F# Language server and Neovim 0.5

I've been using Neovim 0.5 (nightly) for several months now and I think I've finally found a setup I'm happy with.

Previously I'd been using Neovim and coc.nvim along with the coc-fsharp plugin which was working well. However, .NET 5 is out and the fsharp-language-server which is the upstream project of coc-fsharp is in need of some love. It's also not, what I would call, the official language server for F#. That title goes to FsAutoComplete. However, vim-fsharp's support for FsAutoComplete seems like it no longer works (having not been updated for some time) and other projects such as Ionide only support specific clients such as LanguageClient-Neovim. Again, this plugin has had multiple issues and certainly does not work out of the box in my case and others have experienced similar issues. I'd previously seen some success using fsharp-language-server directly but again it wasn't reliable and had stopped working, though that could be down to changes in the dev version of Neovim 0.5.

Thing were bleak, at least from my F# development perspective.

Do It Yourself

So I decided to take another stab at getting an LSP working in Neovim 0.5. This time I'd take the still actively developed FsAutoComplete. It has an LSP mode so I must just be able to plug it in and go.

And I was! With a bit of configuration (init_options = { AutomaticWorkspaceInit = true }) to get FsAutoComplete to automatically load the workspace. I had diagnostics, autocompletion, goto method, the works! FsAutoComplete does have some LSP extensions which I'd like to try out but I've not delved too deeply into Neovim's LSP capabilities to know if this is possible.

I'm currently using my own indent plugin with syntax highlighting taken from Ionide. vim-fsharp is a bit long in the tooth and doesn't support some newer syntax. It's indent support seemed spotty too so I built one test first to ensure all the rules played well and could easily added to. However, I'd like to see if I can leverage the formatting support in FsAutoComplete which uses Fantomas. Will it be as performant as the simple vimscript one. Maybe not but possibly more correct and something that could be used in addition for on-save changes.

Current configuration

The default config in nvim-lspconfig doesn't quite do it for me (even though I wrote it). Probably due to lack of experience with Neovim LSP. But it's also tricky being general enough. So here's my solution structure:

project_root/
  |- src/
     |- app/
     |  |- app.fsproj
     |- lib/
     |  |- lib.fsproj
     |- tests/
     |  |- tests.fsproj
     |- project.sln file
     |-

And my init.lua for setting up LSP:

local fsautocomplete_path = '/home/phil/lib/fsac/fsautocomplete.dll'
if is_windows then
  fsautocomplete_path = 'C:/tools/fsac/fsautocomplete.dll'
end

lspconfig.fsautocomplete.setup{
  cmd = {'dotnet', fsautocomplete_path, '--background-service-enabled'};
  root_dir = lspconfig.util.root_pattern('*.sln', '.git');
}

The default root_dir adds *.fsproj to this pattern and causes multiple FsAutoComplete clients to start meaning the projects don't talk to each other, resulting in, for example, not being able to function jump from tests to the code.

So I ditch fsproj pattern and stick with sln for solutions and .git to get scripts to use the LSP.

Why Not Use an IDE?

I actually downloaded Jetbrains Rider the other day. I installed it, clicked around a bit, typed some code and then promptly exited it and went back to Neovim. For me the lag was enough to put me off. Yes, I've invested many years fine-tuning my vimrc (or rather init.lua, more on that in a future post) so I'm not about to throw it away and start again. For me, (Neo)Vim, with it's quirks* and infinite customization is worth the investment. I took the decision to switch in 2012 (I hadn't realised it was that long. I should know Vim better!) and I haven't regretted it.