The Craft of Text Editing
by Craig A. Finseth · first published 1991
90% recommend10% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Rare, thorough guide to how text editors work internally: representing text, editor architecture, and implementation. Emacs-centric, but the basics carry over; suits anyone building or studying an editor.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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You can check out the book "The Craft of Text Editing" by Craig A. Finseth
on “Ask HN: Anyone using their own custom text editor?” ↗What are some good resources to learn more about the inner workings of text editors or building one from scratch? So far I've found and enjoyed reading/watching the resources below and would love to learn more. * The Craft of Text Editing: https://www.finseth.com/craft/ * Writing a Text Editor From Scratch: https://www.twitch.tv/gary_bernhardt/v/90796516 * A Modern Text Editor Built in Rust: ht
on “Buttery Smooth Emacs” ↗There’s The Craft of Text Editing by Craig A. Finseth: https://www.finseth.com/craft/
on “Build Your Own Text Editor” ↗You want this: The Craft of Text Editing —or— Emacs for the Modern World –by– Craig A. Finseth https://www.finseth.com/craft/
on “Ask HN: How to learn about text editor architectures and implementations?” ↗If you are interested in text editors, you should read The Craft of Text Editing (available at http://www.finseth.com/craft/). In spite of its Emacs-centric seeming subtitle, it discusses a lot of the basics of representing text and implementing an editor.
on “Ask HN: IDE versus Text Editor?” ↗This is cool & similar to a project I had thought about doing for a while. Have you read The Craft of Text Editing[1]? It's very informative. [1]: http://www.finseth.com/craft/
on “Show HN: Iota – a text editor written in Rust” ↗If you are interested in this kind of stuff, Craig Finseth's The Craft of Text Editing is a great read: https://www.finseth.com/craft/
on “A glance into web tech-based text editors’ text management” ↗There is no substitute to building one yourself, but The Craft of Text Editing book has a lot of accumulated wisdom. It is Emacs-centric, but basics are same. http://www.finseth.com/craft/
on “Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering” ↗You want this: The Craft of Text Editing —or— Emacs for the Modern World –by– Craig A. Finseth https://www.finseth.com/craft/
on “CudaText: Cross-platform code editor” ↗If you like this you should also read Craig Finseth's thesis (http://www.finseth.com/craft/) in which he describes an emacs like editor.
on “On the Design of Editors for Small Computers (1972)” ↗The definitive book on implementing an EMACS, as of a long time ago, is Craig A. Finseth's The Craft of Text Editing -or- Emacs for the Modern World http://www.finseth.com/craft/ Although I can't say I used it for my work on various versions of EMACS in the '80s, I just dived into code. But everything I read in it (or its first version, I think his bachelors thesis polished into a technical memo
on “Show HN: Iota – a text editor written in Rust” ↗There is also this old book about Emacs that describes data structures for text editing: http://www.finseth.com/craft/#c6
on “Design of a Vim-like text editor” ↗If you thought this was an interesting article, here 's the obligatory link to just about the only book on crafting a text editor, "Craft of Text Editing": http://www.finseth.com/craft/
on “Optimizing an Important Atom Primitive” ↗The Craft of Text Editing --or-- Emacs for the Modern World https://www.finseth.com/craft/
on “Spacemacs 0.105.0 released” ↗"The Craft of Text Editing" (http://www.finseth.com/craft/) could also interest people who like reading about text editor internals.
on “A Brief Glance at How Various Text Editors Manage Their Textual Data (2015)” ↗