New comment by paper42 on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/36164#issuecomment-1068583988

Comment:
> when neovim realistically never should’ve been symlinked to `vim` in the first place, is rather obtuse.

I agree that this shouldn't have been handled with alternatives, but now we if we wanted to remove yhem, we have a problem.
Consider a situation in which the user has neovim installed (so vim points to nvim), but doesn't have vim installed. They also use the vim command to launch nvim and didn't set up an alias. They also have $EDITOR and other similar variables set to vim.
Now an update comes which removes the alternatives and suddenly the user can not run their editor with the vim command and even if they fix it with a shell alias, every program that uses $EDITOR is broken until it's manually fixed.

I am not saying this is a bad idea, but it's not without problems.

> > and they can make that choice by installing either package
> 
> Uninstalling Neovim is also an unacceptable solution for those who wish to use both `vim` and `nvim`.

You can just use the xbps-alternatives command to switch to vim and just have both. If you installed them in the right order - vim, then neovim, you don't even have to touch alternatives.

I see why this is confusing and this is part of the reason I don't think nvim should be a vim alternative. On the other hand, I have never seen too different behavior from nvim and vim ootb without any configuration.