Developing a Vim plugin with Ruby

https://vimconf.org/2023/sessions/#link-okuramasafumi

Transcript

1. Developing a Vim plugin with Ruby, or when in Ruby do as the Rubyists do VimConf 2023 Tiny OKURA Masafumi, 2023-11-18
2. English
3. 20 minutes
4. Me
5. About me • Name: OKURA Masafumi • Company: nil (freelancer) • Specialty: Web development with Rails • Activities: Rubyist, Kaigi on Rails chief organizer, OSS maintainer (Alba), meetup organizer (Grow.rb, Rubygems Code Reading Meetup) • I brought some KoR swags today, talk to me to get one! • Vim user history: Vim (2013-2018), Neovim (2018-)
6. VimConf and me • -2017: Attendee • 2018: Speaker (A day in the life of a (ordinary) Vimmer) • 2019: Organizer • After the conference, I was recommended to translate a book called “Mastering Vim” and I did it. It’s “ϚελϦϯάVim” • 2023: Speaker <- new!
9. Question
10. Your choice of the language
11. …for the development of Vim plugins
12. /(Neo)?vim/
13. Language for the development of vim plugins 1. Vim script 2. Vim9 script 3. Lua 4. Deno
14. Language for the development of vim plugins 1. Vim script 2. Vim9 script 3. Lua 4. Deno 5. Ruby
15. No one (I believe)
16. Why Ruby?
17. Developing a Vim plugin with Ruby, or when in Ruby do as the Rubyists do VimConf 2023 Tiny OKURA Masafumi, 2023-11-18
18. Developing a Vim plugin with Ruby, or when in Ruby do as the Rubyists do VimConf 2023 Tiny OKURA Masafumi, 2023-11-18
19. When in Ruby
20. When you want to manipulate Ruby code
21. Do as the Rubyists do
22. What do Rubyists do?
23. AST
24. Abstract Syntax Tree
25. RubyVM::AbstractSyntaxTree
26. RubyVM::AbstractSyntaxTree • Stdlib • No external dependencies • No need to install something via package managers • Takes Ruby source code as a String and returns AST root node • Not best for modifying code but good enough to get some information from code
27. RSpec
28. RSpec • One of the most famous testing libraries for Ruby • In fact, one of the most downloaded library • Introducing DSLs such as `describe`, `context`, `it` and `let` • Readable as English • These can be deeply nested • Tests can be implicit with `subject` and `is_expected`
29. The problem
30. What is the current context/subject?
31. rspec-current.vim
32. Demo
33. Why not LSP?
34. Why not LSP for this case? • Too trivial/niche • I cannot push this feature into generic LSP servers • Not enough functionality on extension/add-on/plugin system • ruby-lsp provides add-on system, but it’s immature now • Too many things to learn for only one feature • LSP is not the easiest thing to learn
35. Ruby as a solution!
36. Using Ruby as a development language • Simple/Easy • One fi le to work with, no external dependencies • Straightforward • Just plain Ruby code • Less things to learn • We need to learn how to develop a plugin with Ruby, but it’s simpler than learning LSP
37. How to
38. gem install neovim If you use Neovim
39. rubyeval
40. Ruby heredoc
41. Summary
42. Usecase
43. Usecase for using Ruby as a development language for vim
44. Language- speci fi c features
45. Use your own language!
46. Because you can
47. Because of Vim
48. Because Vim is so kind to let you do so
49. Happy vimming!