Re: Poll: What's good about plugin managers?

Ben Fritz wrote:
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I think simple and easy runtime path management like Pathogen offers would be a great addition to Vim and would not be very controversial. I understand that all the other plugin managers build on top of something like this to allow easier install/remove utilities. Nevertheless, any sort of auto-update mechanism will depend on 3rd-party tools (wget, git, Hg, whatever) and will prove more controversial. Get Latest Vim Script always seemed good in concept for me, but not worth the trouble to try because I'm missing wget running on Windows. Vundle and the rest take too much config for my tastes to get them to update when I want from what source I want. I want the flexibility to install updates when I feel like it, from either released versions or cutting-edge repository archives, or whatever, and to be able to change my mind every time if I want to. Changing my .vimrc every time to get that to happen would be annoying.
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I'm not a power user so my opinion may not count for much but I wish to register my complete agreement with the above. I don't like when programs I use update add-ons behind my back. Even automatic notification about updates is of doubtful usefulness. I use Pathogen because it brings one innovation and handles it well: I can keep all files belonging to each plugin bundled in the same directory and installing or uninstalling a plugin can be done by putting such a directory inside a directory designated to contain such bundle or removing it from there. This is the piece of functtionality which probably everyone can agree should be built into Vim. How the bundles get there, when and from where is and will be a matter of taste.
It is a Good Thing if the exact method or tool to manage that is open to choice. Vim is all about customization to suit the working style of the individual and plugin management should be no exception. The great advantage of Perl is not this or that feature of the language but the CPAN. There is one API but several tools to use it because preferences and requirements as well as habits differ. Being able to browse the documentation and code before installing is BTW a Very Good Thing. Today support for different VCSs is definitely a requirement -- if it's hard to get git onto Windows that is the problem which should be rectified, but last I looked Github supported zip download. In five, ten or twenty years there will be something now unforeseen, but things should be set up now to make it at least not too hard to accomodate that.

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