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The "Interactive, predictable and fast" section had some passages that were a little unclear, or even grammatically unsound. These changes aim to clarify the passages by slightly rewording them or adjusting punctuation.
942 lines
54 KiB
HTML
942 lines
54 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
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<html lang="en">
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<head>
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<meta charset="UTF-8">
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<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
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<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
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<meta name="generator" content="Asciidoctor 2.0.10">
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<meta name="author" content="Maxime Coste">
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<title>Why Kakoune — The quest for a better code editor</title>
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@media amzn-kf8{#header,#content,#footnotes,#footer{padding:0}}
|
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</style>
|
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</head>
|
|
<body class="article">
|
|
<div id="header">
|
|
<h1>Why Kakoune — The quest for a better code editor</h1>
|
|
<div class="details">
|
|
<span id="author" class="author">Maxime Coste</span><br>
|
|
<span id="email" class="email"><a href="mailto:mawww@kakoune.org">mawww@kakoune.org</a></span><br>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div id="content">
|
|
<div id="preamble">
|
|
<div class="sectionbody">
|
|
<div class="imageblock text-center">
|
|
<div class="content">
|
|
<a class="image" href="http://kakoune.org"><img src="kakoune_logo.svg" alt="kakoune logo"></a>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="sect1">
|
|
<h2 id="_why_invest_time_into_text_editing">Why invest time into text editing</h2>
|
|
<div class="sectionbody">
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>While discussing with fellow developers, I was asked the following question
|
|
a few times: We spend most of our time as developers thinking, not editing
|
|
code; so, why invest time into mastering a complicated code editor, and why
|
|
lose some cognitive resources on thinking about text editing instead of
|
|
about the real programming problem?</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>I think this point of view is misguided, for a few reasons:</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="ulist">
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li>
|
|
<p>Despite their name, code editors are not only about editing, but also about
|
|
code navigation. Programming is a hard task partly due to the huge amount of
|
|
context we have to keep in mind, and being able to quickly navigate code helps
|
|
us refresh that context, by looking at definitions, implementations, and comments.</p>
|
|
</li>
|
|
<li>
|
|
<p>Although code editing itself is not the most important part of programming,
|
|
it still takes non-negligible time to perform, and can be optimized by using
|
|
better tools.</p>
|
|
</li>
|
|
<li>
|
|
<p>Finally, a programming career spans a few decades, so investing a few weeks
|
|
to improving our editing and navigating speed is definitely worth it.</p>
|
|
</li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="sect1">
|
|
<h2 id="_why_a_modal_text_editor">Why a modal text editor</h2>
|
|
<div class="sectionbody">
|
|
<div class="sect2">
|
|
<h3 id="_what_is_modal_text_editing">What is modal text editing</h3>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Now that we have established that investing time into mastering text editing
|
|
is worth it, let’s focus on why I think modal text editors are the way to go.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>A modal text editor can be, as its name implies, in different modes. Depending
|
|
on the current mode, keys have different effects: in <strong>insert</strong> mode most keys
|
|
insert their character in the buffer, as in non-modal editors, but in <strong>normal</strong>
|
|
(default) mode, keys have a different effect. For example, <code>w</code> can move the
|
|
cursor to the next word, <code>y</code> can yank (copy) the current selection, <code>p</code> can
|
|
paste, <code>u</code> can undo, <code>g</code> followed by <code>f</code> can open the filename under the cursor…​</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Some commands from <strong>normal</strong> mode would change the mode, for example <code>i</code> would
|
|
enter <strong>insert</strong> mode, from which the <code><esc></code> key would return to <strong>normal</strong> mode.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>The first thing to realize is that non-modal text editors are extremely biased
|
|
towards insertion. They make insertion easy (by making the default behaviour of
|
|
most keys to insert a character into the buffer) at the expense of making most
|
|
other operations suboptimal, by requiring hard to reach keys or modifiers (or,
|
|
even worse, moving your hand all the way to your mouse).</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Insertion is a key part of text editing, and is worth optimizing, which is
|
|
the whole point of completion systems. But it is only a small part of text
|
|
editing, we spend a huge amount of our editing time navigating, moving code
|
|
around, copying, pasting and reformating.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>A modal text editor makes all these operations much more accessible, and easier
|
|
