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> Unparalleled extensibility. A bold claim to make when your competition includes Vim and Emacs. Is there some kind of feature comparison somewhere? Or any pa

> Unparalleled extensibility. A bold claim to make when your competition includes Vim and Emacs. Is there some kind of feature comparison somewhere? Or any particular highlights? The feature list is a nice start, but basically what I would expect of any decent editor anyway (except for code completion).

Breakthrough 14y ago
Don't forget about Notepad++ (Windows only though) and Sublime Text (best text rendering I've seen yet), which I'd argue are also valid comparisons - yes, even to Vim/Emacs. That being said, I did have a quick look through the Textadept manual, and there are quite indeed a few useful and unique features... Whether or not this indicates "unparalled" extensibility though, is another matter all together.
- rainysunday 14y ago
  Textadept is build on top of the Scintilla engine like Scite and Notepad++.
- MaggieL 14y ago
  If you're already running Java, jedit.org is worthy of your attention in this area. Extensible with Beanshell, or with plugins written in Java.
- eikenberry 14y ago
  IMO you can't compare an editor to Vim/Emacs if it can't run in a console.
  - yen223 14y ago
    IMO Vim is highly overrated, and its only selling point is that it can run in a console.
e12e 14y ago
The fact that this has a small core of C and Lua, according to the website, is a much better selling point than "unparalleled extensibility". I don't think even most Vim fans would claim vim is "as extensible" as Emacs -- while maybe on paper -- not really. I prefer Vim, but it's hard to argue with the sentiment that "Emacs is a nice operating system". Still with proper support for Lua, I suspect it might be forced to do a lot of the same things Emacs can be forced to do (such as email, for instance). Not sure if I want an editor that does all that. Yes, I'm aware Vim can be made do a lot of stuff like that as well, I just don't think quite as many users actually enjoy using Vim like that -- as does Emacs users. I might be wrong of course.
- irahul 14y ago
  > I don't think even most Vim fans would claim vim is "as extensible" as Emacs Vim fan reporting. Apart from async(which Vim can't do), Vim is as extensible as Emacs in letter and spirit. Considering that you are vowing vim allegiance, I think tpope's plugins would have made it pretty obvious how extensible vim is. > Still with proper support for Lua, I suspect it might be forced to do a lot of the same things Emacs can be forced to do Again, async. Vim can't and won't do async. If vim starts supporting async execution, vimscript will wrap existing imap, smtp implementation and update the ui. I am guessing emacs does the same. If it doesn't, I am in complete awe - not by the extensibility but by the pointlessness of implementing smtp server in elisp.
  - kindahero 14y ago
    > Vim is as extensible as Emacs in letter and spirit. without knowing Emacs how could you claim that. Actually Emacs comes with smtp written in elisp[1] and IMHO Emacs is more customizable than Vim. But I won't say Emacs is better than Vim. Peace.. [1] http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/smtpmail/Emacs-Speaks-SMTP.html#Emacs-Speaks-SMTP http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/smtpmail/...
    - irahul 14y ago
      > without knowing Emacs how could you claim that. Where did I say I don't know emacs? I don't know what is emacs's mail support implemented in doesn't mean I don't know emacs. > Actually Emacs comes with smtp written in elisp[1] I said: "If it doesn't, I am in complete awe - not by the extensibility but by the pointlessness of implementing smtp server in elisp." Implementing a smtp lib that talks to a smtp server is different from implementing a smtp server. > IMHO Emacs is more customizable than Vim. I have used Vim and Emacs for considerable length of time. I ended up choosing Vim and use it as my main editor. I have read source for many plugins in both Vim and Emacs. Vim is as extensible as Emacs. I won't debate how elisp is better or worse than Vimscript, because that doesn't affect extensibility.
rainysunday 14y ago
> A bold claim to make when your competition includes Vim and Emacs. The code base is actually small and mostly written in Lua, so that it is actually possible to change the editor to your liking.
- irahul 14y ago
  > The code base is actually small and mostly written in Lua, so that it is actually possible to change the editor to your liking. When I say extensibility, that's not what I mean. Code is available and it's small and mostly written in Lua - that's all good. But I don't want to mess with core because then syncing upstream is a huge pain. The only interface I want to deal with the extension interface. I haven't looked at the api yet, but I am skeptic about the claims. Vim has vimscript, Emacs has elisp, sublime has python...Editors has been providing extension interface for a long time.
  - rainysunday 14y ago
    Understood. I think it is still useful to have a small core base that you can read and understand and adapt if you want to. Don't like the GUI open file dialogs? Someone did a text based interface: http://nilnor.github.com/textredux/tour.html http://nilnor.github.com/textredux/tour.html No need to sync back upstream. I agree with you that 'Unparalleled extensibility.' might be a bold and difficult to actually prove claim.
    - irahul 14y ago
      > No need to sync back upstream. The canon doesn't need my changes but I need the canon changes. If I change the core, I will have to selectively merge whenever updates happen. It's great that core is small and can directly be changed, but I think that should be advertised as the last resort.

