I haven't tried Kakoune, so I'm not really qualified to speak about its merits or demerits. From a place of limited knowledge, I see nothing wrong with it, and want to reiterate that it seems really interesting and worth keeping an eye on.
To add some nuance to my earlier comment: I don't really worry about the existence of Kakoune (or $OPEN_SOURCE_SOFTWARE_PROJECT) in a trivial sense; we'll always be able to find a copy somewhere and compile it from source, modify it, etc. That being said, I think one of the advantages of a large/durable ecosystem is that it lets me worry less about problems I don't yet have. I use (neo)vim daily, but there are certainly still lots of ways I can improve my workflow. Inevitably I'll run into something that goes wrong or doesn't work like I want it to, and a larger and more active community makes it more likely that someone else has already figured out how to fix it.
The (relatively small) differences in keybindings are also worth a mention, but I think the vims have a bit of an unfair advantage here; IMO learning vim keybindings is almost unquestionably a good investment because you'll find them everywhere.
> Kakoune just feels better integrated with the environment
Out of curiosity, is this an argument for enjoyment or productivity? :) (Either is a fine answer! I frankly can't measure the latter so my personal usage of vim is probably motivated by the former.)
> I think one of the advantages of a large/durable ecosystem is that it lets me worry less about problems I don't yet have.
That's true. If you're finding numerous workflow problems with neovim, it'll probably be true of Kakoune, as well.
> > Kakoune just feels better integrated with the environment
>
> Out of curiosity, is this an argument for enjoyment or productivity?
Both, though it's a more persuasive argument for productivity. Because it's easier to integrate with the environment, those workflow problems you mention can be solved by delegating to the environment, in some cases. For example, kakoune delegates to the environment for window management -- so things like resizing windows and switching between them is handled through tmux for me. Obviously, though, that's could be a poor substitution for some dedicated solutions in the editor. But overall, I prefer it, as it allows me to get familiar with unix utilities, which are useful in a wider range of applications. It also means there isn't an arcane scripting language associated with using the editor. I have a thing against vimscript.
> differences in keybindings are also worth a mention
I suppose. Having used vim for years, I was able to pick up the keybindings relatively quickly (< 1 day); they're almost identical. The main difference, that the selection comes before the action, also makes it easier to pick up.
But, yeah, that muscle memory is a loss. I find myself trying to do multiple selections and use kakoune keybindings in bash vi-mode, often.
To add some nuance to my earlier comment: I don't really worry about the existence of Kakoune (or $OPEN_SOURCE_SOFTWARE_PROJECT) in a trivial sense; we'll always be able to find a copy somewhere and compile it from source, modify it, etc. That being said, I think one of the advantages of a large/durable ecosystem is that it lets me worry less about problems I don't yet have. I use (neo)vim daily, but there are certainly still lots of ways I can improve my workflow. Inevitably I'll run into something that goes wrong or doesn't work like I want it to, and a larger and more active community makes it more likely that someone else has already figured out how to fix it.
The (relatively small) differences in keybindings are also worth a mention, but I think the vims have a bit of an unfair advantage here; IMO learning vim keybindings is almost unquestionably a good investment because you'll find them everywhere.
> Kakoune just feels better integrated with the environment
Out of curiosity, is this an argument for enjoyment or productivity? :) (Either is a fine answer! I frankly can't measure the latter so my personal usage of vim is probably motivated by the former.)