The Zed Debugger Is Here

Zed feels like what Lapce, Helix and Neovim couldn't achieve in the time they spent.

I started using Helix back around 2021-2022 and just couldn't get over the bugs and lack of integration. It was good, but PHP support (I was working at an older company) was bad.

Neovim felt closest to a nice editor but there were some popular community-driven plugins that were very stubborn, and alternatives were just very slow. I was also just overwhelmed by the choices I needed to make for something stable.

Lapce just felt like a VSCode clone that didn't do anything special. Looked cool, but I did not feel like it was ready for a daily driver (And it still doesn't).

Zed became a favorite in a short amount of time, and I'm extremely grateful for it every day. The debugger is a nice addition.

> PHP support (I was working at an older company)

Not sure why PHP needs a qualifier like this.

> ...like a VSCode clone that didn't do anything special.

Interesting way to qualify the most popular editor of human history.

They said that Lapce didn't do anything special (over VSCode). Not that VSCode is nothing special, as you seem to have interpreted it.

Fair enough. I understand what you meant now.

This might be off-topic, but I really want to use Helix. I've been using Vim keybindings for a few years now but it's so unintuitive, there's still so many things I can't do efficiently in Vim. Helix just makes so much more sense for my brain. But I don't use Vim/Neovim by itself, I always use an integration with an editor like VSCode or Obsidian (Obsidian's Vim emulation isn't great, but it's good enough). Helix just isn't there yet with VSCode or Obsidian.

I wish more "Vim successors" would focus more on integrating with existing IDEs, rather than becoming one themselves. I don't want to have to set up an entirely new workflow when I change how I edit text.

That's also why I haven't tried using Neovim as a standalone IDE. It looks like I'd really like it, but I don't want to be locked in to using Vim.

People keep forgetting the UNIX tools they love sooo much predate PHP, follow the same worse is better mentally, and trace back to 1969, but for some strange time travel reason, they are considered modern.

FWIW Zed has the best Vim mode I've used outside of Vim. I do miss a few of my Vim plugins but the core is all there.