4 ms·

A Tour of Acme (2012)

41 points by polm23 11y ago

gnuvince 11y ago
I remember when this was first published, I watched the video and then rushed to install plan9port and try Acme. I used it for a couple of days before going back to Emacs, but Acme did leave a very positive impression on me. - I really like how "unixy" of an editor it is; you can easily add new editing commands by writing a small program that reads from stdin and writes to stdout and use it to manipulate text within Acme. Of course, that program could be a shell script, a Python program or a Java program; Acme only cares that it can give and receive text. - The editor has a mount point that contains the configuration of the editor and this can also be manipulated by external programs to influence the editor. - The concept of addresses (e.g. an address into a file, an email address, a URL, etc.) and being able to click on such an address and have the editor DWIM is very powerful. - I still don't know how to classify Acme: is it a minimal or a kitchen sink editor? You can make it do anything you want, but out of the box it is extremely bare. Is it a programmer's editor or a general purpose editing tool? I'm not leaving my trusty Emacs, but I'm happy that I took some time to get to know something that was completely different.
- i4k 11y ago
  It's definitely a programmer's editor. Some notable programmers used acme (Dennis Ritchie, Russ Cox). A lot of very great ideas/softwares were written inside acme (plan9, UTF-8, Go, etc). But I agree that it's not the best choice for some languages or environments.
  - spinlock 11y ago
    What was written in it?
    - Esau 11y ago
      According to the Acme page at acme.cat-v.org, it was "implemented in the Alef programming language, and later rewritten in C using libthread".
i4k 11y ago
I'm using acme for C/Go development for at least 8 months and I'm very satisfied. Acme is very stable and so much easy to extend using any language or simply shells. This turns the development a task much more painless. In my current view, the lack of syntax highlighting is a great feature! For now emacs is only for lisp/scheme languages.
such_a_casual 11y ago
I'm fascinated by the expressiveness of the mouse in this demo. I've seen the mouse as a lost cause ever since committing to vim some time ago, but this video proves that I am wrong, very wrong. It's clear that the expressiveness of a UI is limited by it's designers not the hardware.
- henesy 11y ago
  Plan 9 in general reflects this ideology and concept. The entire operating uses the mouse very expressively to the point that when I develop outside of a mouse expressive UI it feels lacking. Among other things, the mouse chording used in Plan 9 is available almost everywhere in the OS. Ex. L+M=Cut, L+R=Paste
  - spinlock 11y ago
    The cut and paste is an old Unix thing. It's not just plan9.
    - i4k 11y ago
      Yes. But the graphical UI interface he's talking about was lost with the advent of Xorg. The same (or very close) interface was available for unix in 1982 with the Blit graphics terminal. Blit was created by Rob Pike (acme creator) too and it influenced the next Pike's GUIs (rio and 8½). In Plan9's rio, windows are treated as completely editable text, then the mouse chords for cut-and-paste works for all applications transparently. Blit promotional video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emh22gT5e9k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emh22gT5e9k Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blit_(computer_terminal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blit_(computer_terminal)
artagnon 11y ago
It's interesting to me that shell integration is becoming a harder problem with editors these days. Emacs has a multi-term which kind-of works (there were many packages before this that didn't work), Vim does not have a package that can present a prompt (afaik), and Atom finally has a near-perfect terminal in the form of the term3 package. What Atom considers bare minimum is stuff that Acme doesn't even think about: syntax-highlighting, auto-indentation, and auto-complete.
- sunnyps 11y ago
  Why should a text editor even have a terminal emulator?
  - henesy 11y ago
    I think it's less about having a terminal emulator and more about having access to the shell environment. In the case of acme no terminal emulator is used but you still retain access to the system tools you are given and typically access through a shell.
    - akacase 11y ago
      In the tag bar, type Win and middle click. You'll get a terminal.
  - chenglou 11y ago
    You can definitely see why in the video, starting from 15:25. I don't use terminal emulators, but for other editors and from my experience, it's the keybindings and the text processing on the shell output. Acme took that to an extreme.
- SixSigma 11y ago
  Acme has a terminal, and a web browser, and a mail client, and a news reader
  - i4k 11y ago

