WrongRoom [diveintomark.org] 2001/01/21

I’ve been peripherally following the latest fad of full-screen “writing-focused” text editors. Here’s what I’ve learned so far: in the beginning, there was WriteRoom (Mac OS X, $24.95). WriteRoom is “just about you and your text.” WriteRoom begat DarkRoom (Windows + .NET, $0), which is also “just about you and your text” but requires a 22 MB runtime environment. hmm is that a lot? am I going to regret installing that? can I uninstall it easily?
DarkRoom begat JDarkRoom (Java, $0), which is just about you, your text, and somebody else’s multi-megabyte runtime environment. (Depending on your platform, it may be as small as 13 MB, which is what the kids these days would call “an improvement.”)
It’s like a Biblical lineage of silliness.
Here’s the basic problem: you’re writing a text editor. Stop doing that. It’s 2007. Saying to yourself “I’m gonna build my own text editor” is as silly as saying “I’m gonna build my own build system” or “I’m gonna build my own amusement park.” Blackjack and hookers and all that. Writing a great text editor is insanely difficult. There is a certain class of software that sounds easy but is actually insanely difficult. I call it “garden path software.” why? are garden paths hard to make? If I ever start a software company, I’ll name it “Garden Path Software,” but until then, just stop.
Reading the change logs of these programs is like traveling back in time. Way back. Latest changes in JDarkRoom 8: Undo / Redo. Seriously. Version 8, and they now support undo. No offense, but what the fuck?
I guess the part I don’t understand is the target audience. Who is so serious about writing that they need a full-screen editor, but so unserious that they don’t have a favorite editor already? I’ve published two full-length books and posted a hell of a lot more than that, and you can pry my text editor from my cold dead hands. I’m not even going to mention which one it is; it doesn’t matter. Switching to a new one would be a frustrating and painful experience that would get in the way of my writing for weeks, maybe months. right.
I’ll be in the corner writing my next book with a real text editor. I think it even has a full-screen mode.