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Show HN: Toast, a beautiful by default in terminal IDE

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Re: Show HN: Toast, a beautiful by default in terminal IDE

#81

Post by iLemming »

cyberax wrote: post #30
gopalv wrote: post #7

The "Emacs doesn't have a file-tree" is when I stopped short and wondered what this person's background is in IDEs. My emacs days are 1999 during my "functional or get out" phase, but my .emacs had close to 4000 lines in it, including xterm mouse support, a clone of midnight commander + sftp to a wehbost and deep integration with ctags/cscope/c++filt. There was even a line by line debugger with custom .gdbinit comman…

Sigh. Long time ago, in mid-2000-s I tried to switch to Emacs or Vim from Visual Studio. I wanted to have a simple project file tree as a side panel and multiple editor tabs on the right. I spent a week toying with various elisp scripts, Vim plugins, and digging out information from a then-moribund XEmacs mailing list. And I couldn't do what I wanted in the end. Nothing worked seamlessly or reliably. Can this be done…

> Can this be done out-of-the-box now?

Yes, with built-in packages there are at least two different ways - speedbar, or Dired in a side window. And what even "out-of-the-box" means? In Emacs-land packages are not like extensions in other editors and IDEs, they more like recipe books. You can collect literally over a thousand of them without ever explicitly loading them until that specific moment that happens once in a decade and you won't ever notice their presence until then. And there are tons and tons of different packages that do the sidebar directory listing - treemacs, dired-sidebar, dired-subtree, direx, ztree, etc. You seriously thought that in 50 effing years nobody, just nobody thought of making a sidebar directory tree that works in Emacs?

> Nothing worked seamlessly or reliably.

Skill issue. You. You couldn't figure it out. And then decided it can't be done, period. Brilliant.

Re: Show HN: Toast, a beautiful by default in terminal IDE

#82

Post by skinfaxi »

pwinnski wrote: post #66

I'm really happy that we live in a world in which people who don't know how to use the tools they have (and can't be bothered to find out) can use a coding agent to make their own tool that does what they want the way they want it to! I'm really sad that those people keep releasing those tools to other people via cookie-cutter websites filled with misinformation instead of just enjoying them privately.

> I'm really sad that those people keep releasing those tools to other people via cookie-cutter websites filled with misinformation instead of just enjoying them privately

Why would that make you really sad? If something scratches your itch, it might scratch someone else's, too. It's kind of like blogging for yourself when you solve an issue.

Re: Show HN: Toast, a beautiful by default in terminal IDE

#83

Post by fwip »

dividedcomet wrote: post #67
fwip wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By external knowledge, do you mean knowing how the program you're using works?

the point of the GUI is that folks can intuit how a program works without having to be versed in how it works.

Okay. For what it's worth, vim tells you that you can type :help to get help every time you start it up. It would take a while until you got to the section about the file tree, though.

Re: Show HN: Toast, a beautiful by default in terminal IDE

#84

Post by cyberax »

godelski wrote: post #77
cyberax wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, so nothing has actually changed within the last 20 years. A project tree is NOT a file list. It's a persistent panel that allows you to navigate within the project. It should also integrate with tools like recursive search (so it doesn't recurse into ignored folders like `node_modules`), build tools, code intelligence, and a debugger.

A lot has changed, but a lot of features have been there for a long time too. There's a reason people use neovim too > It's a persistent panel that allows you to navigate within the project. Trivial to do with netrw. Again, NerdTree is a common alternative > It should also integrate with tools like recursive search (so it doesn't recurse into ignored folders like `node_modules`) `:vim /re/ */* +` Or checkout telescop…

As I said, nothing has changed.

Instead of a coherent IDE, you have a lot of semi-broken pieces that don't work well together.

And that's also why projects like this one are really helpful.

Re: Show HN: Toast, a beautiful by default in terminal IDE

#85

Post by iLemming »

dividedcomet wrote: post #26
dbalatero wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making these kinds of AI projects with fancy READMEs give you a veneer of authority, but the lack of earned wisdom tends to stick out once a few people glance at it.

Yeah maybe not the best wording. It’s more meant that ideally toast can be fully used with a cursor for interactions. I don’t think you can exit vim or emacs just by clicking on a button?

