Thread

1. recursivedoubts · 1790522383 · focus · HN ↗

   They are open source developers, giving away free software as a gift. There is no duty here.

   We can speak, respectfully, of how important backwards compatibility is to us, and ask nicely for them to give more of their time to support it when their free sodftware isn't backwards compatible. Perhaps we can even offer to help implement it.

   But they have no duty to do so or to "care" for their users. (They have already demonstrated they care for their users, btw, by giving them free software.)

   EDIT: I missed an important part of the story, which is that they mutated existing files in a non-backwards compatible manner. That should have been avoided, I understand where the (secondary) author is coming from now.

   1. rlue · 1790523084 · focus · HN ↗

      The argument is that developers have a duty not to arbitrarily delete data on your system that you may have relied on that was produced by another program just because they’d like to replace it with something in their own format.

      I don’t care if you’re volunteering your time; if you build something whose implied purpose and success depends on other people using it, you emphatically have a duty to those people not to silently destroy stuff that was there before your software was.

      1. pdonis · 1790523212 · focus · HN ↗

         It's worth pointing out that vim is not "another program" as far as Neovim is concerned. It's an earlier version of the same program. Neovim is a fork of vim, not a totally different editor that happens to share part of a name.

         1. jeremyjh · 1790524716 · focus · HN ↗

            It absolutely is another program, I can tell this because it has a different name. To run it I type "nvim" instead of "vim". I use different config files to control its behavior. I install a different package on my system when I want to use it on a new computer.

            1. pdonis · 1790530441 · focus · HN ↗

               If it really is another program with reference to vim, it should leave undo files made by vim alone.

               If it's going to nuke vim's undo files, it can't hide behind "another program".

               1. jeremyjh · 1790530536 · focus · HN ↗

                  That is the point.

                  1. pdonis · 1790531194 · focus · HN ↗

                     I don't understand. Are you saying neovim does not nuke vim's undo files? The whole point of the article is that it does.

                     If that's not your point, then I have no idea what you're trying to say.

            2. pdonis · 1790531653 · focus · HN ↗

               > I use different config files to control its behavior.

               From what I can gather, you can use the same vimrc file to control both vim and neovim.

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