to express. But they are not only about having convenient shortcuts.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="sect2">
|
|
<h3 id="_modal_editing_as_a_text_editing_language">Modal editing as a text editing language</h3>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Many vi users have an epiphany when they realize that vi does not just
|
|
provide a set of modes making various text editing shortcuts easier to type,
|
|
but actually provides a text editing language.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Commands are composable in order to express complex changes, <code>dw</code> in vi is
|
|
not just a shortcut to delete a word, it is the combination of a <strong>verb</strong>: <code>d</code>
|
|
for delete, with an <strong>object</strong> <code>w</code> for word. There are more complex objects like
|
|
<code>ib</code> (inside block) refers to the content of the parenthesis surrounding
|
|
the cursor, so <code>yib</code> would yank (copy) the text inside the surround
|
|
parenthesis.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>This language allows the programmer to express their intent much more closely
|
|
than in other editors; most editors can express "delete the word after the
|
|
next parenthesis", but more often than not, expressing that intent is more
|
|
cumbersome than simply doing an ad-hoc edit. Text editing as a language
|
|
changes that, by making clearly expressing your intent the fastest and easiest
|
|
way to do your edit.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>This is a desirable property because a lot of text editing operations are
|
|
repetitive, but only on structurally similar text: the subject text are
|
|
different, but they follow the same structure. Being able to express the
|
|
text editing at the structural level allows for reusable commands, and makes
|
|
the computer do the repetitive job.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Another often overlooked property of using a text editing language is that
|
|
it’s fun. Programmers are problem solvers, we enjoy solving problems, and
|
|
we enjoy even more solving them with a clean and efficient solution. This
|
|
kind of text editor transform a dull and repetitive edition task into an
|
|
interesting puzzle to solve, and that is an engaging thing.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Think about it this way: Yes, programming is about thinking, concentrating
|
|
on a design problem, or on a bug, understanding what needs to be done,
|
|
designing a solution, and then writing it. More often that not, once you get
|
|
to the writing phase, most of the thinking, problem solving, part is done,
|
|
now the remaining task is just editing the code. Modal editors make this
|
|
phase both faster, and more fun.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="sect1">
|
|
<h2 id="_why_kakoune">Why Kakoune</h2>
|
|
<div class="sectionbody">
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Up to now, I have used vi as an example for modal text editor, mostly because
|
|
I expect most programmers have at least heard of it. However, I don’t believe
|
|
vi and clones are the best modal text editor out there.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>I have been working, for the last 5 years, on a new modal editor called
|
|
Kakoune. It first started as a reimplementation of Vim (the most popular vi
|
|
clone) whose source code is quite dated. But, I soon realized that we could
|
|
improve a lot on vi editing model.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="sect2">
|
|
<h3 id="_improving_on_the_editing_model">Improving on the editing model</h3>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>vi basic grammar is <strong>verb</strong> followed by <strong>object</strong>; it’s nice because it matches
|
|
well with the order we use in English, "delete word". On the other hand,
|
|
it does not match well with the nature of what we express: There is only
|
|
a handful of <strong>verbs</strong> in text editing (<strong>d</strong>elete, <strong>y</strong>ank, <strong>p</strong>aste,
|
|
<strong>i</strong>nsert…​), and they don’t compose, contrarily to <strong>objects</strong> which can be
|
|
arbitrarily complex, and difficult to express. That means that errors are
|
|
not handled well. If you express your object wrongly with a delete verb,
|
|
the wrong text will get deleted, you will need to undo, and try again.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Kakoune’s grammar is <strong>object</strong> followed by <strong>verb</strong>, combined with instantaneous
|
|
feedback, that means you always see the current object (In Kakoune we call
|
|
that the selection) before you apply your change, which allows you to correct
|
|
errors on the go.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Kakoune tries hard to fix one of the big problems with the vi model: its
|
|
lack of interactivity. Because of the <strong>verb</strong> followed by <strong>object</strong> grammar,
|
|
vi changes are made in the dark, we don’t see their effect until the whole
|
|
editing <strong>sentence</strong> is finished. <code>5dw</code> will delete to next five words, if
|
|
you then realize that was one word too many, you need to undo, go back to
|
|
your initial position, and try again with <code>4dw</code>. In Kakoune, you would do
|
|
<code>5W</code>, see immediately that one more word than expected was selected, type
|
|
<code>BH</code> to remove that word from the selection, then <code>d</code> to delete. At each
|
|
step you get visual feedback, and have the opportunity to correct it.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>At the lower level, the problem is that vi treats moving around and selecting
|
|
an object as two different things. Kakoune unifies that, moving <strong>is</strong> selecting.
