Mastodawn

What was that other new Mac code editor? They had an expiring demo so I wasn't able to use a fixed, working version of it, but it seemed promising?
Ah, Nova: https://nova.app

I spent a while on Sublime Text, it's cool but the config system in JSON & the hoops you have to jump thru to just add a script are fucking awful.

I miss Atom. It was kick-ass. Slow. Ungainly. Ate all available RAM. But pretty & super-powerful.

I'm going thru "best code editor mac" listicles and UUuuuuugh.

Nova

The beautiful, fast, flexible, native Mac code editor from Panic.

Good news! Textmate 2 still runs. Guaranteed no slop because it was last modified 5 years ago, and has some runtime problems on later OS's. Allegedly doesn't build in current Xcode, despite being good old-fashioned Objective-C/C++. Mailing list is dead, IRC is dead? Well, shit.

Can't try Nova until new computer.

Ra Mar 7

@mdhughes what happened to bbedit? That used be a thing, rght?

@Ra I do use BBEdit but really only for plain text, markdown, sometimes Python or shell scripts, anything with complex syntax (I do a lot of JS & Scheme) doesn't highlight well in it. Even MD sometimes I have to page up, page down to get it to reflow.

And for code my fingers have 35+ years of vi. I'm not changing that before I die.

Vile Lasagna Mar 9

@mdhughes atom does have a surviving fork in pulsar. I still use and love it but the extensions are not as active as back in the day

Vile Lasagna Mar 9

@mdhughes I....uuuhhhh.... Regret to inform, however, that, due to the likes of TRAMP and Org mode, I've been migrating to Emacs myself

screwlisp Mar 7

@mdhughes

I guess we are the free-range-eggs of software.

@screwlisp In that nobody wants to pick that shit up & there's no discernible difference in taste? Yes. Fuckin' emacs. If I end up using emacs I'll blame you! (I actually won't, I'll blame jwz & rms & James Gosling)

Sophie 🏳️‍⚧️ 🌜Mar 7

@mdhughes Ugh for goodness sake. Hopefully there'll be enough people concerned about this for a fork to start, if not I might think about switching to regular old vi at some point.

"He is not too happy about this". How many developers and maintainers are we going to lose to this mental illness?

Kaleissin Mar 8

@dfstarshine @mdhughes Search is so shit now of you look for "vim without ai" you only get "vim with ai".

@mdhughes @siegel neovim ?? where ?

@fiore Read down in that thread I linked. Explicitly using slop.

@mdhughes the only reference to neovim in the whole thread is someone saying they dont use it because it breaks backwards compatibility tho ??

@fiore https://hachyderm.io/@AndrewRadev/116183128128063458

https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues?q=label%3A%22AI%20assisted%20🤖%22

#neovim is slop, too.

@[email protected] @mdhughes @siegel neovim depends on vim to exist
because it's a fork
nvm nope, it's a hard fork

@thing @mdhughes @siegel its a hard fork made years ago tho ??? they are completely unrelated projects now , sometimes stuff is ported over but like . they are not related in the slightest

@[email protected] @mdhughes @siegel o wait it's a hard fork?
ok nice :)
atleast neovim is safe

@thing @mdhughes @siegel dont get me wrong , i dont believe the neovim mantainers are particularly anti-ai in general , but at the same time maybe lets not point the j’accuse finger towards projects who havent actively gone and shat on themselves yet ?

@thing @mdhughes @siegel unless im just wrong and missing smth crucial

@[email protected] @mdhughes @siegel hold on...

@mdhughes @siegel @[email protected] it seems like neovim DOES have commits from claude upstream :(
(source: blocking claude and looking at commits.in github)

@thing @mdhughes @siegel so it seems .. oh well

@fiore https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pulls

Graydon Mar 8

There's a couple on the first page with "AI assisted" labels.

(This was news to me, too. Going to take a look at `vis`.)

