Thanks Bram.<p>I've been using Vim (and sometimes more recently Neovim) for over 30 years (nearly every work day of my entire career), having used `vi` on various BSD systems in school. In all that time, I've never been on the mailing list for Vim, asked a question or submitted a bug report. <i>I've never needed to do so</i>. Because I've never run into a bug or had a question that couldn't be answered by the built in documentation.<p>A quality software project, lead by a quality man. You've been an inspiration.
Vim has soul. It is that chisel you inherited from your grandpa that you keep using. It fits well in your grip and is comfortable, even though it lacks the soft rubber that the new ones in the store have. It's a tool with its own history.<p>Reading the comments here, it seems that the hacker's mentality still lives on. The new young billion-dollar company will be replaced in another 10-20 years. Vim lives on. I wish to build a Vim of my own one day.
I reflected on my Vim journey after Bram passed away. It has been my only constant professional companion in the past 10 years - from university projects to FAANGs to everything-on-fire startups. All professional work I have done - the ones I am proud of, the ones that I am ashamed of, the ones that got me promotions and the ones that resulted in $M SEVs - was done on Vim. Oses/DBs/PLs/companies/co-workers come and go, but Vim has been forever.<p>Thanks Bram.
From a linked article [0] there's a screenshot of Bram's github activity and this text:<p>> Sad<p>> Perhaps all these things add up to why it hit me when I read the news that Bram had passed away. In the message, his family made it clear that Bram was ill (‘a medical condition that progressed quickly over the last few weeks‘). This was unknown to most people and made the news all the more surprising.<p>> And it made me even sadder when someone pointed out Bram’s recent GitHub activity.<p><a href="https://github.com/brammool">https://github.com/brammool</a><p>[0] <a href="https://j11g.com/2023/08/07/the-legacy-of-bram-moolenaar/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://j11g.com/2023/08/07/the-legacy-of-bram-moolenaar/</a><p>EDIT: From BDFL list in Wikipedia Bram seems to be the first to be marked as †.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life</a>
Today at a train station in the Netherlands (Utrecht) I noticed something special. I saw the letters hjkl on the sign in reverse order. These letters indentify the platform areas where you can enter the train. Depending on the length of the platform and the area where the train has entrances, it shows the letters.<p><a href="https://postimg.cc/mcCWhMXw" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://postimg.cc/mcCWhMXw</a><p>Either this was super coincidence, or someone at the NS (the Dutch train company) is a vim fan and payed tribute to Bram like this.
I once interviewed an intern candidate who bragged about getting into an argument with Bram on the mailing lists over a possible vulnerability. Bram insisted it was not important, and this young gun insisted it was.<p>We didn't hire the guy. It's interesting seeing these memorials for Bram, from what people say he was the polar opposite of this kid in a good way.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life</a> has a list of BDFLs. Bram is the first BDFL in that list who has passed away. We're in for a generational shift the coming decade(s). It makes sense to prepare - that is how you preserve a legacy, and the community.<p>I've been impressed with how Bram's passing has been handled by his family and friends with respect to his legacy and the future of vim.
Thought a linked article:<p><a href="https://j11g.com/2023/08/07/the-legacy-of-bram-moolenaar/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://j11g.com/2023/08/07/the-legacy-of-bram-moolenaar/</a><p>By Jan van den Berg, was a better read. One quote:<p>"Vim is a masterpiece, the gleaming precise machining tool from which so much of modernity was crafted".<p>And then this link:<p><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eX9m3g5J-XA">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eX9m3g5J-XA</a><p>"7 Habits for Effective Text Editing 2.0"<p>1h20m - If anyone has a transcript or summary: plz. But this was funny - first comment:<p>"I let auto play go on while I was sleeping for 7 hours and went from Billie Eilish to this"<p>Life is weird but I love it :-)<p>Disclaimer: I'm not even user of either (Neo)vim or Emacs. As soon as I read "programmable", I'm off. I just prefer fixed-function editor that suits my taste , a few minutes of configuration & go. But that's just me, what do I know?<p>That said: good tools serve a purpose. Our world is a better place with good tools in it - and the ppl who made those tools. And sometimes their legacy, their philosophy, their way of doing things, lives on in the code (or the community!) they left behind. So kudoz to Bram!
