Optimizing Your Rust Development Experience with Vim

Choosing the Right Plugins

Before diving into the configuration, let’s take a look at some essential plugins for Rust development in Vim:

• rust-analyzer: A frontend compiler for IDEs that provides features like smart autocompletion, auto-importing, and code assists.
• rust.vim: A plugin that provides syntax highlighting, formatting, and file detection for Rust files.
• coc.nvim: A completion plugin that supports LSP servers and provides a rich ecosystem of language server plugins.
• coc-rust-analyzer: A coc plugin that integrates rust-analyzer with coc.
• ALE: A plugin that provides asynchronous syntax checking, autofixing, and autocompletion.

Configuring Vim for Rust Development

Here’s an example configuration that uses vim-plug to install the necessary plugins:

call plug#begin('~/.local/share/nvim/plugged')
Plug 'rust-lang/rust.vim'
Plug 'neoclide/coc.nvim', {'branch': 'elease'}
Plug 'fannheyward/coc-rust-analyzer', {'do': 'yarn install --frozen-lockfile'}
Plug 'dense-analysis/ale'
call plug#end()

" Configure automatic rustfmt setup
let g:rustfmt_autosave = 1

" Configure coc
inoremap <pumvisible()? "<C-n>" :
            \ checkbackspace()? "<TAB>" :
            \ coc#refresh()
inoremap <pumvisible()? "<C-p>" : "<C-h>"

Evaluating the Configuration

With this configuration, you can expect the following features to work:

1. Syntax highlighting and formatting for Rust files
2. Autocompletion and code assists using rust-analyzer
3. Asynchronous syntax checking and autofixing using ALE
4. Go to definition and find references using rust-analyzer

Overall, this configuration provides a solid foundation for Rust development in Vim. By leveraging the power of rust-analyzer and other plugins, you can create a seamless and efficient development experience.