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On caring for user data: NeoVim caused Vim undo files to be deleted

384 points · 346 comments · jandeboevrie

  1. recursivedoubts · · 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 · · 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 · · 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. goodmythical · · focus · HN ↗
          Forking creates new programs.

          If I fork chromium, I do not get to claim that I am a chromium maintainer.

          Vim and Neovim are two seperate programs.

          1. SigmundA · · focus · HN ↗
            So maybe it should have two different undo files so both can be run side by side?
            1. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

              [deleted]

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