It seems you could also work on the IdeaVim plugin instead?
NB: Using the compiler that way probably isn't the right way to go. IntelliJ is somewhat modular. You could parse Kotlin into PSI and then re-use parts of the Kotlin IDE plugin in headless mode. Other JB products do this e.g. Qodana so you don't really need the GUI to be running to do IDE type stuff with it.
I really should try that out more. But from my limited foray into using vim emulation: it's not perfect + I really don't like how resource intensive and slow IDEs are + it's not just using vim text navigation, but my neovim plugins, tmux, ripgrep, fdfind, etc.
> You could parse Kotlin into PSI and then re-use parts of the Kotlin IDE plugin in headless mode
I currently don't have the bandwidth to look into this kinda stuff, hence my call-to-action for "talented folks" :)
Right, but part of why IDEs are resource intensive is they're doing a lot of analysis of the code. If you write an LSP you'll have the same issue because the same work has got to get done somewhere.
It's true that some LSPs are resource intensive too. But in my experience, the "little things" like opening the editor/IDE, and new files, quickly/instantaneously tend to be better with neovim rather than IDEs. I'd love to hear about others' experiences about this though!
NB: Using the compiler that way probably isn't the right way to go. IntelliJ is somewhat modular. You could parse Kotlin into PSI and then re-use parts of the Kotlin IDE plugin in headless mode. Other JB products do this e.g. Qodana so you don't really need the GUI to be running to do IDE type stuff with it.