41 points by polm23 11y ago

I remember when this was first published, I watched the video and then rushed to install plan9port and try Acme. I used it for a couple of days before going back to Emacs, but Acme did leave a very positive impression on me. - I really like how "unixy" of an editor it is; you can easily add new editing commands by writing a small program that reads from stdin and writes to stdout and use it to manipulate text within Acme. Of course, that program could be a shell script, a Python program or a Java program; Acme only cares that it can give and receive text. - The editor has a mount point that contains the configuration of the editor and this can also be manipulated by external programs to influence the editor. - The concept of addresses (e.g. an address into a file, an email address, a URL, etc.) and being able to click on such an address and have the editor DWIM is very powerful. - I still don't know how to classify Acme: is it a minimal or a kitchen sink editor? You can make it do anything you want, but out of the box it is extremely bare. Is it a programmer's editor or a general purpose editing tool? I'm not leaving my trusty Emacs, but I'm happy that I took some time to get to know something that was completely different.

i4k 11y ago
It's definitely a programmer's editor. Some notable programmers used acme (Dennis Ritchie, Russ Cox). A lot of very great ideas/softwares were written inside acme (plan9, UTF-8, Go, etc). But I agree that it's not the best choice for some languages or environments.
- spinlock 11y ago
  What was written in it?
  - Esau 11y ago
    According to the Acme page at acme.cat-v.org, it was "implemented in the Alef programming language, and later rewritten in C using libthread".

i4k 11y ago

I'm using acme for C/Go development for at least 8 months and I'm very satisfied. Acme is very stable and so much easy to extend using any language or simply shells. This turns the development a task much more painless. In my current view, the lack of syntax highlighting is a great feature! For now emacs is only for lisp/scheme languages.

such_a_casual 11y ago

I'm fascinated by the expressiveness of the mouse in this demo. I've seen the mouse as a lost cause ever since committing to vim some time ago, but this video proves that I am wrong, very wrong. It's clear that the expressiveness of a UI is limited by it's designers not the hardware.

henesy 11y ago
Plan 9 in general reflects this ideology and concept. The entire operating uses the mouse very expressively to the point that when I develop outside of a mouse expressive UI it feels lacking. Among other things, the mouse chording used in Plan 9 is available almost everywhere in the OS. Ex. L+M=Cut, L+R=Paste
- spinlock 11y ago
  The cut and paste is an old Unix thing. It's not just plan9.
  - i4k 11y ago
    Yes. But the graphical UI interface he's talking about was lost with the advent of Xorg. The same (or very close) interface was available for unix in 1982 with the Blit graphics terminal. Blit was created by Rob Pike (acme creator) too and it influenced the next Pike's GUIs (rio and 8½). In Plan9's rio, windows are treated as completely editable text, then the mouse chords for cut-and-paste works for all applications transparently. Blit promotional video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emh22gT5e9k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emh22gT5e9k Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blit_(computer_terminal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blit_(computer_terminal)

artagnon 11y ago

It's interesting to me that shell integration is becoming a harder problem with editors these days. Emacs has a multi-term which kind-of works (there were many packages before this that didn't work), Vim does not have a package that can present a prompt (afaik), and Atom finally has a near-perfect terminal in the form of the term3 package. What Atom considers bare minimum is stuff that Acme doesn't even think about: syntax-highlighting, auto-indentation, and auto-complete.

sunnyps 11y ago
Why should a text editor even have a terminal emulator?
- henesy 11y ago
  I think it's less about having a terminal emulator and more about having access to the shell environment. In the case of acme no terminal emulator is used but you still retain access to the system tools you are given and typically access through a shell.
  - akacase 11y ago
    In the tag bar, type Win and middle click. You'll get a terminal.
- chenglou 11y ago
  You can definitely see why in the video, starting from 15:25. I don't use terminal emulators, but for other editors and from my experience, it's the keybindings and the text processing on the shell output. Acme took that to an extreme.
SixSigma 11y ago
Acme has a terminal, and a web browser, and a mail client, and a news reader
- i4k 11y ago