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Comment by defanor | Hacker News Reader

It calls its terminal multiplexer functionality "terminal emulator", it seems. Unless it has a GUI, but then "terminal-based" is wrong.

I am not a fan of nano, as it is not even qualified to attend the editor war, but this one adds JSON configuration, "curl | bash" installation, has a JS-dependent website, and generally looks even more awkward than nano. Apparently both nano and this editor have their target audience, as do all those other "modern" editors, but observing this triggers the feelings likely similar to those that lead to flamewars: it is painful to observe seemingly inefficient and otherwise awkward tools used by others, and tempting to suggest to look into better options.

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You know what nano's good for? Editing a few lines of a config file every now and then.

For that purpose, it's great, works a peach, and is as at least as good as every other option if not better.

And that's what 99% of people use it for, because that's what 99% of people need in a terminal based text editor. Those people don't tend to participate in these sorts of discussions because, well, they're probably still trying to figire out how to exit vim after someone told them vim was better than nano.

> You know what nano's good for? Editing a few lines of a config file every now and then.

As long as you always start it as "nano -w" to prevent its enabled-by-default (at least on some versions) word wrapping from corrupting your config file.

    sudo apt install micro

Not awkward, it uses keybindings you already know if you've used a PC or Mac in the last 40 years. :-/

Definitely this. I'm super happy for anyone finding some new level of productivity with vim, emacs, kakoune, etc. but I don't want to join an editor cult, not even a CUA one. I just want to edit text from the command line using a familiar set of keystrokes and move on with my life and micro fits the bill.

I think the vim keybinding are the one I have used in the last 35 years.

I first learned on a Commodore… run stop restore! But then DOS edit.

try looking at a "modern" text editor; the one which appears to have the highest popularity is visual studio code.

It's an awful slow mess that cannot stop itself from triggering unsolicited popups, eating all your RAM and inserting characters you didn't type.

The reality is that this is the reality of programmers today, they want something that does a shitty work for them rather than be in control.

I have absolutely none of the problems you are describing with VSCode.

You have an immense amount of control over VSCode and its plugin ecosystem is fantastic.

This sounds like more of a problem with your workstation or environment.

Just opening a file with default settings.

"hey, looks like you're opening a C++ file, would you like to download our C++ plugin?"

and other infinite amounts of similar popups.

Then I type (, it chooses to insert a ). I didn't ask for this.

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