autoload

[SingularisArt]

This isn't a bug. It's just a question.

I'm kind of new to lua and all of that.
Could you please explain to me why you put:

return wincent.autoload('wincent.vim')

Could you please be detailed in your responses? I do know basic Lua, but not advanced level like this neovim config.

[wincent]

I don't know if I can provide a very good explanation for it, but the basic idea is described here:

wincent/aspects/nvim/files/.config/nvim/lua/wincent/autoload.lua

Lines 1 to 23 in c298fa7

	-- Provides a lazy autoload mechanism similar to Vimscript's autoload mechanism.
	--
	-- Examples:
	--
	-- " Vimscript - looks for function named `wincent#foo#bar#baz()` in
	-- " autoload/wincent/foo/bar.vim):
	--
	-- call wincent#foo#bar#baz()
	--
	-- -- Lua - lazy-loads these files in sequence before calling
	-- -- `wincent.foo.bar.baz()`:
	-- --
	-- -- 1. lua/wincent/foo.lua (or lua/wincent/foo/init.lua)
	-- -- 2. lua/wincent/foo/bar.lua (or lua/wincent/foo/bar/init.lua)
	-- -- 3. lua/wincent/foo/bar/baz.lua (or lua/wincent/foo/bar/baz/init.lua)
	--
	-- local wincent = require'wincent'
	-- wincent.foo.bar.baz()
	--
	-- -- Note that because `require'wincent'` appears at the top of the top-level
	-- -- init.lua, the previous example can be written as:
	--
	-- wincent.foo.bar.baz()

The "normal/idiomatic" Lua way to do this kind of thing would be to not have autoloading at all. Any time you need anything you would write require'something', and if you need to use it multiple times, you write out the require multiple times — because modules are cached, these subsequent calls don't re-evaluate the module; they just return the already-loaded module.

The specific line you cite was added in f53783e, which says:

refactor(nvim): streamline global access

Yes, globals are evil, but it is 2 AM and I reserve the right to exercise poor judgment at this time of night.

Seriously though, I think the streamlining here makes for some real usability benefits (for example, see the improvement we get from doing v:lua.wincent.something.blah() as opposed to luaeval("require'wincent.something'.blah()"); the quoting becomes dramatically simpler and less error prone), so I think it's worth it.

As you can see in that commit, this allowed me to remove a bunch of require'wincent' calls and then just directly access "autoloaded" functions by chaining them off the wincent global (eg. wincent.vim.setlocal).

Overall I would describe all this as a "cute hack", but not necessarily a pattern I have seen anywhere else or would actively recommend. It might be a bit too magical to be a good idea. Does that answer your question, @SingularisArt?

[SingularisArt]

@wincent

Yes. Thank you.

Also, I've learned a ton from your youtube videos and I was wondering if you could create a youtube video talking about your neovim setup and how you configure your things. Like, the structure of the config and describe what each file/folder is doing.

[SingularisArt]

Quick question regarding the usage of this function. I have all of my plugin configuration located at lua/SingularisArt/plugins and I have a ton of files in there. How can I use this function to require all of the files in that directory?

My init.lua in the lua/SingularisArt/plugins directory is where I add my plugins using packer. I tried to add this at the end of my init.lua file:

return SingularisArt.autoload('SingularisArt.plugins')

You can view it here.
Thanks for your help and your time!

[wincent]

What you've got in there right now looks about right to me — is it working?

[SingularisArt]

Finally, I got it to work. I just had some problems with another file.

Thanks so much!