The old programs have long shadows. We just found out that Bram Moolenaar died, cWim's reader and that introduced us to the long history of the show.
Vim is as old as Linux since it was intended for the Unix ecosystem and it is a text editor to be used from the terminal and it is intended for writing software code.
Bram Moleenaar died
Chesterton said that the journalist's task is to communicate the death of Lord Jones to people who had no idea that someone named Lord Jones lived. I would add that while we only find out about valuable people when they die, we are saturated with the lives of absolutely inconsequential beings, and the world of technology is no exception.
Bram moolenaar He is one of those people I wish I had written about while I was alive. But, let's start at the end, the statement published by the family:
Dear all
It is with a heavy heart that we have to inform you that Bram Moolenaar passed away on August 3, 2023.
Bram suffered from a medical condition that had progressed rapidly in recent weeks.Bram has dedicated a large part of his life to VIM and was very proud of the VIM community that you are all a part of.
Now, as a family, we are organizing Bram's funeral, which will take place in the Netherlands and will be conducted in the Dutch language. The exact date, time and location are yet to be determined.
If you wish to attend his funeral, please send a message to funer…@gmail.com. This email address can also be used to contact the family about other matters, considering the situation we are in now as a family.Sincerely,
Bram Moolenaar's family
In addition to Vim, Bram was involved in other projects such as:
- AAP: A tool for finding, installing, creating, and distributing software.
- Zimbu: A programming language of which there is no further data because the site is down.
- ICCF Holland: An entity dedicated to helping orphans in Uganda.
About Vim and creating software
Regarding Vim, we said that it has a long shadow because was derived from the Atari ST port of a text editor for the Commodore friend. If you want to try it you can find it in the repositories of your distribution.
En a report that he granted last year was asked about his most well-known project and how he combined it with his philanthropic work.
I have never wanted to make money with Vim. She started as a hobby and most of the time she had a job that paid pretty well. Except for a few years during which I asked for donations. Still, quite a few people said they thought Vim was worth something and that other editors were being sold. So I decided to combine my desire to help poor children with that and Charityware was born. It works well, about 30.000 euros a year are raised this way, which is helping about 50 children to finish their education, from primary school to university. Donations come from a few large sponsors and many small donations.
He also talked about software built on code written by others. ChatGPT wasn't trendy yet but the answer seems perfectly applicable to me
This (Programs built based on pasting code from different sources) usually happens when those who order the software have no knowledge of how software is made. I have been working for a company where quite a few managers, educated in physics and mechanics, thought that the software was the same as what they knew and that they could decide how to do it. That company went downhill and was eventually taken over. The same is true in places where decision makers can get away with it, such as in government. The people writing the code are probably just making sure they get paid and then fleeing the scene of the crime. At the other end of the scale are people who want to write beautiful code, spend a lot of time on it, and don't care if it actually does what it was intended to do or what the budget was. Somewhere in between, there is a balance.