diff --git a/var/spack/packages/vim/package.py b/var/spack/packages/vim/package.py
index 0ac064d8dc0..f60e476a502 100644
--- a/var/spack/packages/vim/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/packages/vim/package.py
@@ -27,7 +27,8 @@ class Vim(Package):
 
     feature_sets = ('huge', 'big', 'normal', 'small', 'tiny')
     for fs in feature_sets:
-      variant(fs, default=False, description="Use '{}' feature set".format(fs))
+      print fs
+      variant(fs, default=False, description="Use '%s' feature set" % fs)
 
     variant('python', default=False, description="build with Python")
     depends_on('python', when='+python')