3 ms·

I don’t care in which language my editor is written in. From the user perspective, what sets it apart from the plethora of available and more mature editors?

ParetoOptimal 3y ago
> I don’t care in which language my editor is written in. Sure you do. If I offered you a version of your current editor in the Befunge programming language, you'd rightly decline! Programming languages aren't just all "basically the same". Programming language choice, communicates something because programming languages have values. Would you prefer a text editor written in Ruby or one written in Python? This relates to a favorite article of mine: It's not what programming languages do, it's what they shepherd you to. https://nibblestew.blogspot.com/2020/03/its-not-what-programming-languages-do.html https://nibblestew.blogspot.com/2020/03/its-not-what-program... To tie in one of the article's examples: > Perl shepherds you into using regexps If you believe that regexes are hard to debug and overly complex, you might resist a text editor written in perl because it's likely that regexes are used everywhere (even when they shouldn't be).
ithkuil 3y ago
I agree with your sentiment. That said, I can totally see why it would matter to some people why language something is written in: you may want to study or contribute to an editor and you may prefer to focus on your preferred language
- n8henrie 3y ago
  Exactly. I keep wanting to fall in love with Lapce or Helix because I'm very interested in Rust and like the idea of an editor that I could contribute to, but my (neo)vim muscle memory is just too strong, even minor differences drive me nuts.
orangea 3y ago
- Truly open source, presumably without the caveats that VS Code has such as a few "features" (extensions) being closed source and the extension marketplace being closed to de-microsofted builds - Designed from the beginning to support an extension API with a richness comparable to VS Code's (unlike Sublime, Jetbrains etc) - Presumably aiming to put performance as a higher priority than is usual
duped 3y ago
It's slower, tbqh. It choked on a decent sized Rust project (scrolling became laggy/unusable) that VS Code handles fine.
- schemescape 3y ago
  That seems "open a bug" worthy, for a "lightning-fast" editor.
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    Certainly seems so, it shouldn't happen afaict.
lynndotpy 3y ago
I like knowing something is written in Rust because (1) the staying power of a language has implications for the staying power of the project (how many Ada projects do you see nowadays?) (2) I write Rust so I'm more likely to contribute to this, (3) I care about the safety and speed implications of language choice, but most of all (4) building from source usually isn't a pain with Rust's Cargo, but it is for most other languages. All these things materially impact how interested I am in using and contributing to the project.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
  > the staying power of a language has implications for the staying power of the project So Emacs' staying power is due to being written in LISP ?!
  - KolenCh 3y ago
    A affects B, doesn’t mean B only depends on A.
    - HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
      No, of course not, but the example does show that programming language is pretty much irrelevant. The big lie of open source is "you have the source, so you can extend it and fix bugs yourself". Of course in theory (with enough expertise and motivation) you can do these, but in practice most open source users don't contribute to the project, so the language it is written in is entirely irrelevant. When was the last time (if ever) you submitted a bug fix (not a report) for an open source tool you are using, let alone joined the project as a contributor?!
      - KolenCh 3y ago
        “Has implications” is a very weak statement. Even if it is a very small effect but measurable fits that description. “Irrelevant” is a very strong statement. It claims no effect at all. A single example does not justify the claim. You need at least some statistical evidence to support that claim. For your last question, yes I do. I sometimes take over the abandoned project to maintain it too. Some open source users never contribute in any way, some do. I’m not sure why there’s a need to dismiss the existence of the latter kind of users. No one is claiming all users should be like that.
flohofwoe 3y ago
For starters, it doesn't seem to use a browser engine to render its UI. Seems to aim for a VSCode look and feel. Installation on macOS is about a third of the install size of VSCode (105 MB vs 330 MB), and it's a single statically linked executable (vs a plethore of files in a VSCode installation).

ParetoOptimal 3y ago

> I don’t care in which language my editor is written in. Sure you do. If I offered you a version of your current editor in the Befunge programming language, you'd rightly decline! Programming languages aren't just all "basically the same". Programming language choice, communicates something because programming languages have values. Would you prefer a text editor written in Ruby or one written in Python? This relates to a favorite article of mine: It's not what programming languages do, it's what they shepherd you to. https://nibblestew.blogspot.com/2020/03/its-not-what-programming-languages-do.html https://nibblestew.blogspot.com/2020/03/its-not-what-program... To tie in one of the article's examples: > Perl shepherds you into using regexps If you believe that regexes are hard to debug and overly complex, you might resist a text editor written in perl because it's likely that regexes are used everywhere (even when they shouldn't be).

ithkuil 3y ago

I agree with your sentiment. That said, I can totally see why it would matter to some people why language something is written in: you may want to study or contribute to an editor and you may prefer to focus on your preferred language

n8henrie 3y ago
Exactly. I keep wanting to fall in love with Lapce or Helix because I'm very interested in Rust and like the idea of an editor that I could contribute to, but my (neo)vim muscle memory is just too strong, even minor differences drive me nuts.

orangea 3y ago

- Truly open source, presumably without the caveats that VS Code has such as a few "features" (extensions) being closed source and the extension marketplace being closed to de-microsofted builds - Designed from the beginning to support an extension API with a richness comparable to VS Code's (unlike Sublime, Jetbrains etc) - Presumably aiming to put performance as a higher priority than is usual

duped 3y ago

It's slower, tbqh. It choked on a decent sized Rust project (scrolling became laggy/unusable) that VS Code handles fine.

schemescape 3y ago
That seems "open a bug" worthy, for a "lightning-fast" editor.
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  Certainly seems so, it shouldn't happen afaict.

lynndotpy 3y ago

I like knowing something is written in Rust because (1) the staying power of a language has implications for the staying power of the project (how many Ada projects do you see nowadays?) (2) I write Rust so I'm more likely to contribute to this, (3) I care about the safety and speed implications of language choice, but most of all (4) building from source usually isn't a pain with Rust's Cargo, but it is for most other languages. All these things materially impact how interested I am in using and contributing to the project.

HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
> the staying power of a language has implications for the staying power of the project So Emacs' staying power is due to being written in LISP ?!
- KolenCh 3y ago
  A affects B, doesn’t mean B only depends on A.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
    No, of course not, but the example does show that programming language is pretty much irrelevant. The big lie of open source is "you have the source, so you can extend it and fix bugs yourself". Of course in theory (with enough expertise and motivation) you can do these, but in practice most open source users don't contribute to the project, so the language it is written in is entirely irrelevant. When was the last time (if ever) you submitted a bug fix (not a report) for an open source tool you are using, let alone joined the project as a contributor?!
    - KolenCh 3y ago
      “Has implications” is a very weak statement. Even if it is a very small effect but measurable fits that description. “Irrelevant” is a very strong statement. It claims no effect at all. A single example does not justify the claim. You need at least some statistical evidence to support that claim. For your last question, yes I do. I sometimes take over the abandoned project to maintain it too. Some open source users never contribute in any way, some do. I’m not sure why there’s a need to dismiss the existence of the latter kind of users. No one is claiming all users should be like that.

flohofwoe 3y ago

For starters, it doesn't seem to use a browser engine to render its UI. Seems to aim for a VSCode look and feel. Installation on macOS is about a third of the install size of VSCode (105 MB vs 330 MB), and it's a single statically linked executable (vs a plethore of files in a VSCode installation).