|
|
<code>w</code> does not just go to the next word, it selects from current position to
|
|
the next word. By convention, capital commands tend to expand the selection,
|
|
so <code>W</code> would expand the current selection to the next word.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="sect2">
|
|
<h3 id="_multiple_selections">Multiple selections</h3>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Another particular feature of Kakoune is its support for, and emphasis
|
|
towards the use of multiple selections. Multiple selections in Kakoune
|
|
are not just one additional feature, it is the central way of interacting
|
|
with your text. For example there is no such thing as a "global replace" in
|
|
Kakoune. What you would do is select the whole buffer with the <code>%</code> command,
|
|
then select all matches for a regex in the current selections (that is the
|
|
whole buffer here) with the <code>s</code> command, which prompts for a regex. You would
|
|
end up with one selection for each match of your regex and use the insert
|
|
mode to do your change. Globally replacing foo with bar would be done with
|
|
<code>%sfoo<ret>cbar<esc></code> which is just the combination of basic building blocks.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="videoblock text-center">
|
|
<div class="title">Global replace</div>
|
|
<div class="content">
|
|
<video src="video/global-replace.webm" autoplay controls loop>
|
|
Your browser does not support the video tag.
|
|
</video>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Multiple selections provides us with a very powerful to express structural
|
|
selection: we can subselect matches inside the current selections, keep
|
|
selections containing/not containing a match, split selections on a regex,
|
|
swap selections contents…​</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>For example, convert from <code>snake_case_style</code> to <code>camelCaseStyle</code> can be done
|
|
by selecting the word (with <code>w</code> for example) then subselecting underscores
|
|
in the word with <code>s_<ret></code>, deleting these with <code>d</code>, then upper casing the
|
|
selected characters with <code>~</code>. The inverse operation could be done by selecting
|
|
the word, then subselecting the upper case characters with <code>s[A-Z]<ret></code>
|
|
lower casing them with ` and then inserting an underscore before them with
|
|
<code>i_<esc></code> This operation could be put in a macro, and would be reusable
|
|
easily to convert any identifier.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="videoblock text-center">
|
|
<div class="title">Camel case to snake case</div>
|
|
<div class="content">
|
|
<video src="video/camel.webm" autoplay controls loop>
|
|
Your browser does not support the video tag.
|
|
</video>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Another example would be parameter swapping, if you had <code>func(arg2, arg1);</code>
|
|
you could select the contents of the parenthesis with <code><a-i>(</code>, split the
|
|
selection on comma with <code>S, <ret></code>, and swap selection contents with <code><a-)></code>.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="videoblock text-center">
|
|
<div class="title">Swapping arguments</div>
|
|
<div class="content">
|
|
<video src="video/args-swap.webm" autoplay controls loop>
|
|
Your browser does not support the video tag.
|
|
</video>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>It is as well easy to use multiple selections for alignment, as the <code>&</code>
|
|
command will align all selection cursors by inserting blanks before
|
|
selection start</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="videoblock text-center">
|
|
<div class="title">Aligning variables</div>
|
|
<div class="content">
|
|
<video src="video/align.webm" autoplay controls loop>
|
|
Your browser does not support the video tag.
|
|
</video>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Or to use multiple selections as a way to gather some text from different
|
|
places and regroup it in another place, thanks to a special form of pasting
|
|
<code><a-p></code> that will paste every yanked selections instead of the first one.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="videoblock text-center">
|
|
<div class="title">Regrouping manager objects together</div>
|
|
<div class="content">
|
|
<video src="video/regroup.webm" autoplay controls loop>
|
|
Your browser does not support the video tag.
