Writing my own text editor, and daily-driving it
82 points
5 hours ago
| 9 comments
| blog.jsbarretto.com
| HN
croisillon
4 minutes ago
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on iPhone Safari i don't get the grey middle background layer, only dark text on dark background
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willrshansen
3 hours ago
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This feels like two steps up from a highly customized vim config. But I want one step up.

I want to be able to piece together an editor from modular task specific executables. Different programs for file searching, input mapping, buffer modification and display, etc. Probably similar to how LSPs are already separated from most editors.

One step less hardcore than writing a whole editor.

Anyone know of any existing projects along these lines?

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kalterdev
3 hours ago
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Acme [1]

It steps back from the “customize everything” mantra, believing that approach leaves users with an underdeveloped essential system. But it still has two major APIs: one for window manipulation [2], the other for text-based integration with the surrounding system via plumber [3].

All textual CLI tools (that is, those without pseudographics) work by default and are the heart of its style.

I use Acme for everything except web browsing (although most links are still managed by Acme).

[1]: http://youtu.be/dP1xVpMPn8M

[2]: http://9p.io/magic/man2html/4/acme

[3]: http://9p.io/sys/doc/plumb.html

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bananaboy
1 hour ago
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I love this! The line “resist the urge to push the difficult bits off to a box of statistics” particularly resonated with me!
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whynotmaybe
2 hours ago
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Fond memory of when I wrote an editor in the 90's because we didn't want to use "ms edit" for COBOL and asm files.

Syntax coloring, fast buffering and even a screen saver.

You could even call the compiler directly from it.

All this running on a pentium 120 and it felt a thousands times faster than today's vscode.

But vscode can edit multiple files at the same time...

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fragmede
45 minutes ago
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Firing up VSCode on an old laptop, and having it get totally bogged down running a text editor killed a part of my soul. I'm from the vim era of computing, but I have a hard time telling people that's the route to go today with today's tools.
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b00ty4breakfast
8 minutes ago
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Classic electron app. vscode is no doubt a powerful tool but it and other apps in the modern milieu are the software equivalent of those big lifted trucks that like to "roll coal" and get like 5mpg highway.
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codazoda
3 hours ago
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I use my own text editor too. Nobody else seems to get value from it. I’m still surprised by the value we get from home grown solutions.
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willrshansen
3 hours ago
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Didn't even link it. :(
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mbrezu
1 hour ago
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I guess the "link" is the implicit suggestion to write your own :-)
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altilunium
2 hours ago
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I use my own text editor too.

Sometimes I get surprise questions from my friends whenever they see my screen. “What’s that?” “That’s my own text editor!”

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hnlmorg
14 minutes ago
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I’m currently writing my own text editor (it’s basically a markdown equivalent of Jupyter notebooks).

I’ve also written my own terminal emulator and my own shell. The shell does actually see other contributors and users these days too.

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mudkipdev
2 hours ago
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I would recommend using the ropey crate for easy performance gains. A string buffer is quick to implement but you will hit a wall as soon as you need to edit large files.
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mizmar
1 hour ago
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It's not that bad. You need really large files to notice. The largest realistic file I'll ever touch - sqlite3 amalgamation with 270k lines and 9.1 kB - still takes only 6 ms to memmove it on my poor laptop. Any regular up-to 10k lines file is memmoved in order of microseconds.
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sampullman
46 minutes ago
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That's true for code editing, but it's nice to not have to reach for a different solution when editing huge files. Sometimes I like to open up big log files, JSON test data, etc.
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mllev15
2 hours ago
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Josh Barretto is the genius behind the Super Mario 64 GBA port. I would gladly use his editor.
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abktowa
2 hours ago
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Should make my own text editor. Would make for an interesting project at least.
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givemeethekeys
1 hour ago
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I smell money burning.
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