This is a good article, but the real major feature that Vim 8 introduced wasn't running a terminal inside Vim (which has been possible in various forms forever), but support for asynchronous processing. The terminal is just one use case for the new async functionality, which is powering all sorts of useful plugins or behavior which used to be blocking.
I myself don't see the value of running a terminal in the editor. I see as an added complexity: did the makers of the editor code it the right? Is there any side-effects? Is the ENV correctly loaded? If adding an editor is simply saving you an "alt+tab" then isn't it a lot of effort just to avoid that?
That's not how it works. The terminal is running your login shell. All it has to do is launch an arbitrary process and then properly emulate xterm or whatever. Environment is handled identically to any other terminal session. Concern about it being "coded right" is misplaced.
The benefit is that you can copy data to/from it like any other Vim buffer.
It fits a certain workflow that some people prefer. If you don't consider alt-tabbing out of Vim to another window to be a big deal, it's probably not the workflow you're after, but for people like me who live inside a terminal and won't tab out for anything other than a web browser, it's useful. That said, I normally use another tmux window.
one nice thing about having the terminal within vim is that you can manipulate the output like any old buffer. So for instance if you want to copy something from the terminal into a script you're editing, you can yank the text from the terminal and paste it into your script, taking advantage of vim's editing features and without needing to move your mouse.
Comments
This is a good article, but the real major feature that Vim 8 introduced wasn't running a terminal inside Vim (which has been possible in various forms forever), but support for asynchronous processing. The terminal is just one use case for the new async functionality, which is powering all sorts of useful plugins or behavior which used to be blocking.
I myself don't see the value of running a terminal in the editor. I see as an added complexity: did the makers of the editor code it the right? Is there any side-effects? Is the ENV correctly loaded? If adding an editor is simply saving you an "alt+tab" then isn't it a lot of effort just to avoid that?
That's not how it works. The terminal is running your login shell. All it has to do is launch an arbitrary process and then properly emulate xterm or whatever. Environment is handled identically to any other terminal session. Concern about it being "coded right" is misplaced.
The benefit is that you can copy data to/from it like any other Vim buffer.
It fits a certain workflow that some people prefer. If you don't consider alt-tabbing out of Vim to another window to be a big deal, it's probably not the workflow you're after, but for people like me who live inside a terminal and won't tab out for anything other than a web browser, it's useful. That said, I normally use another tmux window.
one nice thing about having the terminal within vim is that you can manipulate the output like any old buffer. So for instance if you want to copy something from the terminal into a script you're editing, you can yank the text from the terminal and paste it into your script, taking advantage of vim's editing features and without needing to move your mouse.