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A few days ago I was randomly reading about ed (after stumbling with the 'ed is the standard editor' joke) and reflecting over how much historical baggage we ac

A few days ago I was randomly reading about ed (after stumbling with the 'ed is the standard editor' joke) and reflecting over how much historical baggage we accumulate in computing. Commands like a for appending text are unchanged from the teletype era, which are so old that most people don't know computers used printers as an output before screens! It's pushed me to learn about projects that try to move beyond acumulated baggage and rethink principles. I've been taking a look at Nushell for example, and even though I was initially skeptical of Helix because of how universal vim commands are, perhaps it's time to take a deeper look.

conartist6 1y ago
Come check out BABLR! https://github.com/bablr-lang https://github.com/bablr-lang https://discord.gg/NfMNyYN6cX https://discord.gg/NfMNyYN6cX We'll have a major release announcement any day now, but we're looking hard at the accumulated baggage and we think we can lose a lot of that weight while giving people a level of power they never had before
anticodon 1y ago
> Commands like a for appending text are unchanged from the teletype era I don't find these commands a historical baggage. They're quite useful even today. Also commands like A, I, P, O in vim are super-useful when recording macros (macros are easier to record and more robust because they less depend on the context where they would be run).
Ferret7446 1y ago
That "accumulated baggage" is though not entirely mostly knowledge and progress won through sweat and tears from many mistakes over many lifetimes. There's a reason we moved on from paper tape to visual displays, and then from line editors to freeform buffer editors. We didn't abandon paper tape due to "baggage", we did it because it sucked and was inefficient. Though certainly, I agree with studying and learning from history. It doesn't hurt to know how to use ed, especially since it doesn't take long to learn.

conartist6 1y ago

Come check out BABLR! https://github.com/bablr-lang https://github.com/bablr-lang https://discord.gg/NfMNyYN6cX https://discord.gg/NfMNyYN6cX We'll have a major release announcement any day now, but we're looking hard at the accumulated baggage and we think we can lose a lot of that weight while giving people a level of power they never had before

anticodon 1y ago

> Commands like a for appending text are unchanged from the teletype era I don't find these commands a historical baggage. They're quite useful even today. Also commands like A, I, P, O in vim are super-useful when recording macros (macros are easier to record and more robust because they less depend on the context where they would be run).

Ferret7446 1y ago

That "accumulated baggage" is though not entirely mostly knowledge and progress won through sweat and tears from many mistakes over many lifetimes. There's a reason we moved on from paper tape to visual displays, and then from line editors to freeform buffer editors. We didn't abandon paper tape due to "baggage", we did it because it sucked and was inefficient. Though certainly, I agree with studying and learning from history. It doesn't hurt to know how to use ed, especially since it doesn't take long to learn.