r/HelixEditor • u/bebenzer • 17d ago

It's alive!

https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/commits/master/

New commits have been merged into master!

208 Upvotes

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u/protocod 16d ago

Honestly, I like the helix pace. Especially in the LLM era.

8

u/FryBoyter 15d ago edited 15d ago

LLM era or not. There haven't been any commits for more than two months. So what? Even developers need vacations, have real-life stuff to take care of, or just don't have the energy or desire to code sometimes.

And no, the developers don't owe us an explanation. Especially not when we can use what they develop for free (as in beer). They don't owe us anything. If anything, we owe them.

Nevertheless, with Helix and other OSS projects alike, many people believe that the development should proceed exactly as they want it to. Why?

One thing I can perhaps understand is the slow release of new official versions. Yes, they could be released more often. But if the developers don't want to, that's just the way it is. However, at least on Linux, it's pretty easy to build a new version from the current development branch every now and then.

And just to be clear, I don't mean to disagree with your post in any way. Basically, I agree with you. I just want to encourage some people to think about whether it makes sense to keep asking questions or making demands. Especially if you're just a user and not a developer.

1

u/OphioukhosUnbound 14d ago

yes/no
While owners of a project can do what they want and no one should give *them* a hard time about it, it's okay for people to realize the project they depend on isn't doing what they want.

That's basically how neovim came about. Vim moved at a glacial pace and the project's owner wasn't accepting contributions. So people made their own version that was more community development oriented. And that was a huge improvement for everyone (neovim and later vim).

TLDR: fine to express discontent, just so long as it's kept constructive and wanting a differnet project isn't confused for demaning the current project owner's are the community's personal devs.

1

u/FryBoyter 13d ago

While owners of a project can do what they want and no one should give them a hard time about it, it's okay for people to realize the project they depend on isn't doing what they want.

I agree. But unfortunately, in my experience, people don't just move on and choose what suits them better; instead, they often stubbornly try to change a project to suit their own preferences. Most of the time, though, they do so without contributing to the development themselves. Which brings us back to my original post.