what about merging with ultisnips using its engine?

[MarcWeber]

Dear fellow snipmate community. It was a great honor working for you. github.com/honza/snipmate-snippets is a success - there are many contributions.

However for quite a long time snipmate has been broken in various ways - and me and Rok wonder whether its worth fixing snipmate - cause there are other snippet engines for Vim which are more powerful and which do just work - such as ultisnips or xptemplate.

Ultisnips is much closer to snipmate than xptepmlate - it also supports nested snippets. Ultisnips itself states that it has been copying lots of snippets from snipmate-snippets anyway.

I just feel the wealth for all would be bigger if we'd merge. Most bugs would be gone etc. Less work for maintainers etc.

The only downside is that ultisnips requires python. I'm not sure whether its bad, cause VImL has many flaws anyway - and python is the scripting language which is being used most by plugin authors after VimL.

By this issue I want to ask you - the snipmate user - whether you'd follow such kind of merge and if not why. This merge would mean short-term:

• splitting ultisnip core engine from ultisnips snippets
• merging ultisnips snippets with snipmate-snippets
• adding missing features we love to ultisnips, if any such as the :SnipmateOpenSnippetFiles command,
  make it read sninppets found in &rtp by default and things like that.

Comment on this issue and tell us what you think.

[jmlucjav]

+1 I have been switching snippets plugings, from snipmate to ultisnips now to neocomplcache. But I'm having issues and was going back to snipmate. If this goes through it would be a plus for me.

Regarding python requirement is no issue for me. I installed it to use other plugins too.

[MarcWeber]

Which issues have you had? If you don't talk about them they can't be fixed.

[jmlucjav]

sorry, I meant I am having issues with neocomplcache/neosnippets so I am going to move back to snipmate. I moved to ultisnips before from snipmate cause it was more flexible.

[MarcWeber]

Why are you moving back to snipmate if ultisnips is more flexible?

[jmlucjav]

Cause I prefer now the most used/stable/tested one, that will probably better integrate with others such as autocompletion plugins.

[MarcWeber]

Funny that all people get the impression that snipmate is the most tested one.. Its broken in various ways.

[marlun]

I use vim on a lot of servers where vim might not have python support and where I can't "fix vim" so that it do. Changing snipmate into requiring python would not be very good for that kind of problem.

[MarcWeber]

Don't worry. snipmate will always be what it is now. No python requirement. The worst thing which may happen is that I'll stop working on it - switching to UltiSnips.

Which kind of editing are you doing and how often are you using snippets? Eg when I have to edit a .htaccess file on a server I'm fine starting a local vim instance, doing the snippet expansion there then copying the result to the server. I seldomly have to code on a server.

My current plans are to make UltiSnip read snippet files - or improve it in some ways which I did for snipmate. Thanks for your feedback.

[marlun]

Thinking about it I mostly do editing on servers and coding locally so you are correct in that I don't use snipmate that much on the server. I do however like the idea of things made in VimL since they work pretty much everywhere.

[SirVer]

You basically have a three choices: VimL, which means no automated tests and limited features, but working everywhere or Python which adds some levels of possibilities, some 400 automated tests, a ton of features, speed and cuts the dependencies on other plugins to zero. For me the choice was very simple (that is why I made Ultisnips in the first place). I edit my files on server all via SSH and I have not encountered a server in the last 4 years where a Vim with python wasn't one sudo away. En plus, snipMate will just no longer be maintained (if the Ultisnips merger works well), since Vim is not really developed anymore, snipMate will only bitrot very slowly, so you can just keep using it.

That you like the idea of stuff made in VimL shows me that you have not really used it extensively. Vim would have much more awesome plugins if its scripting language would have been ruby, python or perl instead of a poor homebrew solution. Just take other text editors like sublime or textmate as example. Just my 2c of course.

[marlun]

SirVer as I wrote I like the idea of things made in VimL because it works everywhere, not because I believe VimL is a good language to use. Python is actually my favorite language even though I havn't used it as much as other languages (and maybe thats why I still like it as much as I do :)

The servers that I use where vim doesn't support python is customer servers where I'm not allowed to install new software.

I actually decided to try UltiSnips earlier today because when I thought about it I believe I can live with not having snippets work on those servers and I like what I read about UltiSnips. I actually believe I'll change my mind and agree that you should move on from snipmate.

[MarcWeber]

SirVer: You haven't done that much VimL either - so you can't judge VimL :) Let's just help each other so that we end up having one piece of software we all love, contribute to and maintain. There are also some things snipmate does better, such as showing a popup menu if you only type some chars of a snippet. That makes a big difference, cause you don't have to use different keys. I just don't have time to implement it right now.
My fork is official - when and what will be merged upstream to UltiSnips has to be discussed later with SirVer.
There are little things I still broke such as bbox. It still expands snipmate snippets so I can give it a real try now.

Give it a try, -provide feedback, file snipmate snippets related bugs against my issue tracker.

[honza]

+1 for the merge

[SirVer]

Marc, fair enough. However, I tried to learn Vimscript prior to starting UltiSnips, so I have a basic understanding of its weaknesses though :). I like the popup menu, I meant to implement it for Ultisnips for a long time now. I take a look at how you did it. I need some more time before I can properly review your branch, I will do it though.

[voyeg3r]

+1 for the merge ...

... I have rapidly adapted to ultisnips, I don't see any problem in make this exchange, especially thinking on develloper side, indubitably python open mutch more possibilidties.

I guess insist's in snipmate at this point is a lack of vision in the great new possibilities that we have. I am extremely grateful for all work done on snipmate past. My vote is yes, the community must turn to the ultisnips with all his strength