[arun-mani-j]

When I had a 2 GB laptop lying around, I always wanted a simple text editor with auto-completion etc. (Though only for Python, Linux)

After trying KDevelop, Kate, Eric, Sypder etc. I thought I could write my own.

I had a simple plugin system in mind, with similar to LSP style features (VSCode was not released that time).

The UI was inspired by Blender. Blender has such a fluent UI where you can customize everything.

So I wrote a small GTK library to mimic Blender's UI.

And started development of the text editor. But then got busy with school and left the idea.

Then I found out Emacs and Doom Emacs and dropped the idea of a custom text editor eventually :).

Two reasons: 1. Emacs was 200% configurable, which is what I wanted to implement in my editor too.

2. Emacs worked pretty good on my 2 GB laptop with all the goodies.

But compared to 10 years back (when I was trying these things), it is quite easy now thanks to LSP, Tree-Sitter etc. But it is always a fun ride with algorithms and data structures. :)

I haven't used VSCode, but it is really nice how it changed the text-editor platform with LSP etc.

Now I have a laptop with 24 GB RAM but I'm forever vendor locked-in with Emacs :D

[fullstop]

During the vi / emacs wars, the joke was that emacs stood for "eight megabytes and constantly swapping".

How times have changed.

[fuzztester]

Or, Eventually Munches All Computer Memory.

There were probably other expansions too.

[alanjay]

It's now eighty megabytes ;)

[Toorkit]

Tiny!

[smitty1e]

I've liked Emacs, but the left-handedness of the key-chords tore me up all the way to the shoulder after any substantial amount of use.

Spacemacs was my answer.

https://www.spacemacs.org/

[EasyMark]

doomemacs is similar and tends to be lighter and works well native jit compiling all the add ons.

[beretguy]

Did you swap caps lock and ctrl?

[smitty1e]

No, I never did that with stock Emacs.

The 'space' in Spacemacs is how all of the menu options trigger, and I find it a pleasant approach.

[bean-weevil]

I had a very similar experience. I spent so much time searching for answers, early-adopted atom, etc, only to find that vim was the answer the whole time.