7 ms·

Xi-Editor – Modern editor with Rust back end

92 points by rammy1234 8y ago

pvg 8y ago
megapreviouslies: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=xi%20editor&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=xi%20editor&sort=byDate&prefix...
mabbo 8y ago
As an end user, I don't care what language a program is written in. I care about features, usability, accessibility and many other things- but not how you did it. Maybe you've got something awesome here, but you had only a few seconds to catch my interest with your subtitle, and you instead used it to tell me what part of it you love rather than what part of it I will love. Don't do that.
- webkike 8y ago
  That's a definitionally selfish attitude. I love the fact that it's written in Rust!
- lern_too_spel 8y ago
  The developer didn't post this.
  - thekashifmalik 8y ago
    We didn't start the fire! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g
- pedrocr 8y ago
  That's entitled and in my view just plain wrong. I want people to tell me why they think something is technically cool on hacker news. Even if what's cool is how it's built and doesn't matter to the user at all. And when I personally don't care for it I just move on.
  - webkike 8y ago
    Exactly! I'm never going to give up Emacs, but I'm sure as shit interested in the technical aspects of text editors.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- theshadowknows 8y ago
  But wouldn’t it have been faster to check out the site than to write this comment..?
- trishume 8y ago
  The title is derived from the title and subtitle on the page, as per the HN guidelines which require using the page's title. The subtitle is on a Github page, where the language it's written is a very relevant fact for potential contributors. (I'm not the one who posted this, but I was a Xi contributor)
- nordsieck 8y ago
  > As an end user, I don't care what language a program is written in. I care about features, usability, accessibility and many other things- but not how you did it. That's great advice for production software. At this point, it looks like the editor is firmly Alpha quality, and they probably care more about new contributors than new users. I'm sure they'll update their messaging once they're more polished.
- thekashifmalik 8y ago
  I thought the same thing. Like, I get why it's cool that it's in rust (been waiting for something to hack on) but tell me about the product man! So I created: https://github.com/google/xi-editor/issues/668 https://github.com/google/xi-editor/issues/668
  - reificator 8y ago
    This is not yet for end users, and the core server piece never will be. Depending on which frontend you pick, you might, emphasis on might get the following features: * It launches. * It renders an interface. * Pressing a letter inserts a character. * There is a cursor. * Pressing a key moves the cursor. * You can open files. * You can save files. I don't say this to be rude to either you or the project authors or maintainers. I just want to be clear that it's very, very, very early on still, and the core functionality is still being worked on.
- crispinb 8y ago
  > As an end user, I don't care what language a program is written in. The primary audience of neither HN nor github is 'end users'. > Don't do that. I don't know exactly how this fashion of people phrasing their personal suggestions as imperious commands started, but I'm looking forward to its inevitable demise.
  - Nomentatus 8y ago
    I'm guessing an increased use of imperatives preceded the collapse of most past civilizations.
    - crispinb 8y ago
      Well despite being as Cassandraesque as the next guy, I confess yours is a take that hadn't occurred to me.
      - Nomentatus 8y ago
        I like the word. Only 122 instances on Google, but I'm starting using it now.
    - unixhero 8y ago
      Just like printing its own money also brought down a couple of civilizations. http://www.usdebtclock.org http://www.usdebtclock.org
- reificator 8y ago
  This project is not for end-users, at least not for several more years. It's still very very very early days so how it's done is still important. Bulletpoints not related to rust itself, and that will lead to features/usability/accessibility/"many other things" but are not there yet: * Client-Server architecture * Server has core editing logic, and provides a JSON based RPC interface. I forget if it's HTTP or stdout. * Client can be written in any language/UI Framework that can talk to the server. * Plugins can be written in any language that can talk to the server. * Uses some fairly efficient data structures and a fairly efficient language, so it's likely that when it's done it will perform quite well. Did I put enough weasel words in there? It's a very interesting project but if your goal is a usable editor you should probably use one that works and has an installer/package in the repo.
- Nomentatus 8y ago