Breakthrough 14y ago

Don't forget about Notepad++ (Windows only though) and Sublime Text (best text rendering I've seen yet), which I'd argue are also valid comparisons - yes, even to Vim/Emacs. That being said, I did have a quick look through the Textadept manual, and there are quite indeed a few useful and unique features... Whether or not this indicates "unparalled" extensibility though, is another matter all together.

rainysunday 14y ago
Textadept is build on top of the Scintilla engine like Scite and Notepad++.
MaggieL 14y ago
If you're already running Java, jedit.org is worthy of your attention in this area. Extensible with Beanshell, or with plugins written in Java.
eikenberry 14y ago
IMO you can't compare an editor to Vim/Emacs if it can't run in a console.
- yen223 14y ago
  IMO Vim is highly overrated, and its only selling point is that it can run in a console.

e12e 14y ago

The fact that this has a small core of C and Lua, according to the website, is a much better selling point than "unparalleled extensibility". I don't think even most Vim fans would claim vim is "as extensible" as Emacs -- while maybe on paper -- not really. I prefer Vim, but it's hard to argue with the sentiment that "Emacs is a nice operating system". Still with proper support for Lua, I suspect it might be forced to do a lot of the same things Emacs can be forced to do (such as email, for instance). Not sure if I want an editor that does all that. Yes, I'm aware Vim can be made do a lot of stuff like that as well, I just don't think quite as many users actually enjoy using Vim like that -- as does Emacs users. I might be wrong of course.

irahul 14y ago
> I don't think even most Vim fans would claim vim is "as extensible" as Emacs Vim fan reporting. Apart from async(which Vim can't do), Vim is as extensible as Emacs in letter and spirit. Considering that you are vowing vim allegiance, I think tpope's plugins would have made it pretty obvious how extensible vim is. > Still with proper support for Lua, I suspect it might be forced to do a lot of the same things Emacs can be forced to do Again, async. Vim can't and won't do async. If vim starts supporting async execution, vimscript will wrap existing imap, smtp implementation and update the ui. I am guessing emacs does the same. If it doesn't, I am in complete awe - not by the extensibility but by the pointlessness of implementing smtp server in elisp.
- kindahero 14y ago
  > Vim is as extensible as Emacs in letter and spirit. without knowing Emacs how could you claim that. Actually Emacs comes with smtp written in elisp[1] and IMHO Emacs is more customizable than Vim. But I won't say Emacs is better than Vim. Peace.. [1] http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/smtpmail/Emacs-Speaks-SMTP.html#Emacs-Speaks-SMTP http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/smtpmail/...
  - irahul 14y ago
    > without knowing Emacs how could you claim that. Where did I say I don't know emacs? I don't know what is emacs's mail support implemented in doesn't mean I don't know emacs. > Actually Emacs comes with smtp written in elisp[1] I said: "If it doesn't, I am in complete awe - not by the extensibility but by the pointlessness of implementing smtp server in elisp." Implementing a smtp lib that talks to a smtp server is different from implementing a smtp server. > IMHO Emacs is more customizable than Vim. I have used Vim and Emacs for considerable length of time. I ended up choosing Vim and use it as my main editor. I have read source for many plugins in both Vim and Emacs. Vim is as extensible as Emacs. I won't debate how elisp is better or worse than Vimscript, because that doesn't affect extensibility.

rainysunday 14y ago

> A bold claim to make when your competition includes Vim and Emacs. The code base is actually small and mostly written in Lua, so that it is actually possible to change the editor to your liking.

irahul 14y ago
> The code base is actually small and mostly written in Lua, so that it is actually possible to change the editor to your liking. When I say extensibility, that's not what I mean. Code is available and it's small and mostly written in Lua - that's all good. But I don't want to mess with core because then syncing upstream is a huge pain. The only interface I want to deal with the extension interface. I haven't looked at the api yet, but I am skeptic about the claims. Vim has vimscript, Emacs has elisp, sublime has python...Editors has been providing extension interface for a long time.
- rainysunday 14y ago
  Understood. I think it is still useful to have a small core base that you can read and understand and adapt if you want to. Don't like the GUI open file dialogs? Someone did a text based interface: http://nilnor.github.com/textredux/tour.html http://nilnor.github.com/textredux/tour.html No need to sync back upstream. I agree with you that 'Unparalleled extensibility.' might be a bold and difficult to actually prove claim.
  - irahul 14y ago
    > No need to sync back upstream. The canon doesn't need my changes but I need the canon changes. If I change the core, I will have to selectively merge whenever updates happen. It's great that core is small and can directly be changed, but I think that should be advertised as the last resort.