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4coder editor is now fully open source

github.com

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Re: 4coder editor is now fully open source

#21

Post by Koshkin »

098799 wrote: post #16

I wonder how do people come to a decision that it's a good idea to start their own text editor when vim and emacs exist. For this one my guess is the author is a c/c++ developer and wanted to have their editor cusomizable in their desired language. Would that be enough? It's also not a common thing for projects like that not to start as FOSS.

Though good and powerful editors, there are reasons why emacs and vim have a very small user share. (Everyone I know prefer VSCode when not using an IDE.) Even JEdit and Sublime each have a dedicated but a comparatively small userbase.

Re: 4coder editor is now fully open source

#23

Post by behiri »

I remember Casey Muratori was explaining his emacs key bindings in one of his handmade hero videos and he said something like 'I would use any editor that has these key bindings and split windows', so I guess that is when the 4coder idea came to life.

Re: 4coder editor is now fully open source

#24

Post by seanw444 »

lutrinus wrote: post #8
seanw444 wrote: post #3

I remember an Aussie game developer on YouTube uses this editor. I hadn't heard of it before, but it seemed interesting. I eventually settled on learning Emacs instead, because 4coder was closed-source at the time. No regrets. Now I'm probably with Emacs for life. Too unique. Too powerful. Too customizable. Side note: it's funny how formerly closed-source projects always open up to have tons of spaghetti code and bad…

Regarding your side note, they're at least transparent about that. :) > I DO NOT recommend learning from this codebase, especially not with an uncritical eye. It may be a useful reference for certain algorithms and architectural ideas, and it certainly contains some cautionary tails. But if you are a beginner, I encourage you to aim for more than emulating the style and structure of this codebase.

For sure. Perhaps I came off as way too critical. I write my fair share of spaghetti code. I think we all do. But at least in an open fashion, things are corrected far sooner with more eyes on it. That's all I'm saying.

The editor seems cool regardless.

Re: 4coder editor is now fully open source

#26

Post by seanw444 »

_gabe_ wrote: post #7
seanw444 wrote: post #3

I remember an Aussie game developer on YouTube uses this editor. I hadn't heard of it before, but it seemed interesting. I eventually settled on learning Emacs instead, because 4coder was closed-source at the time. No regrets. Now I'm probably with Emacs for life. Too unique. Too powerful. Too customizable. Side note: it's funny how formerly closed-source projects always open up to have tons of spaghetti code and bad…

> Side note: it's funny how formerly closed-source projects always open up to have tons of spaghetti code and bad design planning. I was curious after you said this, so I took a look at the 4coder source. It looks like very straightforward code. The files are clearly marked so you know exactly what they do, the APIs look simple and reasonable, and they have clearly marked folders containing all platform specific code…

I'll admit, I didn't actually read the codebase. I just took the notes at face value. I agree. People are harsh in review of themselves.

To your second point: I think it's a matter of size for a project becoming spaghettified. ffmpeg is mature and massive, so it's no surprise it's jumbled at this point. For a project of 4coder's scale, I'd wager that being open source sooner would've benefitted its design.

But, it's in the past. I'm just glad the dev left the code in the community's hands before dropping it. A lot of devs don't even do that, and the project becomes history.

Re: 4coder editor is now fully open source

#27

Post by radlad »

paskozdilar wrote: post #15
capableweb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love people who think everything has to be aimed for their consumption. Some things are aimed at a group of people, and written with that in mind. Someone closing a project/stopping maintenance of something, usually write directly to the group of users of the software. To expect everything to contain information about everything someone could not know, means everything would have to be extremely verbose. We have se…

I understand your perspective, but I disagree in this particular case. "Show HN" is obviously aimed at our consumption.

This is not a "Show HN."

https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

Re: 4coder editor is now fully open source

#28

Post by __ryan__ »

paskozdilar wrote: post #15
capableweb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love people who think everything has to be aimed for their consumption. Some things are aimed at a group of people, and written with that in mind. Someone closing a project/stopping maintenance of something, usually write directly to the group of users of the software. To expect everything to contain information about everything someone could not know, means everything would have to be extremely verbose. We have se…

I understand your perspective, but I disagree in this particular case. "Show HN" is obviously aimed at our consumption.

Well, anyone can post a link to HN but only the project author can adjust the project’s README. Perhaps a better URL exists, but also perhaps not everything on HN has to be for everyone on HN. This is obviously news for people who know what 4Coder is, not necessarily meant to onboard people who don’t want to look up what 4Coder is.

Edit: grammar

Re: 4coder editor is now fully open source

#30

Post by cnity »

098799 wrote: post #16

I wonder how do people come to a decision that it's a good idea to start their own text editor when vim and emacs exist. For this one my guess is the author is a c/c++ developer and wanted to have their editor cusomizable in their desired language. Would that be enough? It's also not a common thing for projects like that not to start as FOSS.

There's a sizeable cohort of people (that overlaps largely with the "handmade network") who are tired of hearing "don't reinvent the wheel" and see virtue in rebuilding software. I think it's a good attitude personally, since it's _how we get better things_.
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