Janus and all the other distributions share the same issues so Janus is only one of many, and the most famous.
All those distributions started life as personal configurations. I honestly have no idea what happened that made their authors entertain the idea of turning them into so-called distributions but personal configs are what they are. Those configs are someone else's config: whatever is there may or may not fit your workflow or needs or cognitive capabilities or even physical ones. The plugins featured in those configs are chosen by complete strangers according to unknown criterias. The same goes with options and mappings.
When you use Janus, you basically are walking with someone else's shoes. You'll get used to it after a while but they will never be your shoes.
Do you really need Gundo? Gist? NrrwRgn? Do you really need to interact with Git from your text editor? Are you sure that SnipMate is the best choice for a snippet engine? Are you sure that SuperTab is the best choice for completion? Are you sure that you need NERDTree when you have netrw built-in? Are you absolutely certain that you need an Ack plugin? What do you think of a distribution that comes with two plugins with overlapping features and even provides custom mappings that overlap with both?
Another problem with distributions is that, due to their very nature, they have a crazy architecture with many .before and .after scripts and weird directory structures that make the whole thing hard to debug or customize. Not only you are walking with someone else's shoes but that someone is the only person able to fix them or tie your laces.
New users should steer away from Janus and friends because:
* those distributions actively hide many default features/options
* they teach you how to use CtrlP and not default commands
* they hook you to plugins
* they hook you to options you don't know shit about
* they force someone's preferences on your
* they actively prevent you from learning Vim
Experienced users should avoid them because:
* well, they already have their own config tailored to their needs so why bother using someone else's?
All those distributions started life as personal configurations. I honestly have no idea what happened that made their authors entertain the idea of turning them into so-called distributions but personal configs are what they are. Those configs are someone else's config: whatever is there may or may not fit your workflow or needs or cognitive capabilities or even physical ones. The plugins featured in those configs are chosen by complete strangers according to unknown criterias. The same goes with options and mappings.
When you use Janus, you basically are walking with someone else's shoes. You'll get used to it after a while but they will never be your shoes.
Do you really need Gundo? Gist? NrrwRgn? Do you really need to interact with Git from your text editor? Are you sure that SnipMate is the best choice for a snippet engine? Are you sure that SuperTab is the best choice for completion? Are you sure that you need NERDTree when you have netrw built-in? Are you absolutely certain that you need an Ack plugin? What do you think of a distribution that comes with two plugins with overlapping features and even provides custom mappings that overlap with both?
Another problem with distributions is that, due to their very nature, they have a crazy architecture with many .before and .after scripts and weird directory structures that make the whole thing hard to debug or customize. Not only you are walking with someone else's shoes but that someone is the only person able to fix them or tie your laces.
New users should steer away from Janus and friends because:
* those distributions actively hide many default features/options
* they teach you how to use CtrlP and not default commands
* they hook you to plugins
* they hook you to options you don't know shit about
* they force someone's preferences on your
* they actively prevent you from learning Vim
Experienced users should avoid them because:
* well, they already have their own config tailored to their needs so why bother using someone else's?
* they already know how to find plugins (vim.org)