Why Can’t I Leave Neovim?

Background

I’ve used Neovim as my daily driver for a little over 2 years. The short history of my journey with Neovim goes:

• I saw a Youtube video about it
• Thought it would be cool to try
• Could barely even figure out how to open it properly or get it to render (thanks default Mac terminal)
• Ditched it for a year
• Gained more engineering experience
• Picked up vim keybindings (In VScode)
• Gave it another shot
• Used it on and off for a month or two but didn’t like my config very much
• VSCode was in a failed update loop on my work computer, I had to use Neovim for the rest of the day
• Something just clicked and I never went back to VScode
• Have a solid config that I haven’t edited in about a year

Why do I even want to leave?

I love playing around with new technologies, I will give almost anything a shot for a few days to see if it is worth adding to my workflow. One of the things I’ve been playing around with lately is Zed. Zed is the hot new text editor on the block, and for good reason. It’s fast, clean, and well thought out. There is nothing I hate more than a bloated UI and slow editing experience (hence why I love Neovim so much). There are many things about Zed that I admire, I admire them enough to wish I could switch to using it full-time.
I’ve tried using Zed for about two weeks at work, but I just can’t do it. There are things that I love about it, but there are some things that will just never match the experience that I have in Neovim. The things I love about Zed are:

• Speed (ridiculous how responsive it is)
• Multi-buffers
• Project-wide errors
• Just works™
• Aesthetic

Trapped

This is where things start to get hairy. Zed provides an incredible package right out of the box. You download it, open it, and start editing. Neovim is the opposite, out of the box it is not the editor I want to use. But after hours of finagling, it is now the perfect editor for me. And there is it… the perfect editor FOR ME. Zed is a great editor for just about anyone, but I have crafted an experience in Neovim that I just can’t replicate elsewhere.

I have the perfect keymaps, the perfect file explorer, the perfect buffer management solution, the perfect theme, and a minimal UI. All of this has been tweaked and fiddled with until it just gets out of the way and lets me do my job. I have trapped myself in a world where I built such a good experience that I could never give it up. I wish I could have the speed and aesthetic of Zed in the terminal, but every time I try and switch there is just too much friction between what I want and what Zed provides.

Accepting my fate

I have now come to terms with the fact that I will probably use Neovim for the rest of my career. There are too many things I could never leave. In all seriousness I do love Neovim, it feels like home. I appreciate how customizable and modular it is. It has helped me become a better engineer and be more thoughtful about the tools I use. Zed may have some great features, but Neovim has every feature I want, and none of the ones I don’t.