Goodbye lsp-mode

eglot requires a lot less configuration than I was expecting because it overloads less of the functionality already present in Emacs. I had read this was the case but I guess I understimated how much of a benefit it is. mea culpa.

After removing all of my lsp-mode-related configuration I only needed to add a couple of things to get functionality the way I like it, with behavior reasonably close to what I am used to from lsp-ui-mode.

For now I only set up Go to start eglot automatically. M-x eglot is not unergonomic, and it keeps surprises down. Go is where I want LSP the most and where I understand best how eglot is going to behave for now:

-  :hook ((go-mode . yas-minor-mode))
+  :hook ((go-mode . yas-minor-mode)
+         (go-mode . eglot-ensure))

I borrowed some code from a GitHub issue comment thread (as you do) to get automatic import organization and formatting on save in Go files – I am spoiled and never think about these things.

   (defun my-eglot-organize-imports () (interactive)
           (eglot-code-actions nil nil "source.organizeImports" t))

   (defun install-my-eglot-organize-imports () 
    (add-hook 'before-save-hook 'my-eglot-organize-imports nil t)
    (add-hook 'before-save-hook 'eglot-format-buffer))

  (add-hook 'go-mode-hook #'install-my-eglot-organize-imports)

I was never a huge fan of how eldoc pops up on the bottom of the frame, and it's a big reason why I didn't choose eglot from the beginning. This is a petty personal preference and I am not going to insist that it is a superior preference, however, I want the documentation to pop up at point after a pause. That's what I prefer, so be it.

This code was inspired by (not stolen from) a different GitHub comment which I have unfortunately lost, but good riddance – it was telling me not to use this feature! Hilarious – I have not experienced the alleged performance issues, and in fact, the feature does what I want!

Sometimes it is best to just try things for yourself 🤓 You can't believe everything you read on the Internet!

    (use-package eldoc-box)

    ; delay before the pop-up appears
    (setq eldoc-idle-delay 1.5)

    ; load when appropriate
    (add-hook 'eglot-managed-mode-hook #'eldoc-box-hover-at-point-mode t)

The comment (and the docs!) mention the performance impact of eldoc-box-hover-at-point-mode but I haven't noticed it. If I do encounter it, I'll bind it to a key instead of doing the hover.

I like the way elbox-doc looks better than lsp-ui's popups. Woohoo! 🎉

I'm pretty sure it's a bug in my config (😅), so I'm not sure if it's standard or not, but I did have to rebind gd (back?) to evil-goto-definition.

But other than that I haven't found the need to rebind anything so far, which means people who don't already have a configuration with bugs.. might not need any custom keybindings. It seems to integrate well with evil and that sort of thing too, so I think this applies to people with nonstandard setups as well.

Everything I had a custom lsp-mode keybinding set up for, there's a sane default. It might be something a little different than what I had, but something I'm happy enough to learn. For the most part this is because evil-mode already has bindings for certain common actions in code, and eglot is using the key maps that Emacs uses, so evil Just Works with it. The keybindings might be a little different than what I had, but it's likely they will carry over to other Emacs modes and features in the future.

Stuff like gr instead of ,fr to find references, and a greater chance I won't have to change again, and I can maintain less config? That's fine. I'll get used to it.

After setting up the above features – my must-haves from lsp-mode and lsp-ui ..

.. it's nice. It's real nice. I haven't needed to recreate many of my custom lsp-mode keybindings because the defaults Just Work™.

I should have switched sooner. I just needed to start using it. It was already installed..