  Right now, what's needed is to attract developers, not users. I.e. people who know something about the steak, not just about sizzle. However, it's also likely that even naive end users who want reliability, security and less downtime may one day reasonably prefer Rust-based software, or insist on it, particularly as all software becomes more complicated. After all, battery manufacturers keep telling me their batteries are "alkaline." Do they think I'm a chemist? No, they think I can count hours of use and one single technical word tells me a lot about that.
- __sr__ 8y ago
  As an end user, I am concerned about the software I use being easily exploitable because of a bug which could have been avoided using the right tools. At the same time, I don’t want my editor to consume all my RAM and CPU. This seems like a step in the right direction to me. As far as I can tell, this editor is aimed at tech savvy people like developers, sys-admins etc. They may not care about the exact language or framework, but I can assure you, they do care about things like security and performance. Rust is one of the most discussed topics in the developer community these days. I can’t fault the OP to use it to highlight the post. Had they said something else, I’d likely have ignored it as Yet Another Text Editor like Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, Atom etc. IMO, they did a good job highlighting how it is different.
  - rammy1234 8y ago
    Entire idea behind posting this was to let developers know something of this sorts being developed in Rust and I found that interesting. I am not the developer for this or involved but a curious developer planning to hack on and learn and contribute. So anything bad that this post would create was not the real intention and may be i think i broke this too early, when things are inprogress yet.
    - __sr__ 8y ago
      I am not faulting you - IMO, you did the right thing.
      - rammy1234 8y ago
        Oh yea you didn't but the conversations on this post got side tracked with "why bother on tech for text editor ?" when it has to be "why Rust and what it brings to the table ?" and get excited if any.
raphlinus 8y ago
I didn't post this, but am happy to answer questions. It's not quite yet at the point where you want to use it as your daily editor, but we are slowly and steadily getting there.
- Numberwang 8y ago
  Windows?
  - raphlinus 8y ago
    I've actually some nontrivial progress on xi-win in the past month or two. I still consider it experimental, but it offers basic editing functionality now. It's written basically directly on top of winapi, no toolkits or frameworks, which I'm doing partly because I enjoy tinkering, and partly because I expect to be able to achieve significantly better performance than would otherwise be possible. Syntax highlighting is not working, largely because I can't figure out how to compile onig. But we'll figure that out one way or another (if it's too hard, we'll switch to fancy-regex, which is pure Rust).
Nomentatus 8y ago
Damn. Just when I was interested - a GPL patent-grab license. (Google "implied patent grant") Billions have already been spent redoing GPL software under BSD and MIT licenses that aren't patent-phobic. Do we really have to do this again?
- e12e 8y ago
  What? This is under Apache Licence 2.0? https://github.com/google/xi-editor/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/google/xi-editor/blob/master/LICENSE
  - Nomentatus 8y ago
    As I just said above, Google "implied patent license". Implied means not explicitly stated, obviously, but as it happens your very source does in the prelude (not license) state the patent grab: "Contributors provide an express grant of patent rights. Licensed works, modifications, and larger works may be distributed under different terms and without source code." I've read the license many times. Never helped my blood pressure to do so, though. N.B. - this applies to hardware patents not just software patents. You get to build whatever hardware is needed or helpful in running the software regardless of patents if the owner was foolish enough to contribute to the software.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - e12e 8y ago
      How would donating source code/software that people couldn't legally run be better?
      - Nomentatus 8y ago
        They could run it - they'd just have to buy a computer that licensed any necessary patent rights, or bought the chips from those who owned the patents on their innards. (re hardware patents.) BSD projects have always used software that only works on patent-encumbered Instruction Set Architectures of CPUs. I'm fine with requiring contributors to state whenever they are submitting anything patent-dependent, and not accepting code if the tech isn't interesting or useful to users.
bvinc 8y ago
I'm the maker of gxi, a gtk frontend for xi written in rust. I wouldn't recommend trying it yet, it's still in heavy development, but I've been making some good strides lately. I've had good experiences so far with the xi backend.
jdc0589 8y ago
Some of the Xi guys have some really good talks (or maybe just 1, I dunno) on YouTube. I really enjoyed them.

