
Ask HN: What is a good scriptable text editor - luchadorvader
I&#x27;m looking for a good text editor that has a simple and quick scripting capability.  I work a lot with text sometimes so I&#x27;ll write some one off scripts sometimes to edit big files, but other files I&#x27;ll use Sublime Text to do some manipulations.  The problem is that it&#x27;s API is somewhat restrictive, like if I want a custom input without going in the command prompt then I lose access to the region that I selected.  I also have been using Visual Studio Code, but it looks to be a big effort to actually write a small plugin needing stuff like NPM and non-trivial config files.  If anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear them.<p>For context I use Linux.
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im_down_w_otp
Emacs. The whole thing is a bunch of running scripts, and you can manipulate
all of it almost an way that you like. Add your own, muck with the ones that
are there, even screw with things that are actively running.

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maybeok
Emacs is nice way to discover live-action coding against a running process.
Design time, dev-time, compile-time, and run-time all mesh into one.

Everybody needs to give a live-action language like Smalltalk or lisp a try at
least once.

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075
Maybe emacs? I know it's not ass popular as vim, but emacs is made for being
extended by elisp.

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such_a_casual
> I'm looking for a good text editor that has a simple and quick scripting
> capability.

Vim and Emacs have neither of these things. They both pose a long and
difficult barrier to entry.

However it sounds like you aren't looking for simple and quick. If you are
running into limitations on your current editor, then it's time to swallow the
pill and dive into one of the behemoths.

I don't know of any text editor that is guaranteed to have less limitations
than Sublime Text, but also has a "simple and quick scripting capability".

I would recommend Vim as it's main focus is as a text editor. Emacs tries to
do everything, Vim just tries to edit text. Emacs also has a mode that enables
Vim key bindings, so if you choose Emacs later, you won't have to start from
scratch.

Lastly, Emacs uses a dialect of Lisp for customization. Vim has it's own made
up language. So this may be a reason to choose Emacs over Vim.

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brudgers
Sed and Awk are the traditional old school tools for scripting edits of large
text files. Perl is a more recent option. And there's nothing wrong with using
Python or Ruby or whatever.

On the Emacs versus Vim, Emacs is fatter with features by design. Vim is
designed to be lighter weight so it can ship on memory constrained systems by
default. The Emacs community tends to have a more substantial interest in
scripting and customization and one of its features is built in tooling for
writing scripts, e.g. the eLisp REPL.

Good luck.

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z3t4
Can you explain what you mean with "scripting capability"?

I'm currently developing a native editor in JavaScript (using chromium) where
it's very easy to write a "plug-in" in JavaScript.

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volaski
vim?

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perugolate
+1 especially neovim

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luchadorvader
I was hoping for something with GUI because I'm lazy, but I really should stop
putting off learning vim :|

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runjake
Then, gvim?

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mod
I doubt that's the kind of gui he wants. Probably file navigation and the
like.

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_RPM
Vim.

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hex13
maybe Atom?

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_RPM
Atom runs great if you have an i7 and at least 6 GB of RAM in my experience.
However, VIM is the most lightweight amazing editor I've ever used in my time.

