What's New in Neovim 0.10

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Neovim 0.10’s release is widely seen as a substantial quality-of-life upgrade, adding core features like LSP inlay hints, better commenting, improved clipboard integration via OSC 52, new hyperlink handling, and an updated default colorscheme. Users welcome that many formerly plugin-only capabilities are moving into core, making it easier to get a modern editor experience without fragile configurations, though some worry this may conflict with Neovim’s minimalist charter. The conversation also contrasts Neovim with Vim, Helix, and full IDEs, touching on multicursor support, GUI front ends, plugin “distributions” such as LazyVim, and the ongoing tradeoff between extensibility, stability, and out-of-the-box convenience.

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.