You can exit Emacs by clicking a button, by making a mouse gesture, by telling it via voice command, by key-press, by modal key-chord sequence, by writing into a file, by selecting a menu item, by directly evaling (kill-emacs) command, by cookie in a file you merely visit, by a keyboard macro replayed from a register, by an abbrev whose expansion hook quits, by evaling an Org-mode source block, via a timer, via built-in solar and lunar calendars, by a shell command run inside Emacs that kills its own parent, by SIGTERM or SIGHUP from outside, by closing the last frame under the WM, by an LLM agent with an eval tool, and by pulling the power cord.

"I don't think" is never a good argument for making wide claims about anything.

Re: Show HN: Toast, a beautiful by default in terminal IDE

#87

Post by iLemming »

gslepak wrote: post #41

So glad to see this! This is exactly what we need! Love this! I wrote this article a while back on how to build a great terminal editor that's better than Emacs and VIM [1], you might find it interesting! [1] https://gist.github.com/taoeffect/086220456e736cceb30d68834d...

> We need something like Emacs, but a well designed Emacs.

Wow. This is brilliant. Nobody ever. Not once. Not even theoretically. Nobody in 50 years of Emacs' existence ever tried that. Not a single programmer ever said this or attempted to do this. With exception of insignificant fools such as XEmacs, Zmacs, Hemlock, Climacs, Edwin, JEmacs, Yi, Lem, Guile Emacs, Remacs, emacs-ng, and the eleven thousand config frameworks that were going to fix it from the inside. I salute your effort, and may the spirit of your burned tokens please the digital gods and may they accept your sacrifice. Godspeed.

Re: Show HN: Toast, a beautiful by default in terminal IDE

#88

Post by iLemming »

pwinnski wrote: post #66

I'm really happy that we live in a world in which people who don't know how to use the tools they have (and can't be bothered to find out) can use a coding agent to make their own tool that does what they want the way they want it to! I'm really sad that those people keep releasing those tools to other people via cookie-cutter websites filled with misinformation instead of just enjoying them privately.

> I'm really happy that we live in a world in which people who don't know how to use the tools

It's not a happy world. It's dystopian. I really don't like how unskilled people get confidence for creating novelty using AI and then dare to put themselves on a pedestal next to bona fide creators. It is robbing them of trust and authenticity.

My neighbor, who barely survived through high school, happily begged me to buy her book: "I created something very special to me. I'm asking my friends to support me by ordering my book. There is a lot of useful information inside based on years of research and observations, and months of putting everything together." I knew it would be complete and utter bullshit, yet I was curious. I ordered "the book". It is chock-full of misspelled words and the substance is just pure garbage. It's a waste of human potential, it's a waste of resources, but hey, now we have yet another fucking "author". Terrific.

Re: Show HN: Toast, a beautiful by default in terminal IDE

#89

Post by gslepak »

iLemming wrote: post #87
gslepak wrote: post #41

So glad to see this! This is exactly what we need! Love this! I wrote this article a while back on how to build a great terminal editor that's better than Emacs and VIM [1], you might find it interesting! [1] https://gist.github.com/taoeffect/086220456e736cceb30d68834d...

> We need something like Emacs, but a well designed Emacs. Wow. This is brilliant. Nobody ever. Not once. Not even theoretically. Nobody in 50 years of Emacs' existence ever tried that. Not a single programmer ever said this or attempted to do this. With exception of insignificant fools such as XEmacs, Zmacs, Hemlock, Climacs, Edwin, JEmacs, Yi, Lem, Guile Emacs, Remacs, emacs-ng, and the eleven thousand config frame…

I recommend reading the link.

Re: Show HN: Toast, a beautiful by default in terminal IDE

#90

Post by iLemming »

gslepak wrote: post #89
iLemming wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need something like Emacs, but a well designed Emacs. Wow. This is brilliant. Nobody ever. Not once. Not even theoretically. Nobody in 50 years of Emacs' existence ever tried that. Not a single programmer ever said this or attempted to do this. With exception of insignificant fools such as XEmacs, Zmacs, Hemlock, Climacs, Edwin, JEmacs, Yi, Lem, Guile Emacs, Remacs, emacs-ng, and the eleven thousand config frame…

I recommend reading the link.

Buddy, I did. I did. And I can rant for a quite a while for why the opinions there have jack squat of sound reasoning. On [almost] every single point there.

What I love about Vim and Emacs is that they taught me humility. I am grateful to my younger self for forcing me to learn them, deeply. They cut my enormously inflated hubris down to size, and I believe they made me not only a better programmer but a better person. I won't tell you to try that path, because that would sound patronizing, and would undo this entire paragraph.

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