I'm using VIM - Vi IMproved 9.1. What am I missing?

I'm kind of desperate to switch. Getting massive FOMO from colleagues using VS Code. But I really like using the keyboard to navigate. What should I do?

Does NeoVim support Claude Code?

Resist hypes and just use whatever you feel like. Torvalds uses a 40 year old EMACS implementation and that seems to be working for him.

I've been using VIM/NVIM on and off for a while and the one thing that made it stick for me over VSCode was LazyVim [1]. If you're missing out on something IDE like VSCode, but you love vim it's a great way to go (it can take some getting used to so hang in there). EDIT LazyVim is based off nvim by the way. If your more into videos to learn about something this is a good intro to it from Elijah Manor [2]. I have my dotfiles stored on github that I use on my different machines, and use gnu `stow` and `make` to build them and that gives me my specific lazyvim setup free and quickly after just downloading a few dependencies.

[1]: https://www.lazyvim.org/ [2]: https://youtu.be/N93cTbtLCIM

> Does NeoVim support Claude Code?

Why does it need to? Just open CC in another terminal window or tab. Or run it in a split inside vim, using `:term`.

If it's just using the keyboard that's holding you back from VSCode, you'll be pleased to know it has plenty of its own shortcuts, as well as a "VIM navigation" mode you can turn on.

Ymmv, but I have been very happy using classic vim’s “native claude support”

:term claude

It will also expand special characters so you can do something like

:term claude “refactor %”

And Claude starts work on your current file right away. Also your buffers will update with Claude’s edits!

I motivated my Cursor-colleagues to switch to tmux+nvim -- they don't use it all the time, but they enjoy the vibe. Claude is running on some tmux pans. Much nicer than VSCode!

Used neovim and neovide for the last week (also had FOMO) and while they’re good (no major gripes) I ended up going back to macvim.

Are there specific features you’re missing from vscode?

If it's because VSCode has built in IDE features like LSP integration, I personally really like Helix. Keyboard based (although not the same movements as Vim/Nvim, it didn't take me long to switch), and it's got built in LSP integration/stuff just works out of the box.

Although no LLM support in the editor, I personally just run Claude Code in a separate terminal, but if you want AI in the editor you'll have to look elsewhere.

I did try Neovim with Copilot a while back, and Google shows a few NeoVim Claude Code plugins, so it's probable that if you want an LLM in your text editor, NeoVim might work :)

What's the FOMO caused by? Asking as a vim user starting to get FOMOOFOMO.

I switched from vim to neovim at the time when the former didn't support true color themes and limited colors annoyed me. neovim offered true color support in the terminal so I switched and stayed with neovim since.

One major difference is neovim allowing to use Lua for configuration and plugins. I find Lua to be neater than vimscript.

Most of the active development in the ecosystem is done for neovim these days. If you're using barebones vim then yea you probably won't see much difference, otherwise you have no choice

You can use vim key binding in vs code.

What are you getting FOMO over? Been using Neovim since it forked from Vim and I'm very happy with it.

Lua has been a big boon to advanced configuration and the plugin ecosystem and Neovim supports everything I'd want and more. LSP and treesitter for instance are still better handled by Neovim.

If you dislike Lua (I'm not a fan) I recommend Fennel, but either way it's much better than Vimscript.

As for Claude there are at least two Neovim plugins for it. I use one of them and it works well but I can't remember which.

Use the Neovim extension for VScode. It requires you to have Neovim installed, but it works way better then the Vim extension since it passes commands to neovim instead of using emulation.

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