What's New in Neovim 0.10

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall reception

  • Many praise 0.10 as unusually “immediately useful,” with lots of features they’ll use right away.
  • Some see it as evidence of a healthy project that adds modern defaults without requiring huge config work.
  • A few think Neovim is drifting toward IDE-like features and question whether that fits its stated minimal/extensible charter.

Core 0.10 features

  • LSP inlay hints are a major draw; people who relied on Vim+CoC or avoided Neovim due to poor hints now see this as a tipping point.
  • Built‑in commenting, improved LSP/tree‑sitter, hyperlinks, and better K/gx behavior reduce the need for common plugins.
  • OSC52 clipboard support is called out as a big quality‑of‑life improvement, especially over SSH/tmux, though it doesn’t help on VTE-based terminals.

GUI vs terminal, fonts, and input

  • Several want an officially maintained Neovim GUI to escape terminal limits: fixed‑width fonts, poor image support, awkward clipboard and key handling.
  • Others are satisfied with existing GUIs (Neovide, VimR, MacVim-like options) and prefer staying in the terminal.
  • Long, heated subthread debates the kitty keyboard protocol and whether left/right modifier distinctions should be part of terminal protocols.

IDE-style setups, distros, and config churn

  • Users split between:
    • Minimal configs treating Neovim as “just an editor” plus an external IDE.
    • Neovim distributions (LazyVim, AstroNvim, LunarVim, Kickstart) for near‑IDE experiences.
  • Some complain about plugin/LSP breakage and version churn; mitigation strategies include:
    • Updating plugins rarely.
    • Using Nix to generate configs.
    • Relying on CoC instead of native LSP.
  • Others see distro dependence and maintainer bus‑factor as a long‑term risk.

Multicursor vs “vim way”

  • Multicursor, delayed to 0.12, is “the last reason” some still open VS Code/Sublime.
  • Others argue macros, visual block mode, search/replace, and good previews cover most use cases, but acknowledge multicursor’s superior immediate feedback.

Clipboard and copy/paste

  • Some report that clipboard “just works” with unnamedplus or custom mappings.
  • Others recount past complexity and welcome OSC52 as a path to more “just works” behavior.

Colorscheme reactions

  • New default colorscheme is functionally appreciated (works across light/dark, 256/truecolor).
  • A noticeable minority dislike its washed‑out/pastel look and missing variable highlighting, though they note it’s tunable via highlight links.

Compatibility and regressions

  • A few users find Neovim slower or “clunkier” than Vim, especially around terminal behavior and copying to the shell.
  • Breaking differences like non‑interactive system() / ! are blockers for workflows that integrate external tools.
  • One report of severe scrolling slowdown when combining Neovim 0.10 with vim‑airline on large files.