this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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Here is a message from his family

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[–] xantoxis@lemmy.world 250 points 1 year ago (3 children)

He finally figured out how to exit

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[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 115 points 1 year ago (4 children)
[–] kool_newt@lemm.ee 90 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] twistypencil@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Technically, that is not vim specific, conning from sed and ed, but definitely worked in vim as well as all vi clones

[–] chinpokomon@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

This is why it works so well. It's also one of the reasons I prefer vi over other text editors. It isn't always the most logical which commands and keys do what, but I like the consistency.

[–] grte@lemmy.ca 66 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Pretty much any program I use I try to shift over to vim style keys. This guy's reach went far beyond vim to me.

[–] DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world 52 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The hjkl keys came from Bill Joy when he wrote vi. The terminal he was using had arrows printed on those keys because it didn't have dedicated arrow keys. It was a natural progression to reuse those keys for navigation.

vim was a huge improvement over vi. To where it became the defacto replacement. Some distros even shipped vim as a replacement for vi. That was because the Linux Standard Base required vi to be present.

Still a huge influence. vi was a bit painful to use when coming from vim. Would hjkl have died out if it wasn't for vim? IDK. I think it would have been relegated to a niche corner of the unix/linux world.

[–] lontong@kbin.social 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The terminal he was using had arrows printed on those keys because it didn’t have dedicated arrow keys.

That terminal was also responsible for ~ used as home dir in path and ^ as beginning of string in regex.

[–] swirle13@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago
[–] tun@lemmy.world 45 points 1 year ago (10 children)

RIP, Mr. Bram Moolenaar.

Thank you for the VIM.

Now the time has come for the VIM future.

https://joshtronic.com/2018/08/12/will-vim-die-with-bram-moolenaar/

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[–] Tentaclius@lemmy.world 43 points 1 year ago

The guy onse famously responded to the question of how the community can ensure that vim project succeeds for the forseeable future with "keep me alive". Seems like there is our fault :(

RIP the legend. Keep Vimming.

[–] BudgieMania@kbin.social 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I probably owe that man a good part of my living. Proof that even gods are mortal

[–] PutangInaMo@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Great words. He may be gone now but he's got all us nerds in here thanking him and pondering the good ol days where his passion helped so many. Shit could be our eulogy from lemmy.

[–] topperharlie@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

RIP ☹️

what an amazing editor he developed on top of vi, he'll be remembered

[–] cloudy1999@sh.itjust.works 25 points 1 year ago

This news hit me hard this morning. Bram's work has directly benefited my career for decades. He was a good human being who did good things. RIP Bram

[–] abrer@lemmy.one 14 points 1 year ago

RIP and thanks for all the hard work I've benefited from over the last decade.

I'll think of this man while explaining vim to my new hire next week.

[–] ghostface@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

:f For the sophisticated users, for the gen pop :q!

[–] SaintWacko@midwest.social 10 points 1 year ago

He has left his mark in a way that few are able to

[–] deBaron@feddit.nl 8 points 1 year ago

That's very sad to hear. Bram had a significant impact on me and how I use my computer. Rust zacht, Bram.

[–] jeanma@lemmy.ninja 8 points 1 year ago

R.I.P. Bram.

I use VIm every day, I enjoy using it, I am still in awe when discovering stuff, still after 17y!

[–] dancingprotein@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

RIP Bram Moolenaar, and my condolences to his family

Rest in peace, Bram Moolenaar! Thank you for your work, I use vim every day.

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