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Fine, I'll build my own text editor

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Re: Fine, I'll build my own text editor

#171

Post by bensyverson »

pmkary wrote: post #165
bensyverson wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I implemented a pretty simple iOS/macOS text editor using TextKit 2, and it was astonishing how many hacks, workarounds and manual implementations were needed to support even the most basic features. That codebase is the polar opposite of a finely crafted pen, and the ugliness all comes from the API.

That is exactly it. You know what an engineer you are making a system as complex as that? I don't know your codebase but I'm quite aware of TextKit and I can see what a hard and consuming job you must have done. I wish I could see your editor too.

Thanks—I might return to it and open source it soon… It was a pre-Claude Code project, and it was hard to feel any momentum. It's basically a note-taking tool for capturing quick one-off notes in Markdown, but it stores a lot of surrounding metadata (location, any current calendar events, device type, etc) in the YAML front matter. It feels like it would be even more relevant in this era, but there's a lot of work to do on the UI.

Re: Fine, I'll build my own text editor

#172

Post by andsoitis »

pmkary wrote: post #166
rootlocus wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're asking about a reaction. "What did I say wrong?" is a valid question IMO, even if wrong is subjective, it's part of the question.

Yes thank you! Wouldn't you be confused to see someone getting offended or angry that you have said text editors are beautiful things?

> Wouldn't you be confused to see someone getting offended or angry that you have said text editors are beautiful things?

Yes perhaps, but that doesn't mean I need to care why or that I can demand someone explain themselves.

Let it go and you'll feel better!

Re: Fine, I'll build my own text editor

#173

Post by eloisant »

dist-epoch wrote: post #107
socksy wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing just how many stories of Rob Pike seem to show him being both a dick and wrong

He created Go because he believed that the average Google programmer is too stupid to program in C++, and he didn't like Java, the other language created to address this problem.

To be fair Java was created in a world where you'd run hundreds on services on a single server, run them in application server with a persistent JVM running.

Now with containers, running Java apps in containers isn't great because of that JVM layer. Memory management, JVM boot time, etc.

There are many things I dislike in Go as a langage but create a high level language that compiles to native makes sense in the cloud hosting/containers world.

Re: Fine, I'll build my own text editor

#174

Post by emursebrian »

In my mind, my computer is pretty beefy: 2.8 GHZ I7 with 16GB of ram. Yet, vendors like Adobe figure out ways to consume all available resources and make performance complete trash.

Ironically, VS Code is one of the few programs that feels fast. Meanwhile, Visual Studio feels slow and janky. Between Notepad++ and VS Code, I don't notice much of a difference in performance for what I do.

Browers are one of the few applications these days that are still highly optimized and performant. This is what allowed us to replace Adobe AfterEffects with a custom browser-based renderer. We've seen a 10x performance improvement in some cases: 2mins (Browser) vs 20mins (AfterEffects).

Re: Fine, I'll build my own text editor

#175

Post by [deleted] »

xyzelement wrote: post #147
pmkary wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Don't stress about it. The other day there was a thread about public bathroom descriptions and someone said "wow this has a countdown timer before the doors automatically open, how stress inducing" and I wrote "shit or get off the pot". Now overall it's a well up voted comment but occasionally can see someone taking it down a point. What a psychological mystery. A normal person sees a humorous quip and either chuckle…

[deleted]

Re: Fine, I'll build my own text editor

#176

Post by andsoitis »

stillpointlab wrote: post #40
inatreecrown2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you want to share your text editor?

I was planning to. It is 100% vibe coded, the first project I did that way. I'm one of those who've been reading all the code in my major projects. But when I got frustrated with editors and off-handed mentioned to Fable something like "I like Kate, but it has way too many option I will never use" it told me that the core part could be wrapped pretty easily (like 50 lines of C++). So I just said "do it" and have been…

Love this approach, for what it's worth! Thanks for sharing.

Re: Fine, I'll build my own text editor

#178

Post by sherburt3 »

dist-epoch wrote: post #107
socksy wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing just how many stories of Rob Pike seem to show him being both a dick and wrong

He created Go because he believed that the average Google programmer is too stupid to program in C++, and he didn't like Java, the other language created to address this problem.

Kind of a bummer that 95% of software engineering is dedicated to creating a padded cell to make sure no one makes a whoopsie instead of doing creative and interesting things.

Re: Fine, I'll build my own text editor

#179

Post by bluGill »

noduerme wrote: post #139
dspillett wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just assume that downvotes without explanation just mean that I am right and that has somehow made someone unhappy. Unless I've been deliberately bait-y, which does sometimes happen, of course. Sometimes I reread later I realise that I've come across in an unpleasant manner that I did not intend, or I misunderstood and my comment is irrelevant, necessary, or occasionally just plain wrong. The real fun comes when yo…

Hah. Yes. The one-dimensional up/down mechanism leaves a lot to be desired. Your response could be so wildly engaging that literally everyone on HN has voted on it; so controversial that the masses and the bots are evenly split between loving and hating it; and so immaculately well-written that no one can think of anything to add or to counter it with which wouldn't embarrass themselves. That's usually what I tell my…

I think eventually HN should see something getting a lot of votes and count everything as an upvote. (presumably if it is bad long before then a mod should have noted and removed the bad post)
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