On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 7:59 PM, pansz wrote: > >>> By using your own version of vim you can: >>> 1. know this is your vim and wanted feature is always there. >> >> Most vim users don't need this. Every distro that I know of has a >> package for a "huge" vim version with every applicable feature >> included (archlinux may be the exception here - I don't think that >> they have a package that provides a "vim" binary with gui features, >> only a "gvim" binary). Your wanted feature will be there as long as >> you install a package that includes it, which is much easier and less >> time consuming than compiling from source. > > Do you really need the Huge version just for an Editor? Do you think "most > users should install features they may never need in their life?".
Yes, I do need the huge version. And yes, I think that most users should install features that they'll never need - installing those features makes their lives easier, and has no significant disadvantage for the average user. In the worst case, their vim binary takes up slightly more space on disk and in memory. For most people, that's simply not a concern. My web browser has features that I never use, my terminal emulator has features I never use, my IRC client has features I never use. My operating system includes drivers for hardware that I don't have, and my kernel can run binaries tuned for processors that I don't have. I have fonts that contain glyphs for languages that I'll never use. And I consider all of that a good thing, because it makes life easier for the people who do need those features, or who have that hardware, or who speak those languages, and they don't cost me anything significant. > Yes they have the freedom to install unnecessary stuffs, but this is another > story. > > What I need is a vim compiled with *everything default*, i.e. a Normal > version with gui support. But nobody seems to provide it. They either > provide a Tiny version or provide a Huge version. > > There always have been newbie questions in linux forums asking why his vi > does not have some feature, the reason is they've got the Tiny version or > even not the vim. When I tell them to "install vim" they would claim that > "they already got vim and the vim command works, why should they install > vim?", and from time to time you may waste your time explaining why this vim > is different from that vim, This, I can agree with. This exact argument is why Debian-derivatives stopped calling the vim-tiny package "vim" and started calling it "vi" - it is definitely a bad thing for people to not be aware that they're running a stripped down version that only strives for vi compatibility. > then you again need to teach them how to find > the package-name of vim in their distribution, and then you need to tell > them how to use their distribution's package manager... oops, Telling them > to download vim source and make install vim is the best way so far, since > this solves almost all problems of this kind. Except for the fact that it becomes extra maintenance to keep it up to date. And the fact that they'll almost certainly have to use their distro's package manager to install the dependencies, anyway, unless they plan on compiling those from source as well. And the fact that the resulting binary will likely be missing features that they would like to have, simply because they were missing the build-depends for them in the first place. I think telling someone "sudo apt-get install vim-gnome" is a whole lot easier than saying "go read Tony M's 1500 hundred word web page about how to compile vim from source, and try not to miss anything important, and then remember to keep it up to date once in a while." > There are other issues for distribution specific vim, e.g. the directory. > They put system-wide vimrc in different directories, which you may not know, > because each distribution maintainer has different preference. If you > compile your own vim you know vim always lies in your /usr/local/share/vim > and you're more helpful to yourself and for those who want to help. > > For advanced user like Matt, well, may have no difficulties identifying > distribution-specific vim directories. Most people don't need to know that. I don't know (exactly) where my browser stores bookmarks, or where it loads its default chrome from. I don't need to worry about where my kernel loads modules from, or where my terminal loads its fonts from. When things are working properly, the user doesn't need to know this. When things aren't working properly, whatever guru on the subject is helping you out knows how to help you find these things out. If a user doesn't like a preference that his distro vimrc sets, he should just set it himself in his vimrc. This has an advantage over compiling from source to fix that problem, anyway - when he moves his vimrc to another machine, the problem will be fixed there, too. If he'd fixed it by recompiling, he'd need to recompile on the new machine as well. Saying that a person should compile from source to adjust the path to the vim binary is like saying that he should get professional help to stop snoring. Sure, it's an option, but for most people the better option is to just learn to live with it until it becomes a real problem. > For many average people, if you go to ask "where is your vim installed?" > they may never give you the correct answer unless they're compiling > themselves. How could you help if you don't even know what version of vim > they may have and where is it? Ask them to paste a copy of their :version output, and you have almost all of that information. Ask them to paste the output of :scriptnames and you have basically all the rest of it. And all of that is a usually a waste of time, anyway - it's nearly always enough to ask then to check a ":verbose set foo?", or to see if you can reproduce the problem yourself. Issues that are distro-specific, other than the simple case of an option value being changed to a different default in a systemwide vimrc, are relatively few and far between. And discovering *that* the issue is distro-specific only requires knowledge and an updated part on the part of the person helping, it requires very little from the person having the problem. ~Matt -- You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
