Denops specification

Denops is an ecosystem of Vim and Neovim to write plugins in Deno.

Architecture

Denops runs two server processes named "Channel" and "Service". The "Channel" server translate stdin/stdout to TCP connection. The "Service" server translate Denops RPC to corresponding protocol of Vim/Neovim and it holds all plugins as worker threads.

FAQ

Why do we need "Channel" layer

Without "Channel" layer, we cannot use console.xxx()(e.g. console.log()) to print messages while those messages are written into stdout which is used to communicate with Vim/Neovim. It is quite unusual behavior for general Vim plugin developers who don't really familiar with Vim/Neovim's RPC mechanisms. That's why we decided to add the "Chanel" layer to allow developers to use console.xxx() for debug printings.

Why do we use worker threads to run plugins

The initial version of denops run each plugins as separated processed but

• Running plugins as processes cost too much for users who install tons of plugins
• It's much simple to manage only the service server process rather than manage each plugins individually

So at least for now, each plugins are executed on isolated worker threads.