  though I still have not done much work on it
yet.  Plus, I still want to merge in
http://common-lisp.net/project/vial/darcs/extended-viper/vimlike.el
which is by, I think, brad.beveridge@gmail.com and Alessandro Piras
<laynor@gmail.com>.

> Are you using Emacs 22? This is not yet released, but stable and in late
> beta-test. It comes with Viper and I think Viper has been much improved
> in that version.

I am using emacs-snapshot-gtk 1:20060915-1 from Ubuntu Edgy, a
5-month-old CVS snapshot.  Perhaps it is better if I upgrade to
version 1:20070217-1 from Debian's unstable repo?

Cheers,
Jason

--
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