92 points by rammy1234 8y ago

pvg 8y ago

megapreviouslies: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=xi%20editor&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=xi%20editor&sort=byDate&prefix...

mabbo 8y ago

As an end user, I don't care what language a program is written in. I care about features, usability, accessibility and many other things- but not how you did it. Maybe you've got something awesome here, but you had only a few seconds to catch my interest with your subtitle, and you instead used it to tell me what part of it you love rather than what part of it I will love. Don't do that.

webkike 8y ago
That's a definitionally selfish attitude. I love the fact that it's written in Rust!
lern_too_spel 8y ago
The developer didn't post this.
- thekashifmalik 8y ago
  We didn't start the fire! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g
pedrocr 8y ago
That's entitled and in my view just plain wrong. I want people to tell me why they think something is technically cool on hacker news. Even if what's cool is how it's built and doesn't matter to the user at all. And when I personally don't care for it I just move on.
- webkike 8y ago
  Exactly! I'm never going to give up Emacs, but I'm sure as shit interested in the technical aspects of text editors.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
theshadowknows 8y ago
But wouldn’t it have been faster to check out the site than to write this comment..?
trishume 8y ago
The title is derived from the title and subtitle on the page, as per the HN guidelines which require using the page's title. The subtitle is on a Github page, where the language it's written is a very relevant fact for potential contributors. (I'm not the one who posted this, but I was a Xi contributor)
nordsieck 8y ago
> As an end user, I don't care what language a program is written in. I care about features, usability, accessibility and many other things- but not how you did it. That's great advice for production software. At this point, it looks like the editor is firmly Alpha quality, and they probably care more about new contributors than new users. I'm sure they'll update their messaging once they're more polished.
thekashifmalik 8y ago
I thought the same thing. Like, I get why it's cool that it's in rust (been waiting for something to hack on) but tell me about the product man! So I created: https://github.com/google/xi-editor/issues/668 https://github.com/google/xi-editor/issues/668
- reificator 8y ago
  This is not yet for end users, and the core server piece never will be. Depending on which frontend you pick, you might, emphasis on might get the following features: * It launches. * It renders an interface. * Pressing a letter inserts a character. * There is a cursor. * Pressing a key moves the cursor. * You can open files. * You can save files. I don't say this to be rude to either you or the project authors or maintainers. I just want to be clear that it's very, very, very early on still, and the core functionality is still being worked on.
crispinb 8y ago
> As an end user, I don't care what language a program is written in. The primary audience of neither HN nor github is 'end users'. > Don't do that. I don't know exactly how this fashion of people phrasing their personal suggestions as imperious commands started, but I'm looking forward to its inevitable demise.
- Nomentatus 8y ago
  I'm guessing an increased use of imperatives preceded the collapse of most past civilizations.
  - crispinb 8y ago
    Well despite being as Cassandraesque as the next guy, I confess yours is a take that hadn't occurred to me.
    - Nomentatus 8y ago
      I like the word. Only 122 instances on Google, but I'm starting using it now.
  - unixhero 8y ago
    Just like printing its own money also brought down a couple of civilizations. http://www.usdebtclock.org http://www.usdebtclock.org
reificator 8y ago
This project is not for end-users, at least not for several more years. It's still very very very early days so how it's done is still important. Bulletpoints not related to rust itself, and that will lead to features/usability/accessibility/"many other things" but are not there yet: * Client-Server architecture * Server has core editing logic, and provides a JSON based RPC interface. I forget if it's HTTP or stdout. * Client can be written in any language/UI Framework that can talk to the server. * Plugins can be written in any language that can talk to the server. * Uses some fairly efficient data structures and a fairly efficient language, so it's likely that when it's done it will perform quite well. Did I put enough weasel words in there? It's a very interesting project but if your goal is a usable editor you should probably use one that works and has an installer/package in the repo.
Nomentatus 8y ago
Right now, what's needed is to attract developers, not users. I.e. people who know something about the steak, not just about sizzle. However, it's also likely that even naive end users who want reliability, security and less downtime may one day reasonably prefer Rust-based software, or insist on it, particularly as all software becomes more complicated. After all, battery manufacturers keep telling me their batteries are "alkaline." Do they think I'm a chemist? No, they think I can count hours of use and one single technical word tells me a lot about that.
__sr__ 8y ago
As an end user, I am concerned about the software I use being easily exploitable because of a bug which could have been avoided using the right tools. At the same time, I don’t want my editor to consume all my RAM and CPU. This seems like a step in the right direction to me. As far as I can tell, this editor is aimed at tech savvy people like developers, sys-admins etc. They may not care about the exact language or framework, but I can assure you, they do care about things like security and performance. Rust is one of the most discussed topics in the developer community these days. I can’t fault the OP to use it to highlight the post. Had they said something else, I’d likely have ignored it as Yet Another Text Editor like Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, Atom etc. IMO, they did a good job highlighting how it is different.
- rammy1234 8y ago
  Entire idea behind posting this was to let developers know something of this sorts being developed in Rust and I found that interesting. I am not the developer for this or involved but a curious developer planning to hack on and learn and contribute. So anything bad that this post would create was not the real intention and may be i think i broke this too early, when things are inprogress yet.
  - __sr__ 8y ago
    I am not faulting you - IMO, you did the right thing.
    - rammy1234 8y ago
      Oh yea you didn't but the conversations on this post got side tracked with "why bother on tech for text editor ?" when it has to be "why Rust and what it brings to the table ?" and get excited if any.

