What does HackerNews think of golf?

I'd probably use Helix if it had 1:1 Kakoune keybindings. Or even Vim bindings.

Vim bindings are not the most consistent, but they are ubiquitous. Every program that offers Vim mode has very similar keymap. If modal text editor deviates from them, it better be for good reason.

Kakoune bindings are very different from Vim, but they are provably and objectively [1] better, so that's fine. They are also more consistent and there is a clear idea behind the whole design. It's written down in documentation. You might prefer Vim or Emacs, but at least you can see that changes from well known Vim scheme are not made at whim.

Helix keymap feels like it was improvised without any thought behind it. „Let's take Kakoune binds and add back visual mode cuz I feel like it.” Currently, they are designed by committee in this GitHub issue[2]. I don't see any design notes and explanations why should I spend time learning Helix keymap.

[1]: https://github.com/mawww/golf [2]: https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/165

Judging by https://github.com/mawww/golf kakoune is capable of completing the majority of the same editing tasks as vim in a very similar amount of keystrokes. The main advantage of multiple selections is that you can see which text you will operate on ahead of time, rather than having to first select which operation you want (delete/yank/change/etc) and then which text it will affect. I think pointing out that vim's selections aren't as capable as kakoune's is a fair response, and saying that you can accomplish similar things without selections is a bit of a deflection.

There's http://www.vimgolf.com/ which is obviously focussed on Vim, but there's nothing stopping people from keeping a scoreboard of the same challenges for other editors. For example, the Kakoune editor has their own: https://github.com/mawww/golf/