Vim gets support Lua and the latest versions of Perl and Python | Hacker News Reader

Vim gets support Lua and the latest versions of Perl and Python

pcworld.idg.com.au

18 pointsbunglebooz9 comments

The author thinks "support" means syntax highlighting and indenting, but Vim 7.2 could do those things just fine. Vim 7.3 has added interfaces for scripting in Python3 and Lua, plus persistent undo and a few other things.

Bit of an oversight :) Has anyone done interesting stuff using scripts other than vimscript with recent versions? I played with the python interface when it was first supported many releases back and found it hacky and also slow.

Command-T is a pretty popular new plugin for selecting files in and below your current directory; it makes heavy use of the Ruby interface.

http://github.com/wincent/Command-T

It also uses a small C extension to Ruby for speed, because for this particular scenario Ruby is a bit too slow to be comfortable.

Since Lua is so lightweight and fast, I think it should be an alternative worth considering in situations like this one, since it offers a reasonable compromise between the speed of C and the comfort of a high-level language like Ruby or Python.

Missing a 'for' in the headline makes it pretty hard to read.

Or am I assuming the wrong meaning?

Am I the only one that goes ":syntax off" most of the time when using vim? Maybe I'm too old and used to the black on white (or green on black). But whenever I use syntax highlighting, it's like the different colored parts of the code are pulsating in the "Z" plane. Very annoying.

Also, it seems most syntax highlighters assume the opposite of the color scheme that I'm using (black text on clear background, or white text on dark background). I guess that would also be derived from Murphy's Law...

Yes, I think you're the only one. Good syntax highlighting is essential for me; I won't use an editor without it. It makes the code easier to read, and leads to less bugs (due to typos, etc.)

Not only can you define your own highlighting, but there are hundreds of others that have made available their preferences.

Try any one of these a run; you may be pleasantly surprised to know that highlighters "assume" nothing... http://vimcolorschemetest.googlecode.com/svn/html/index-c.ht...

Thanks, I'll take a look to see if I find a color scheme that I can live with :)

I see red characters on a black background as "deeper" into the screen than blue, most often if they are right next to each other. It's a neat effect. It doesn't bother me normally, I often have to actually look for it.

This doesn't stop me from having syntax highlighting on, however.

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