raphlinus 8y ago

I didn't post this, but am happy to answer questions. It's not quite yet at the point where you want to use it as your daily editor, but we are slowly and steadily getting there.

Numberwang 8y ago
Windows?
- raphlinus 8y ago
  I've actually some nontrivial progress on xi-win in the past month or two. I still consider it experimental, but it offers basic editing functionality now. It's written basically directly on top of winapi, no toolkits or frameworks, which I'm doing partly because I enjoy tinkering, and partly because I expect to be able to achieve significantly better performance than would otherwise be possible. Syntax highlighting is not working, largely because I can't figure out how to compile onig. But we'll figure that out one way or another (if it's too hard, we'll switch to fancy-regex, which is pure Rust).

Nomentatus 8y ago

Damn. Just when I was interested - a GPL patent-grab license. (Google "implied patent grant") Billions have already been spent redoing GPL software under BSD and MIT licenses that aren't patent-phobic. Do we really have to do this again?

e12e 8y ago
What? This is under Apache Licence 2.0? https://github.com/google/xi-editor/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/google/xi-editor/blob/master/LICENSE
- Nomentatus 8y ago
  As I just said above, Google "implied patent license". Implied means not explicitly stated, obviously, but as it happens your very source does in the prelude (not license) state the patent grab: "Contributors provide an express grant of patent rights. Licensed works, modifications, and larger works may be distributed under different terms and without source code." I've read the license many times. Never helped my blood pressure to do so, though. N.B. - this applies to hardware patents not just software patents. You get to build whatever hardware is needed or helpful in running the software regardless of patents if the owner was foolish enough to contribute to the software.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - e12e 8y ago
    How would donating source code/software that people couldn't legally run be better?
    - Nomentatus 8y ago
      They could run it - they'd just have to buy a computer that licensed any necessary patent rights, or bought the chips from those who owned the patents on their innards. (re hardware patents.) BSD projects have always used software that only works on patent-encumbered Instruction Set Architectures of CPUs. I'm fine with requiring contributors to state whenever they are submitting anything patent-dependent, and not accepting code if the tech isn't interesting or useful to users.

bvinc 8y ago

I'm the maker of gxi, a gtk frontend for xi written in rust. I wouldn't recommend trying it yet, it's still in heavy development, but I've been making some good strides lately. I've had good experiences so far with the xi backend.

jdc0589 8y ago

Some of the Xi guys have some really good talks (or maybe just 1, I dunno) on YouTube. I really enjoyed them.