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I'm currently building a similar project in Rust called iota: https://github.com/gchp/iota https://github.com/gchp/iota I don't intend it to be a vim clone, ho

by gchp 12y ago

I'm currently building a similar project in Rust called iota: https://github.com/gchp/iota https://github.com/gchp/iota I don't intend it to be a vim clone, however I'm currently adding some features which I've borrowed from vim. The main one being modal editing. Its much earlier on than this project, though. As a side note, building a text editor is great fun, one of the most interesting projects I've worked on!

kzrdude 12y ago
It looks cool, and I love Rust. A question, which are your frustrations with other text editors? Can it really be the case that you can't find an existing text editor that you like? :)
- gchp 12y ago
  Another part of it which I didn't mention is that I've always wanted to build a text editor, they've always intrigued me. So this was me scratching the itch if you like. I also used it as an opportunity to learn rust, which I really like, incidentally. To answer your question, I actually hadn't found one that suited me, fully. There are many that I like, but non which did it for me. It sounds a bit weird, but it needs to feel right, which none of then did for me. So that's why I started it. It seems others are interested in it too which is cool!
  - kzrdude 12y ago
    I was curious if you could describe the specific frustrations, and which of these you can fix.
    - gchp 12y ago
      Right, here goes... - ability to handle large files without freezing or without a noticible drop in performance - make all aspects of the editor scriptable. Emacs does this well, but I really don't like elisp. It will also be possible to script it in a number of languages, not limited to a single one. - fast, like really fast. My Emacs config takes ten seconds to load, using IDEs takes much more than that to open. I want to make use of modern processor capabilities and minimise load time. Also to parallelise as much of the editing functionality as possible, so the user is never blocked by a task or operation. - cross platform, easily installable. Some editors do this well, others don't. With iota you'll be able yo just download a binary and run it. No installation process, no dependencies. Same process to install on all machines. I guess those are the main ones. Am on mobile right now so its hard to give more detail at the moment. I'll try update the motivations part of the readme with information like this today.
gnuvince 12y ago
I'm gonna need to read that source code; I've been an Emacs user for a long time now (and vim before that), and although I don't feel the need to switch (yet), I'm always on the lookout for new editors. A recent editor that I found is OpenBSD's mg(1), a super lightweight Emacs clone. If it were not for its lack of support for UTF-8 (I write a lot in French), I would use it a lot more than I do now. Let's hope iota can become that editor!

by gchp 12y ago

kzrdude 12y ago

It looks cool, and I love Rust. A question, which are your frustrations with other text editors? Can it really be the case that you can't find an existing text editor that you like? :)

gchp 12y ago
Another part of it which I didn't mention is that I've always wanted to build a text editor, they've always intrigued me. So this was me scratching the itch if you like. I also used it as an opportunity to learn rust, which I really like, incidentally. To answer your question, I actually hadn't found one that suited me, fully. There are many that I like, but non which did it for me. It sounds a bit weird, but it needs to feel right, which none of then did for me. So that's why I started it. It seems others are interested in it too which is cool!
- kzrdude 12y ago
  I was curious if you could describe the specific frustrations, and which of these you can fix.
  - gchp 12y ago
    Right, here goes... - ability to handle large files without freezing or without a noticible drop in performance - make all aspects of the editor scriptable. Emacs does this well, but I really don't like elisp. It will also be possible to script it in a number of languages, not limited to a single one. - fast, like really fast. My Emacs config takes ten seconds to load, using IDEs takes much more than that to open. I want to make use of modern processor capabilities and minimise load time. Also to parallelise as much of the editing functionality as possible, so the user is never blocked by a task or operation. - cross platform, easily installable. Some editors do this well, others don't. With iota you'll be able yo just download a binary and run it. No installation process, no dependencies. Same process to install on all machines. I guess those are the main ones. Am on mobile right now so its hard to give more detail at the moment. I'll try update the motivations part of the readme with information like this today.

gnuvince 12y ago

I'm gonna need to read that source code; I've been an Emacs user for a long time now (and vim before that), and although I don't feel the need to switch (yet), I'm always on the lookout for new editors. A recent editor that I found is OpenBSD's mg(1), a super lightweight Emacs clone. If it were not for its lack of support for UTF-8 (I write a lot in French), I would use it a lot more than I do now. Let's hope iota can become that editor!