> On 2010-02-03, sc wrote:
>> On Wednesday 03 February 2010 09:46:12 am Matt Wozniski wrote:
>>
>>> Most software users in general don't need this. The only
>>> reason to update to the latest patch is either to be able to
>>> make use of a new feature or to pick up a new bugfix. As
>>> someone who is an advanced vim
>>>
>>
>> matt matt matt -- you're one of the smartest and most helpful
>> people on this list but i can't let you make a statement like
>> that without calling you on it
>>
>> possibly the largest, but certainly a large subset of patch
>> downloaders do so to decrease the time after patches are released
>> and subsequent bugs are discovered -- the more people who stay
>> current, the quicker new bugs are discovered
>>
>> we love vim, we love open source, and keeping an eye on things in
>> this manner is our way of giving back to the community -- we, or
>> at least some of us, have made good livings as programmers and
>> feel it's the least we can do to contribute and stay in the game
>>
>> you must have meant "the only reason for most software users to
>> update..."
>>
>> ok -- never mind
>
> I'm with Matt on this one. I normally have enough to do to keep up
> with my responsibilities on the project I'm paid to work on--I don't
> have a lot of time to spend babysitting my tools. As it happens, I
> have a personal interest in Vim so I do try to take the extra time
> and effort to keep my various installations up to date.
> Nevertheless, I would not recommend to anyone else that they do
> this. I have very seldom found it _necessary_ to use the very
> latest version. Before I learned about the Cream site, I just used
> the N.0 version on Windows until N+1.0 was released and it worked
> well enough.
>
> If it ain't broke, ....
>
> Regards,
> Gary
>
>
Well, the problem with n.0 is that, with passing time, it can get very
obsolete: see for instance http://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/patches/7.2/README
listing all the bugfixes since Vim 7.2.0 came out (as a one-line summary
of each of them).
So, at the time I was still on Windows, when Steve Hall started
publishing "more up to date" versions than the 6.1.0 (or was it 6.2.0?)
available on the vim.org site, I used them. And then something happened,
and those Vim versions stopped being upgraded: that's when I learnt how
to do it myself, found out that it wasn't that hard, and published the
result of my experiments as a HowTo page for Windows and some
installable zipfiles for Windows (that was when the first 7.0 alpha
versions happened, so for a time I published both 7.0aa builds and 6.3.x
or 6.4.x). Then my computer broke down, and Steve took up again the
tools fallen from my hands. When I scrapped Windows for a Linux-only
box, I found out that my distro's Vim versions were much "slower to
update" than what I was accustomed to, so I learnt "the Unix way" of
building Vim. Again, it isn't really hard once you get the hang of it:
that's the origin of my Unix/Linux HowTo page.
Some bugfixes and enhancements have been very important for me, for
instance when the ++ff modifier started being obeyed in all cases, even
with 'fileformats' nonempty, or when glyphs for Unicode codepoints above
U+FFFF started to appear correctly in gvim. Other people have other
priorities. So I compile Vim as soon as a patch is published that is
relevant on my system, and with all patches to date in sequence, even
"irrelevant" ones (i.e., if a patch is Windows-only, I shall only apply
it when a later "Unix" patch comes out), and I check (by rsync) the ftp
site several times a day to see if there are new runtime file versions
(which is probably much too often). YMMV.
About the OP's question: Linux distros may distribute as many as four
"Vim" packages, of which every Vim user must install at least two and
may install more, as follows (names as they used to be when I was on
RedHat):
- vim-common runtime files etc., required for every Vim install.
- vim-minimal a "tiny" build of Vim, with minimum features and no GUI,
installed as "vi" in a directory which is always
mounted on all Linux installations, even in
"single-user emergency-repairs" runlevel.
- vim-enhanced a "big" or "huge" build of Vim, with decent features but
no GUI and usually no X11 (clipboard and client-server)
support, installed as "vim".
- vim-x11 a GUI version of Vim, installed as "gvim" in some $PATH
directory which typically would only exist on systems
where X11 is installed.
If only the first two are installed, then you have "a vim version" but
not a full-featured one. It is quite possible to install only the first
and last ones, and to softlink the other "executable names" (see :help
ex) to the resulting gvim. Or to install them all, they don't conflict.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I
believe everything positively stinks.
-- Lew Col
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