Ctags is brilliant 12/28/24

ctags is brilliant. It’s language-agnostic and, with Vim’s integration, brings back the fast, no-nonsense code navigation I’ve always valued. No extra processes, no resource drain—just pre-processed text and metadata that works.

But I dunno, I've always felt like setting it is a pain. It’s too easy to forget or let it slip into annoyance. But then came tpope to the rescue with his Effortless Ctags with Git guide. It automates tag generation on every git commit and even adds a git ctags alias for manual updates. You can tweak the command to exclude languages or apply custom regex rules like I use in my dotfiles. It’s flexible, efficient, and stays out of my way.

With this setup, I’ve got seamless code navigation in Vim across countless languages (universal ctags supports so many out of the box). It’s the holy grail of navigation with minimal effort—and it just damn works.