|
|
</video>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="sect2">
|
|
<h3 id="_interactive_predictable_and_fast">Interactive, predictable and fast</h3>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>A design goal of Kakoune is to beat vim at its own game, while providing a
|
|
cleaner editing model. The combination of multiple selections and cleaned up
|
|
grammar shows that it’s possible to have text edition that is interactive,
|
|
predictable, and fast at the same time.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Interactivity comes from providing feedback on every command, made possible by
|
|
the inverted <strong>object</strong> then <strong>verb</strong> grammar. Every selection modification
|
|
has direct visual feedback; regex-based selections incrementally show what
|
|
will get selected, including when the regular expression is invalid; and even
|
|
yanking some text displays a message notifying how many selections were yanked.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Predictability comes from the simple effect of most commands. Each command is
|
|
conceptually simple, doing one single thing. <code>d</code> deletes whatever is selected,
|
|
nothing more. <code>%</code> selects the whole buffer. <code>s</code> prompts for a regex and
|
|
selects matches in the previous selection. It is the combination of these
|
|
building blocks that allows for complex, but predictable, actions on the text.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Being fast, as in requiring fewer keystrokes, is provided by carefully designing
|
|
the set of editing commands so that they interact well together, and by sometimes
|
|
sacrificing beauty for useability. For example, <code><a-s></code> is equivalent to
|
|
<code>S^<ret></code>: they both split on new lines, but this is such a common use case that
|
|
it deserves to have its own key shortcut. As shown in <a href="http://github.com/mawww/golf" class="bare">http://github.com/mawww/golf</a>,
|
|
Kakoune manages to beat Vim at the keystroke count game in most cases,
|
|
using much more idiomatic commands.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="sect2">
|
|
<h3 id="_discoverability">Discoverability</h3>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Keyboard oriented programs tend to be at a disadvantage compared to GUI
|
|
applications because they are less discoverable; there is no menu bar on
|
|
which to click to see the available options, no tooltip appearing when you
|
|
hover above a button explaining what it does.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Kakoune solves this problem through the use of two mechanisms: extensive
|
|
completion support, and auto-information display.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>When a command is written in a prompt, Kakoune will automatically open a menu
|
|
providing you with the available completions for the current parameter. It
|
|
will know if the parameter is supposed to be a word against a fixed set
|
|
of word, the name of a buffer, a filename, etc…​ Actually, as soon as <code>:</code>
|
|
is typed, entering command prompt mode, the list of existing commands will
|
|
be displayed in the completion menu.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Additionally, Kakoune will display an information box, describing what the
|
|
command does, what optional switches it can take, what they do…​</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="videoblock text-center">
|
|
<div class="title">Command discoverability</div>
|
|
<div class="content">
|
|
<video src="video/discoverability.webm" autoplay controls loop>
|
|
Your browser does not support the video tag.
|
|
</video>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>That information box gets displayed in other cases, for example if the <code>g</code>
|
|
key is hit, which then waits for another key (<code>g</code> is the <strong>goto</strong> commands
|
|
prefix), an information box will display all the recognized keys, informing
|
|
the user that Kakoune is waiting on a keystroke, and listing the available
|
|
options.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>To go even further in discoverability, the auto information system can
|
|
be set to display an information box after each normal mode keystroke,
|
|
explaining what the key pressed just did.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="sect2">
|
|
<h3 id="_extensive_completion_support">Extensive completion support</h3>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Keyboard oriented programs are much easier to work with when they provide
|
|
extensive completion support. For a long time, completion has been prefix
|
|
based, and that has been working very well.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>More recently, we started to see more and more programs using the so called
|
|
fuzzy completion. Fuzzy completion tends to be subsequence based, instead
|
|
of prefix based, which means the typed query needs to be a subsequence of
|
|
a candidate to be considered matching, instead of a prefix. That will generate
|
|
more candidates (all prefix matches are also subsequence matches), so it
|
|
needs a good ranking algorithm to sort the matches and put the best ones first.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Kakoune embraces fuzzy matching for its completion support, which kicks in both
|
|
during insert mode, and prompt mode.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="videoblock text-center">
|
|
<div class="title">Word completion support</div>
|
|
<div class="content">
|
|
<video src="video/completion.webm" autoplay controls loop>
|
|
Your browser does not support the video tag.
|
|
</video>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Insert mode completion provides completion suggestions while inserting in the
|
|
buffer, it can complete words from the buffer, or from all buffers, lines,
|
|
filenames, or get completion candidates from an external source, making it
|
|
possible to implement intelligent code completion.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="videoblock text-center">
|
|
<div class="title">Language specific completion support</div>
|
|
<div class="content">
|
|
<video src="video/cpp-completion.webm" autoplay controls loop>
|
|
Your browser does not support the video tag.
