The Text Editor Is Back as a Statement of Identity

The 'Fine, I'll build my own text editor' post (49524863) sparked a genuine conversation about why people still write text editors from scratch when VS Code exists and works fine. The answers are revealing: editors are compared to mechanical watches and fountain pens, things people build because the craft itself is satisfying, not because the world needs another editor. The Emacs vs. VS Code argument resurfaced, with at least one commenter being pushed toward VS Code by their team and actively resisting.

This sits alongside the Jujutsu version control creator joining ERSC (49525297) and Sonic Pi getting renewed attention (49482099). There's a persistent counter-current on HN of people who care deeply about their tools as expressive artifacts, not just utilities. That community is not large but it's highly engaged.

The practical signal: there's a real market for opinionated, well-crafted developer tools that have a point of view. Sublime Text gets cited repeatedly as a reference for what's missing in the current landscape.