←back to thread

Microsoft Edit

(github.com)
486 points ethanpil | 5 comments | 25 Jun 25 00:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.684s | source
Show context
pulkitsh1234 ◴[25 Jun 25 07:30 UTC] No.44374546[source]▶
Geniunely curious, how projects like these get approved in an org at the scale of Microsoft? Is this like a side project by some devs or part of some product roadmap? How did they convince the leadership to spend time on this?
replies(3): >>44374646 #>>44375218 #>>44376242 #
dark-star ◴[25 Jun 25 07:45 UTC] No.44374646[source]▶
As they explained, they needed a text editor that works in a command line (for Windows Core server installs), works across SSH (because for a while now Windows included an SSH Server so you can completely manage it through SSH), and can be used by non-vi-experienced Windows administrators (i.e. a modeless editor).
replies(1): >>44374677 #
llarsson ◴[25 Jun 25 07:53 UTC] No.44374677[source]▶
Telling people to use nano would of course have been next to impossible. Much easier to rewrite a DOS-era editor in Rust, naturally.
replies(7): >>44374746 #>>44374944 #>>44375036 #>>44375421 #>>44375449 #>>44376739 #>>44381803 #
1. Kwpolska ◴[25 Jun 25 09:58 UTC] No.44375449[source]▶
> rewrite

This is not a rewrite. Maybe it’s slightly inspired by the old thing, especially with having GUI-style clickable menus (something not seen often in terminal editors), but it’s much more modern.

replies(2): >>44375784 #>>44376241 #
2. dark-star ◴[25 Jun 25 10:53 UTC] No.44375784[source]▶
I still see it as rewrite even if you only use the original as inspiration. But that's just semantics
replies(2): >>44376023 #>>44376027 #
3. dmd ◴[25 Jun 25 11:28 UTC] No.44376023[source]▶
If they hadn’t called it “edit” you wouldn’t have thought of it as a rewrite.
4. TiredOfLife ◴[25 Jun 25 11:28 UTC] No.44376027[source]▶
It's no semantics. It's just a lie
5. Gormo ◴[25 Jun 25 11:56 UTC] No.44376241[source]▶
It does seem "modern" in the sense that it is incredibly limited in functionality (EDIT.COM from DOS is much more full-featured) and deviates from well-established UI conventions.

CUA-style menubars aren't that uncommon in textmode editors. Midnight Commander's editor has traditional menubars with much more extensive functionality, as does jedsoft.org's Jed editor. Both of these also support mouse input on the TTY console via GPM, not just within a graphical terminal.