“Vim or Emacs?”
Some youngmen dropped the question at the coffee machine like he was lighting a fuse. A couple of people bit instantly, keyboards practically materializing in their hands as they started listing plugins like sports stats.
I stayed quiet. Across from me, Alan was stirring his coffee, the way he does when he’s pretending not to listen.
Then he glanced up.
“You ever notice,” he said, “how people drive tells you more about them than their choice of editor?”
Alan would tell you he likes MorpStar, his own tweaked clone of the ancient WordStar which is closed only for himself. Says the hotkeys just feel right. And yes, it’s the same WordStar that George R. R. Martin still uses to write Game of Thrones. I tried to pursuade him to opensource, "Why? You wanna use it?" No, I'm an Emacs user, I just hope he doesn't make it proprietary. "Proprietary? Of course not! It's GPLed, but now that I'm the only delivered user, the code is libred only to me."
Good point, he got great understanding of GPL. The young man looked at us in shock as we chatted about what, to him, sounded like pure fantasy.
It’s the age of AI now—who still clings to hotkeys and plugins? An AI-powered editor can handle most problems. Is investing in an editor really worth it anymore?
And why Alan want to use WordStar, I've tried, I wouldn't say I like it.
"Let me tell you a story." Allen started again.
Deep in every engineer’s soul, there’s a beast racing for excitement. This isn’t just about me and his newly acquired Porsche 911—many years ago, he was my VP of Engineering, let’s call him Van, is no different.
You could walk beside Van out of the building and think he’s the definition of mellow—a true gentleman. But the moment he slips into the driver’s seat of his Boxster, he transforms. The muffler roars at high decibels, the convertible breezes over parking lot speed bumps like they’re not even there, and without hesitation, he merges seamlessly—almost theatrically—into the chaotic Shoreline traffic. The whole performance flows like choreography, not a heartbeat skipped.
Then there’s my big boss—short, bald-headed Samuel. During a team lunch outing, he offered to give me a ride. In truth, he just wanted to show off his freshly purchased fire-red BMW M5. My direct manager called shotgun, leaving the entire back seat to me. From Shoreline to El Camino, it took him only ten minutes. Ten terrifying minutes.
I slid side to side in the back, unsure whether I should brace my neck or shield my eyes. Samuel has always been a laid-back guy, even during project crises. But put a steering wheel in his hands? He becomes a whole different species.
Later, he admitted he would have gotten a Porsche if not vetoed by his wife and daughter. The M5, he said, was “compensation.”
Of course, there are exceptions.
My office neighbor Robert is one of them. He commutes daily from San Francisco to Mountain View via Highway 101. No dreams of Porsches or M5s for him. His fantasy vehicle?
A bulldozer.
Allan stopped here, and smiled at the younman’s question.
“Sure,” he said, “AI can write your code, fix your bugs, and probably brew your coffee. But the moment something goes wrong—really wrong—you’ll wish you knew how to drive without the autopilot.”
