A Tour of Acme (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: A Tour of Acme (2012)

#11

Post by 4ad » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 3:34 PM UTC

jeromenerf wrote: post #10

bitwize wrote: post #3

Acme is an incredible, fascinating editor... that relies too much on rat wrestling to be useful to me. I really find it interesting how it takes advantage of Plan 9's aggressive Unix philosophy to provide functionality that would've been plugins or extensions in other editors as separate C programs or scripts. But having to use the mouse for everything just drives me nuts. It's easier for my fingers to acquire even E…

It would not be infuriating if basic movements were possible using the keyboard, such as the classic left-down-up-right. As for key binding, it’s pretty easy to add that as external tools, thanks to the 9p interface.

Left and right already works.

Up and down can't work, because acme was designed for proportional fonts, and many of us acme users use proportional fonts. Up and down are not well defined/not useful with proportional fonts.

Re: A Tour of Acme (2012)

#12

Post by anamexis » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

4ad wrote: post #11

jeromenerf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would not be infuriating if basic movements were possible using the keyboard, such as the classic left-down-up-right. As for key binding, it’s pretty easy to add that as external tools, thanks to the 9p interface.

Left and right already works. Up and down can't work, because acme was designed for proportional fonts, and many of us acme users use proportional fonts. Up and down are not well defined/not useful with proportional fonts.

Up and down works just fine in just about every word processor out there, using proportional fonts.

Re: A Tour of Acme (2012)

#13

Post by struxure » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

appleflaxen wrote: post #9

mhd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it just feels faster to think about and execute keyboard shortcuts, although the actual tests I've read about that seem to be from the early Macintosh age, which feels a bit like measuring anything by looking at your university's students...

I don't understand what you're saying. That evidence of keys being faster than the mouse are old? Why would the speed change over time? It's measuring the human, not the machines; and we are no faster.

I think speed could change over time because our generation uses computer and common shortcuts from childhood. People who participated in the study could have been much less experienced users at that time and the shortcuts might have been less established and more varying from platform to platform

Re: A Tour of Acme (2012)

#14

Post by ardy42 » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 4:03 PM UTC

4ad wrote: post #11

jeromenerf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would not be infuriating if basic movements were possible using the keyboard, such as the classic left-down-up-right. As for key binding, it’s pretty easy to add that as external tools, thanks to the 9p interface.

Left and right already works. Up and down can't work, because acme was designed for proportional fonts, and many of us acme users use proportional fonts. Up and down are not well defined/not useful with proportional fonts.

> Up and down can't work, because acme was designed for proportional fonts, and many of us acme users use proportional fonts. Up and down are not well defined/not useful with proportional fonts.

It can work with proportional fonts. Word for instance defines it well enough to be useful. Rather than down taking you to the same column on the next line, it just takes you to the character rendered at a similar x coordinate on the next line.

Re: A Tour of Acme (2012)

#15

Post by calvinmorrison » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 4:04 PM UTC

jeromenerf wrote: post #10

bitwize wrote: post #3

Acme is an incredible, fascinating editor... that relies too much on rat wrestling to be useful to me. I really find it interesting how it takes advantage of Plan 9's aggressive Unix philosophy to provide functionality that would've been plugins or extensions in other editors as separate C programs or scripts. But having to use the mouse for everything just drives me nuts. It's easier for my fingers to acquire even E…

It would not be infuriating if basic movements were possible using the keyboard, such as the classic left-down-up-right. As for key binding, it’s pretty easy to add that as external tools, thanks to the 9p interface.

I'd just take a look at some patches out there. There's a lot of usability tweaks existing for acme.

however I still think acme is a conflagration of confusion. It has programs, inside of it, it's a text editor, a terminal, but breaks the interface of /dev/draw so it doesn't properly multiplex by rio.

Often stated, and I imagine to be true, acme was to be a full replacement for rio almost, but it ends up falling short of that.

Re: A Tour of Acme (2012)

#16

Post by floren » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

I use Acme (from Plan9Port) as my every-day editor for work. I run it full-screen on a 4K monitor. I've got a co-worker who likes to grumble about mice, but somehow when we're debugging something on a call, I'm always in the appropriate file at the appropriate line number long before he is :) There are some tools (acmego [9fans.net/go/acme/acmego], A [github.com/davidrjenni/A]) that make working with Go a lot more pleasant, too.

I've been using Acme for about 15 years now, though. I dimly remember deep frustration when I was still learning it, but now that I'm used to it it's great.

Here's a screenshot that shows my typical work layout, although it's a little "manufactured" to avoid including any proprietary code from work: https://i.imgur.com/Trg79NS.png

Re: A Tour of Acme (2012)

#17

Post by yiyus » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

jxy wrote: post #8

bitwize wrote: post #3

Acme is an incredible, fascinating editor... that relies too much on rat wrestling to be useful to me. I really find it interesting how it takes advantage of Plan 9's aggressive Unix philosophy to provide functionality that would've been plugins or extensions in other editors as separate C programs or scripts. But having to use the mouse for everything just drives me nuts. It's easier for my fingers to acquire even E…

It is convenient with a pointer or trackpad close to your thumb. Three buttons associated with such pointer or trackpad would be nice, but it would work much better with more buttons. Two or three buttons for each hand would be awesome.

I used acme for years with a laptop and no external mouse, just using the trackpad (and trackpoint). I never missed more buttons.

Re: A Tour of Acme (2012)

#18

Post by haolez » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 4:56 PM UTC

floren wrote: post #16

I use Acme (from Plan9Port) as my every-day editor for work. I run it full-screen on a 4K monitor. I've got a co-worker who likes to grumble about mice, but somehow when we're debugging something on a call, I'm always in the appropriate file at the appropriate line number long before he is :) There are some tools (acmego [9fans.net/go/acme/acmego], A [github.com/davidrjenni/A]) that make working with Go a lot more pl…

I've been willing to try it for a while, now.

Does the lack of "native" support for real-time linting, debuggers, formatters, etc get in your way? Did you manage to integrate such features in your workflow?

Re: A Tour of Acme (2012)

#19

Post by arexxbifs » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

jeromenerf wrote: post #10

bitwize wrote: post #3

Acme is an incredible, fascinating editor... that relies too much on rat wrestling to be useful to me. I really find it interesting how it takes advantage of Plan 9's aggressive Unix philosophy to provide functionality that would've been plugins or extensions in other editors as separate C programs or scripts. But having to use the mouse for everything just drives me nuts. It's easier for my fingers to acquire even E…

It would not be infuriating if basic movements were possible using the keyboard, such as the classic left-down-up-right. As for key binding, it’s pretty easy to add that as external tools, thanks to the 9p interface.

I’ve never tried it, but always kind of assumed such basic keystrokes just worked as expected. Now I know I shouldn’t bother with it.

Re: A Tour of Acme (2012)

#20

Post by 4ad » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:10 PM UTC

ardy42 wrote: post #14

4ad wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Left and right already works. Up and down can't work, because acme was designed for proportional fonts, and many of us acme users use proportional fonts. Up and down are not well defined/not useful with proportional fonts.

> Up and down can't work, because acme was designed for proportional fonts, and many of us acme users use proportional fonts. Up and down are not well defined/not useful with proportional fonts. It can work with proportional fonts. Word for instance defines it well enough to be useful. Rather than down taking you to the same column on the next line, it just takes you to the character rendered at a similar x coordinat…

And this is useful when writing code how?

I'd use such a feature if I had to fill a table, and wanted to move to the same column on a different row. But with proportional fonts, the columns don't line up. So yes, it can move to the same x coordinate, but why is this useful?