@mdhughes @siegel

(mapcar #'emacsomancer objs)Mar 7

@mdhughes
neovim too?!
@siegel

psf Mar 7

@mdhughes ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!!

Asta [AMP]Mar 7

@mdhughes @siegel fuuuuuuu

so does anyone know what stance Helix takes on this?

https://helix-editor.com/

Helix

A post-modern modal text editor.

@aud Helix looks clean, but I wasn't really into their terminal-only setup; when/if they can do GPU-backed windowing I'd be a lot more interested.

Asta [AMP]Mar 7

@mdhughes Thanks. I was looking myself and can't seem to find any evidence of LLM code in it, which, great! I was hoping to find whether they've taken any specific stance on "LLM contributions", but I can't seem to find any evidence on it...

They are apparently uninterested in doing any LLM integrations in the core editor (leaving that up to plugins) itself, but that isn't necessarily the same thing as rejecting LLM generated code. I might ask myself, honestly.

Asta [AMP]Mar 7

@mdhughes welp, logged into my rarely used GH account to ask: https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/discussions/15408

hopefully that is... calm enough to not invite getting dogpiled by LLM boosters. I really just want a "yes, no, maybe, haven't decided, don't care", one way or another. I am long past the point of wanting to debate this stuff with people...

maaneeack Mar 7

@mdhughes I started running through https://viewsourcecode.org/snaptoken/kilo/index.html the other day to make/learn about text editors. I was using ecode's appimage, but I have vscodium installed from flathub too. A lot of the time I just use Kate though.

Build Your Own Text Editor

DHeadshot's Alt Mar 7

@mdhughes
Hopefully Busybox VI is unaffected?
@siegel

acb Mar 8

@mdhughes @cstross @siegel BSD vi is still a thing that exists (even on Linux)

Khleedril Mar 8

@mdhughes @siegel Surely more than one person will have the wherewithal to fork the project at a point before the slop started?

J$Mar 8

@mdhughes Bram’s no doubt rolling over in his grave. Has “:help uganda” now changed to “:burn world with csam slop” too?

Anyway, bbedit’s fine. For as long as it lasts (it consumes energy too, and the AI overlords insatiability will trump that at some point no doubt)

Landa

Mar 8

@mdhughes Well, that's not how I envisioned the Editor Wars to end…
@siegel

#editorwars

kianryan ☑️🐙🏳️‍🌈Mar 8

@mdhughes
This is disappointing.
@siegel

Cécé Mar 8

@mdhughes @siegel What a hell when a developper prefers to make happy a computer instead of the Vim fan base, one of the greatest community ever. This should be the dream job of so many developers in this world and this guy is ruining it preferring believing in the metaphore of an AI. No Ai is happy, no AI "explains" something and nobody is "talking" to an AI.

BoredomFestival Mar 8

@mdhughes @siegel Sublime Text is amazing.

Mysturji Mar 8

@mdhughes
FYI, it’s spelled “vi”.

HTH✌️

Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 👽Mar 8

@mysturji I was using vi in '86, then steVIe & elVIs on Atari ST as they came out. But I'm talking about the modern dev tool, which has a lot more than just vi keys and a single undo.

Mysturji Mar 13

@mdhughes
But it’s all those damned colours! 🤬
I can’t read dark blue text on a black background.

Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 👽Mar 13

@mysturji Another reason to use a highlighting editor. I use a modified Hackerman theme, Solarized & Darcula are good alternatives. vi only has two colors, I like garish neon.

DougMerritt (log😅 = 💧log😄)Mar 8

@mdhughes
For some time I've been on the verge of writing a *toy* version of vi. Maybe I'll move that up in priority.

It also makes me think about porting Bill Joy's original vi -- but the code is difficult. It's pre-modern, so it doesn't follow niceties, and it's very very clever, because Bill Joy is a genius and he was targetting a 65 KB limit on code.

All that would make expanding its limits uncomfortable.

What about, what was it, "nvi"? I lost track of others.

Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 👽Mar 8

@dougmerritt STeVIe and elVIs were the Atari ST/Amiga vi clones that Vim is based on, and they're both pretty hackable, ANSI C or nearly so, or were 30 years ago.

https://github.com/n-t-roff/heirloom-ex-vi

mathew Mar 10

@dougmerritt @mdhughes “Heirloom” vi has been expanded for UTF-8 support and compiles easily on macOS, so I’m guessing it’ll compile easily on Linux.

GitHub - n-t-roff/heirloom-ex-vi: The Traditional Vi (vi with many enhancements from Gunnar Ritter)

The Traditional Vi (vi with many enhancements from Gunnar Ritter) - n-t-roff/heirloom-ex-vi

GitHub

DougMerritt (log😅 = 💧log😄)Mar 10

@mathew @mdhughes
Interesting! Thanks for pointing out that possibility.

Martin Frost Mar 8

@mdhughes @AndrewRadev emacs with evil-mode is great.

There’s also gram (https://gram.liten.app, a fork of Zed, but with the AI slop ripped out)

GRAM

Gram is an open source code editor with built-in support for many popular languages. Gram is an opinionated fork of the Zed code editor.

Tom Coxon Mar 9

@mdhughes guess I'm learning Emacs then 🙃

Jyrgen N Mar 9

@mdhughes @cstross Homebrew has nvi. And Emacs, of course.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-cadet_keyboard

Charlie Stross Mar 9

@jyrgenn @mdhughes Emacs, consistently over a 30 year period, has given me RSI *within a week* every time I've tried using it as my main editor. It was designed for a keyboard layout that no longer exists (outside weird homebrew builds).

LisPi Mar 9

@cstross @jyrgenn @mdhughes I do have to remark that the ergonomics of most keyboards until fairly recently were sorely lacking.

I can't imagine doing much of anything with them without getting RSI or other postural issues over time. (Yes, even the space cadet & others.)

(Nostalgic as that beige IBM keyboard may be, it was still terrible for ergonomics.)

Model M keyboard - Wikipedia

Charlie Stross Mar 9

@lispi314 @jyrgenn @mdhughes The good thing about the Model M wasn't it's layout, but the buckling-spring key mechanisms, which current mechanical keyswitches have only recently caught up with. Mind you, adjusted for inflation a circa-1986 Model M would probably cost US $500-1000 today.

RevK

Mar 9

@cstross the layout was also quite cool.

So was the “volume” :-)

D Ingram Mar 9

@revk @cstross I've tried using my Unicomp USB buckling spring keyboard in the office, and both times (different companies) I've had coworkers lose their minds. There's just something about that noise. My partner didn't mind it during thesis write up as it was easy to tell when not to interrupt a flow.

Hugo Mills Mar 9

@ingram @revk @cstross I love my Model Ms, and the new-build Model F that I'm typing on now (which is even louder), but I wouldn't use one of them in a shared office.

RevK

Mar 9

@darkling @ingram @cstross Ah, I had the advantage that I was the boss 🙂

D Ingram Mar 9

@cstross @lispi314 @jyrgenn @mdhughes US$189 for a Kentucky made buckling spring keyboard. https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/NEW_M

Unicomp GA LLC: New Model M

Hugo Mills Mar 9

@cstross @lispi314 @jyrgenn @mdhughes For reference, the Model F I'm using right now was on the lower end of that price range.

I was enthusing about it to our Chief Operating Officer when I got it, and he cheerily said "well, if it's for work, we can buy it for you -- send me the receipt". I pointed out how much it cost, and he backtracked a bit. Still offered to pay for some of it, though...

Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 👽Mar 9

@cstross @lispi314 @jyrgenn For decades I relied on Northgate keyboards, which were slightly-improved-Model-M. Then got an Avant Stellar improved-Northgate for $250-ish which was *amazing*. But these days KeyChron mechanical keyboards are under $100, and come in less oppressive sizes, and a range of keyswitches (I like these Gateron Reds, but YMMV).

Keyboard tech almost died out in the '00s but it's good now.