Editing Vim Tips Wiki:New tips/201204

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<big>'''New tips April 2012'''</big> <small>[[Vim Tips Wiki:New tips/201203|Previous]] &bull; [[Vim Tips Wiki:New tips/201205|Next]]</small>

For each proposed new tip:
*Is it worth keeping as a separate tip?
*Should it be merged into an existing tip? Which?
*If it should be kept, is it ready for release? Which points need fixing? Should it be renamed?

Please edit this page (not the talk page) in the appropriate section below the following table.<br />
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'''This page is an archive listing tips created in April 2012. Please do not edit this page because discussion has finished. If you have any comments, edit the appropriate tip page.'''

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{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
|-
!align="left"|Proposed new tip
!align="center" width="150"|Current consensus
|-
| [[Auto-detect number of cores for parallel built]]
|align="center"| -
|-
| [[Highlighting]]
|align="center"| -
|-
| Vim DBGp client (for debugging php with XDebug extension)
|align="center"| Moved to [[User:terminatorul/Vim DBGp client for debugging php with XDebug extension|user subpage]].
|}

'''Please add your comment (sign with <code><nowiki>~~~~</nowiki></code>) below the appropriate heading. Use&nbsp;<code><nowiki>----</nowiki></code>&nbsp;between&nbsp;comments.'''

==General comments (not for a specific tip)==

==[[Auto-detect number of cores for parallel built]]==
*Keep. Is title ok? It needs to be renamed to change last word to "build". [[User:JohnBeckett|JohnBeckett]] 10:40, May 15, 2012 (UTC)
:Yes, I like this title (with the typo corrected). --[[User:Fritzophrenic|Fritzophrenic]] 17:12, May 15, 2012 (UTC)

==[[Highlighting]]==
*Keep, I'm developing this. [[User:JohnBeckett|JohnBeckett]] 10:40, May 15, 2012 (UTC)

==Vim DBGp client (for debugging php with XDebug extension)==
*'''Moved to [[User:terminatorul/Vim DBGp client for debugging php with XDebug extension|user subpage]]. [[User:JohnBeckett|JohnBeckett]] 23:46, July 6, 2012 (UTC)
Unusual tip. Is it useful for Vim? Rename it to what? [[User:JohnBeckett|JohnBeckett]] 10:40, May 15, 2012 (UTC)
:I agree with that assessment! I'm not sure what to do with it. At least we should go ahead and search for Vim plugins to do this...but even then, most of the tip is a generic description of what DBGp is and has very little to do with Vim. I don't want to alienate a user who is obviously willing to do a lot of writing on the wiki, but on the other hand, the tip as mentioned has very little to do with Vim, so I think normally we'd delete it. --[[User:Fritzophrenic|Fritzophrenic]] 17:36, May 15, 2012 (UTC)

::Would it help if I move the content to http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Script:4009 ? Or why do vim scripts each have their own tip ? [[User:terminatorul|Timothy Madden]]

:::Each vim script has a page of their own in the Script namespace, e.g. [[Script:4009]], because the vim.org script pages (e.g. {{script|id=4009}}) all have a link in the upper right-hand-corner which says "Vim Wiki". This link was added originally because plugin authors would sometimes receive negative ratings for their script without any explanation why. Since allowing public comments on vim.org has proven in the past to allow too much spam to sneak in, it was decided to provide a dedicated namespace on the wiki for bug reports, suggestions, etc., as a service to script authors.

:::With this purpose in mind, the Script: namespace pages are not intended for use in documenting a plugin. That should be done on the vim.org page. We've found that even mirroring the documentation on the Script: page is not desirable, because it often starts to diverge from the documentation on vim.org or the plugin project page, as the author forgets to keep them synchronized.

:::Is there content in [[Vim DBGp client (for debugging php with XDebug extension)]] which is not reflected on the {{script|id=4009}} page? If so, does there need to be, or can it all be moved over to the vim.org page? Brief pointers on [[Script:4009]] are probably a good addition if configuration is complex, but most of that (and the "official" source) should be on vim.org and/or plugin :help pages.

:::Pointers to a plugin in a tip page on a broader topic, or overviews of several plugins, are often welcome in a "proper" tip page; and many tip pages have a "related plugins" section. See [[Automatically append closing characters]], [[Using undo branches]], and [[Detect encoding from the charset specified in HTML files]] for examples of this.

:::--[[User:Fritzophrenic|Fritzophrenic]] 21:02, July 2, 2012 (UTC)

:::Using a "brief pointer" from the Script: namespace to the actual wiki page was my idea also. Sorry to find out the vim wiki is not a good place for the content, though.

:::I wrote a separate page because I have a different audience in mind for that wiki content: new programmers that just got started with php as their first language, most likely becase they like to create great web pages, and that recently realized they should get their hands dirty with that thing they read about somewhere called debugging, and see what is it supposed to do actually. It is the kind of audience that will not know to use the vim debugger script even with the detailed instructions on the script page.

:::To make a long story short, if you think the page is not good enough as a vim tip, I suppose I can deleted it. Though I still think it might help someone (any hit count statistics would be welcome if the vim.org site has any), I can see it is related only to some particular vim scripts, and I did not put that much effort into it anyway.

:::--[[User:terminatorul|Timothy Madden]]
::::Hi Timothy. You have an account at vim.org, but the user name in your signature does not exist at this wiki. You are welcome to create a user, particularly if you plan to assist with the tips. I am an experienced programmer, although my PHP experience is almost zero (I've just done a tiny bit of dabbling for interest). The problem with the page here is that it contains nothing that would help me get started. For example, "by telling your text editor to wait for an incoming connection" is obvious and almost does not need to be said, but an ignoramus like me would want to know what command I enter to do that (or at least, where do I go to get that info). To be useful here, the tip would have to spell out (briefly) what software needs to be installed, assuming that a default Vim is all that is available, and an overview of what the user needs to do would be required. What is needed at the server? Also, if the tip is going to mention non-Vim stuff, it needs to give a hint what "request debugging with XDEBUG_SESSION_START or XDEBUG_CONFIG" means in terms of what the user does (if the user already knew that, what benefit would the tip provide?). To me, the info at [http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=4009 vim.org/4009] is helpful, while the page here does not carry value. If you wanted a place to store it for possible future enhancement, or for linking to from other places, you could create a user account, then move the page to a user subpage (or I could do that), however I do not think that it would be suitable as a tip, so if the subpage option is not taken up, I think deletion is needed because we cannot maintain it.
::::--[[User:JohnBeckett|JohnBeckett]] 04:11, July 5, 2012 (UTC)

:::: I think my mistake was to assume readers would read script 4009 first before arriving at the vim tip wiki page.

:::: I have the user account, I noticed the link works now, and I am in need of a place to store the text, but I do not see how to create a user sub-page. In the meantime I removed the content from the vim wiki page in question, but I do not think I can remove the page entirely, so I think you should do it.
::::--[[User:terminatorul|Timothy Madden]]

:::::You can create a user subpage simply by appending a "/Sub_page_name" to the end of your user page. For example, [[User:terminatorul/Vim DBGp client for debugging php with XDebug extension]]. --[[User:Fritzophrenic|Fritzophrenic]] 17:58, July 6, 2012 (UTC)
I moved the page to keep its edit history. I did not keep the original title because it's probably not very useful, but I explained at Timothy's talk that we could make a shorter title as a redirect if wanted. [[User:JohnBeckett|JohnBeckett]] 23:46, July 6, 2012 (UTC)

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[[Category:VimTipProposed]]