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Comment by asciimov | Hacker News Reader

Eh... what turns me off is that list of features and other editors that just names off other editors as inspiration. Don't even mention other editors unless you are fully copying their features.

Imagine a car being advertised in a similar style called Imacar.

Ferrari, know for its Italian design and sleek lines, Imacar takes those famous design cues by including wheels and tires.

Toyota, known for it's rugged truck's like the Hilux. Inspired by that ruggedness and repairability the Imacar includes easy change windshield wipers.

Tesla, know for their famous electric motors and batteries, inspired us to add a battery to Imacar's petrofuled engine.

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I think comparison list with other editors gives good introduction about what to expect from ox, For any terminal text editor comparison with vim, emacs is inevitable. It is good to know authors opinions.

If you're expecting vim or emacs, you're in for a bad time.

It's entirely unclear what niche this editor is aiming for. If it's a replacement for the editors it claims as inspiration it's not going to succeed.

For sure. Also the author is probably going to get bombarded by people referencing their favorite editors. This may help them get out in front of that scene...

> good introduction about what to expect from ox

Yes, after reading how the author described vim and emacs, I knew this project was not for me.

"vim only provides basic text editing functionality by default"

It looks like someone has never read the vim manual.

Yes, and at the same time the author claims: "Ox is easier to use than Vim because it doesn’t have modes where the keyboard is repurposed"

So vim both only provides basic text editing functionality and is harder to use than Ox?

Vim has a special "insert mode" in which the keyboard is repurposed for entering text. I don't think that's a very hard concept to grasp.

Comparison is fair. What's presented there isn't exactly a comparison, though. It claims to "take features from some of the most popular editors out there, gaining the best of all worlds", then proceed to list features that are decidedly not the best, nor even differentiating:

- Vim: they took away "being a keyboard-only editor" (every CLI/TUI text editor?) and "being able to act just like an IDE after some configuration" (most programmer text editors?). Also, "being a keyboard-only editor" isn't even accurate for vim, it totally supports mouse input even in a terminal: https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Using_the_mouse_for_Vim_in_an_xt...

- Emacs: they took away "a configuration system where you can change the colours and appearance of the editor"... This is adequately discussed elsewhere in the thread.

Therefore, gp's analogy of taking away wheels and tires from Ferrari is apt.

And if this is the first car you are building, that may even sound pretty impressive.

I’m not really sure what to think of everyone being so negative here.

Who argued whether it’s impressive or not? People are not impressed with the rather pointless “we take the best features out of popular editors” section of README that neither adds to nor detracts from the editor itself, and only unnecessarily antagonizes people by mischaracterizing other editors.

You can build an impressive car without pointlessly referencing Ferrari.

Comparing Emacs Lisp to any other configuration system is like comparing the Sydney Opera House to your log cabin. (This is coming from a vim user)

> Don't even mention other editors

Why not? Your car dealer will happily compare and contrast the different models too.

It is perfectly fine and valid to explain how the "new" thing fits into the crowded landscape of similar offerings. Especially when the reader is likely to be familiar with many of the "landmarks". Using other products as a point(s) of reference is very useful.

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