Thread

1. jeremyjh · 1790526713 · focus · HN ↗

   This story has no references that support the author's version of events, but it does appear to be substantially true that:

   1. The change would break undo history, for both Neovim and Vim [see edit: this is not the really the case]

   2. This means Neovim would delete data created by a different program, on another user's computer.

   3. This was known before the feature was released.

   4. They did it anyway.

   I don't think there can really be any post-hoc justification of this.

   <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;neovim&#x2F;neovim&#x2F;pull&#x2F;13973#issuecomment-789262094" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;neovim&#x2F;neovim&#x2F;pull&#x2F;13973#issuecomment-789...

   edit: I missed an important detail. The user specified the same path for undodir in both nvim and vim. Vim requires a path to enable the feature - there is no shared default path. The user sharing a path changes the story considerably in my view, because now this is a case of nvim deleting data created by nvim as an alternative to writing a data migration for it.

   I could still disagree with that, but it makes alternatives like &quot;just use a different path&quot; more complicated at a minimum and really changes my read of this situation completely. I think Neovim&#x27;s decisions are justfiable in this context. Maybe they could have saved the contents of the old undo folder somewhere and notified the user - arguably that would be more empathic I don&#x27;t really agree they had a moral duty to do this.

   1. soraminazuki · 1790538339 · focus · HN ↗

      The feature that was broken is called persistent undo. The docs unambiguously state that edit history will be preserved unless Vim&#x2F;Neovim detects that the &quot;undo file is no longer synchronized with the file it was written for.&quot;

      <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;neovim.io&#x2F;doc&#x2F;user&#x2F;undo&#x2F;#_5.-undo-persistence" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;neovim.io&#x2F;doc&#x2F;user&#x2F;undo&#x2F;#_5.-undo-persistence

      So even putting aside the Vim&#x2F;Neovim interoperability angle, that contract was broken. Undo files created by old versions of Neovim will be deleted by more recent versions.

      The interoperability issue can&#x27;t be ignored either. Neovim was touted as a drop-in Vim replacement, and that needs to be taken into account when considering how changes affect users.

      So many Neovim users have started by reusing their existing vimrc. I&#x27;m sure many still have ~&#x2F;.config&#x2F;nvim&#x2F;init.vim symlinked to ~&#x2F;.vimrc to this very day. With Vim, persistent undo is opt-in. Vim users who cared enough to opt in are highly likely to have explicitly set the path for undo files too. That&#x27;s because Vim defaults it to the same directory as the file being edited, which clutters the filesystem. As a result, there are many users who shares undo files between Vim and Neovim simply because they reused their vimrc, not because they made the conscious choice to do so.

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