Helix Editor 25.07

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall Reception and Use Cases

  • Many commenters are enthusiastic: Helix is described as fast, visually appealing, and “just works” with almost no configuration, often used as $EDITOR for quick CLI edits or as a primary editor after years of Vim/Neovim.
  • Others tried it and went back to Neovim, Emacs, VS Code, Zed, or Micro, usually citing keybindings, missing features, or AI integration preferences.

Modal Editing, Keybinding Philosophy, and Muscle Memory

  • Big thread on Helix’s Kakoune-style model (select first, then act) versus Vim’s verb–object model.
    • Pros: clear visual feedback, powerful multi-selection/multi-cursor operations, especially for large refactors.
    • Cons: more visual “noise” while reading, harder to repeat edits (no direct equivalent to Vim’s .), and more statefulness around prior selections.
  • Some find fully modal editors life-changing and extend vim-like modality to browsers, terminals, and window managers.
  • Others, including long-time Vim users, say modality or Helix’s model feels unnatural to them; they prefer Emacs-style or standard GUI editors.
  • Portability is a concern: Vim keybindings work on almost any remote machine or web editor; Helix’s unique grammar doesn’t. Opinions split between “don’t overvalue muscle memory” and “constant model switching is costly.”

Features, Omissions, and Project Direction

  • Code folding:
    • Not implemented yet; maintainers have said it’s hard and lower priority.
    • Some see this and the tone of issue responses as a warning sign for project health and contributor friendliness.
    • Others defend the decision as reasonable prioritization with few maintainers.
    • Philosophical split: some argue folding and type inference hide bad structure and over-rely on tools; others say tooling shouldn’t be deliberately crippled.
  • Multi-cursor:
    • One camp misses Sublime-style Ctrl+click; another notes Helix already has very powerful multi-cursor via selection splitting and regex.
  • Undo:
    • Heavily criticized: coarse granularity (entire insert session undone at once), implicit screen jumps on undo, and reliance on manual checkpoints; a few report losing work or feeling disoriented.
  • File explorer and Git:
    • New file picker and explorer are welcomed; some want netrw-like fast create/rename/delete and Magit-like Git flows.

Extensibility, Scripting, and Size

  • Helix plans a Scheme-family extension language and defers many “small” features until that exists. Some see this as clean design; others dislike “yet another config language.”
  • Plugin system is widely desired but not yet essential for several daily users.
  • Size debate:
    • Core binary is small; bundled tree-sitter grammars push installs to ~100MB.
    • Many dismiss this as negligible on modern systems; others still value minimalism or worry about non-desktop environments. Grammars are optional or separately packaged on some distros.

Comparisons and Alternatives

  • Kakoune is cited as purer inspiration (RPC + external scripting) but with fewer built-in “batteries.”
  • Zed offers Helix keybindings and tree-sitter query DSL; compatibility is currently imperfect.
  • Evil-Helix adds Vim-like keybindings to Helix but lags mainline and can’t fully replicate Vim semantics.
  • Some want a hypothetical editor combining Helix’s defaults and modern core with true Vim keybindings, strong plugin system, and treesitter/LSP/DAP/AI all-in-one.