Vim has had a legitimate impact on my life. Over the past 15 years I've been using it, "set -o vi" and similar in psql/ipython get added into my rc files almost immediately on a new host. Many, many hours upon hours of living in a shell have been made so much more enjoyable because of his work.<p>Thank you for posting this. Rest in peace, friend.
In a world of fleeting software, Vim is a timeless masterpiece.<p>I only wish I had the opportunity to thank Bram for the impact he's had on my life and career, because I don't think I would have come as far without Vim.
So often we hear after someone dies how great they really where when infact they were like most people, a mixed bag. We all have ups and downs etc.<p>There are some though that really do live up to the postmortem messages and for sure Bram is one of them, i was lucky to meet him and actually spend some time shooting shit with him. At the time i didn't realize how big a deal he was, it was only later i would actually get to know and appreciate VIM, but from all of that it made me appreciate him a lot more. So when I read these kind of posts i can't help feel sad of course but I do get shivers of how damn ossum he really was. The testimonials to him hit so hard knowing they're 100% genuine. We need more like him, he will be really missed.
Aside from the POSIX toolchain/kernel/etc and browser (which I'd use if it neatly embedded into vim), vim and its siblings are together the most used program on my machine.<p>It's only today that I am forced to think about this: One person drove that program from an idea in their head to a high-quality, hackable program that I've fallen in love with over the years! A program that I have used for so many hours, but has never crashed once (neovim does crash, but vim has never done this for me.) This is an impressive feat given the sheer volume of vim plugins and configurations I've gone through!<p>Thank you Bram! You built an amazing program and the community around it!
Thank you Bram for everything. Your talk, 7 Habits For Effective Text Editing 2.0 inspired me and it started my Vim journey. Using Vim all these years has been a complete joy. You will not be forgotten.<p>Link to the talk: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6K4iIMlouI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6K4iIMlouI</a>
> Even when treated rudely, Bram usually responded only to advance his understanding of a problem to solve.<p>This admirable. Over time I've become a maintainer of one or two somewhat important open source codebases. One of the codebase owners that invited me to maintain their codebase, a very kind Swedish fellow, didn't know what kind of maintainer I might turn out to be, so when he invited me over beers he explained that a maintainer should be gentle with contributors the way a parent should be gentle with a young child when the child shows them a drawing they made. That image stuck with me. I don't know if I would have been a rude maintainer w/o that talk, but I often think of it, and I try to live up to that every time.
Is there anything like MacVim on linux these days? I mean gVIM is pretty usable with tabs but I'm wondering if anybody cared enough to make something a little fancier GUI wise? Just good looking slick window decorations, better integrated with eg. GNOME in Ubuntu.<p>More crucially has anybody ever made a faster render? I mean it´s 2023 and I'm still seeing gvim in Ubuntu redraw my tabs from top to bottom in maybe 0.1 sec but it's definitely noticeable.
I really appreciated this post.<p>Bram was a hero for his long term dedication to such a great piece of software, and for the great design he put into it that made so many people’s lives better.<p>Justin and the other Neovim developers are heroes for making a great piece of software even greater. Despite all the drama that people like to confect, the Neovim devs always show the proper respect to Vim and Bram.
I'm shocked. I've been a vim user my whole life. I use neovim lately, but I didn't even know Bram was dead. I've never interacted with him personally, but I've interacted with the tool he wrote and the documentation he wrote almost on a daily basis. Vim is part of me.<p>I know the project will likely continue, but I can't help but thinking: what now?<p>It brings up this issue of death in software for me. Software is getting old enough now that it is starting to outlive its authors. RIP Anthony Grimes and Ian Murdock. I have used both of these men's software after their demise[1][2], and I am grateful for it.<p>However, it does make me think. Grimes' software continues to have issues filed against it[3] by folks unaware that no one is getting notifications for them. On the other hand, Debian was popular enough to continue after Ian's passing, and continues to gain momentum.<p>I know it might be too soon for me to wonder about these questions to an audience. These were the giants on whose shoulders we continue to work today. I'm glad their code persists.<p>1: <a href="https://github.com/Raynes/fs">https://github.com/Raynes/fs</a><p>2: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock</a><p>3: <a href="https://github.com/Raynes/fs/pulls">https://github.com/Raynes/fs/pulls</a>