|
|
</video>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Prompt completion is displayed whenever we enter command mode, and provides
|
|
completion candidates that are adapted to the command being entered, and to
|
|
the current argument being edited.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="sect2">
|
|
<h3 id="_a_better_unix_citizen">A better unix citizen</h3>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Easily making programs cooperate with each others is one of the main strength
|
|
of the Unix environment. Kakoune is designed to integrate nicely with a POSIX
|
|
system: various text editing commands give direct access to the power of POSIX
|
|
tools, like <code>|</code>, which prompts for a shell command and pipe selections through
|
|
it, replacing their contents with the command output, or <code>$</code> that prompts for
|
|
a command, and keeps selections for which the command returned success.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="videoblock text-center">
|
|
<div class="title">Using external commands as filters</div>
|
|
<div class="content">
|
|
<video src="video/filters.webm" autoplay controls loop>
|
|
Your browser does not support the video tag.
|
|
</video>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>This is only the tip of the iceberg. Kakoune is very easily controllable from
|
|
the shell, just pipe whatever commands you like to <code>kak -p <session></code>, and the
|
|
target Kakoune session will execute these.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Kakoune command line also supports shell expansion, similar to what <code>$(...)</code>
|
|
does in a shell. If you type <code>echo %sh{ echo hello }</code> in the command prompt,
|
|
"hello" will get displayed in the status line. Various values from Kakoune
|
|
can be accessed in these expand through environment variables, which, along
|
|
with shell scripting forms the basis of Kakoune extension model.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="videoblock text-center">
|
|
<div class="title">Interaction with external shell</div>
|
|
<div class="content">
|
|
<video src="video/external.webm" autoplay controls loop>
|
|
Your browser does not support the video tag.
|
|
</video>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>This model, although a bit less familiar than integrating a scripting language,
|
|
is conceptually very simple, relatively simple implementation-wise, and is
|
|
expressive enough to implement a custom code completer, linters, formatters…​</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Moreover, combined with support for <code>fifo</code> buffers, that read data from a
|
|
named <code>fifo</code>, Kakoune ends up with an extension model that easily support
|
|
asynchronous tasks, by forking a shell in the background to do long lived
|
|
work (<code>grep</code> or <code>make</code> for example) while displaying the result as they
|
|
come through the <code>fifo</code>.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="paragraph">
|
|
<p>Kakoune also tries to limit its scope to code editing: in particular, it does
|
|
not try to manage windows, and lets the system’s window manager, or terminal
|
|
multiplexer (such as tmux), handle that responsibility. This is achieved through
|
|
a client/server design: An editing session runs on a server process, and
|
|
multiple clients can connect to that session to display different buffers.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="videoblock text-center">
|
|
<div class="title">Asynchronous make and multiple clients in tmux</div>
|
|
<div class="content">
|
|
<video src="video/async.webm" autoplay controls loop>
|
|
Your browser does not support the video tag.
|
|
</video>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="sect1">
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<h2 id="_final_thoughts">Final Thoughts</h2>
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<div class="sectionbody">
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<div class="paragraph">
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<p>Kakoune provides an efficient code editing environment, both very predictable,
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hence scriptable, and very interactive. Its learning curve is considerably
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easier than Vim thanks to a more consistent design associated with strong
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discoverability, while still being faster (as in less keystrokes) in most
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use cases.</p>
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</div>
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<div class="paragraph">
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<p>Although easier to learn than Vim, the learning curve is still quite steep,
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however we have established that investing time into optimizing the text
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editing workflow is worth it for programmers. Moreover, Kakoune simply makes
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code editing a fun and rewarding experience.</p>
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</div>
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<div class="paragraph">
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<p>Kakoune is still evolving, getting better as we get more users, and gathering
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more use cases to cater for. It’s already a very good code editor, and we need
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you to use it so that it can be made even better.</p>
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</div>
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<div class="paragraph">
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<p>Kakoune is available at <a href="http://github.com/mawww/kakoune" class="bare">http://github.com/mawww/kakoune</a> and has a website at
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<a href="http://kakoune.org" class="bare">http://kakoune.org</a></p>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div id="footer">
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<div id="footer-text">
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Last updated 2020-01-03 19:17:51 +1100
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