Show HN: TTT – A terminal IDE with standard keybindings, no modal editing | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: TTT – A terminal IDE with standard keybindings, no modal editing

tttedit.dev

4 pointseugenioenko4 comments

Looks like a nice editor (not an IDE), will give it a spin. Have you seen Fresh? https://github.com/sinelaw/fresh

I've discovered fresh in the middle of writing TTT. Really fantastic TUI editor/ide (ide loosely) .

One main focus I had on TTT was that the project would be UX first, meaning UX was implemented before the actual functionality.

Fresh is awesome, it feels like a terminal editor, fantastic TUI. What I wanted from TTT is for it to feel like GUI IDE, bridge the gap between vscode/zen/subile into the terminal. It's not there yet, but I'm wroking on it

> Looks like a nice editor (not an IDE)

Agreed. I know it's missing DAP debugger support. Zed took about a year to add DAP. And even with that it wouldn't be an IDE in the strict sense. Great point

What would make it bridge the gap from text editor into IDE territory in your opinion?

Examples of IDEs are: Visual Studio (not Code), IntelliJ, Eclipse. IDE is about an excessive amount of options and automation and a tight integration between them. Lets take the vscode git client compared to intellij (Im on Goland daily), its silly and you have to use GitLense, and even then you miss like a half of options / dialogs AND it's not well _integrated_ any more. Debuggers set breakpoints and step through code, but can they record a session and reply from file? Is theres a dedicated dialog for breakpoints and do those breakpoints also show up in the bookmarks pane along with dirs and code lines? It's not feasible for a single person to make a proper IDE, even with AI, just like it's not feasible to make a proper OS - it's just too big.

But going back to feature-rich TUI editors, Im looking to migrate off of Micro and will evaluate both TTT and Fresh. I could def use a file pane and proper command dialog, with LSP being a nice addition. "Smart editing", bookmarks and markdown rendering would also be nice. Debugging is lang dependent and will eat up a lot of effort... Good luck.

Hey, thank you for a thorow reply. It has been years since I used Visual Studio (or even Delphi XD)

And thats a great description for an IDE, you wan't the whole development environment without having to switch to anything. Thats fair.

> It's not feasible for a single person to make a proper IDE, even with AI

Thats a solid take, modern IDE are huge. Regarding feasability, I don't think I could in current circumstances, but if I had 2-3 years to work on it, I could pull it of XD

Now from the features you mentioned, from your hard requirements ttt has them covered. From the nice to have, I have the PR's created for Bookmarks and Markdown preview but I have not prioritized them yet becasue I don't use those features myself and I wasn't sure community would want them. If you end up using TTT, ping with an issue and I'll bump them.

> Debugging is lang dependant

Yeah, the DAP protocol helps somewhat but yeah, there is a reason why vscode and zed took years to get it. But... it is done, it's a problem solved that can be replicated. I used to debug all the time up to a year ago, today agents are so good at doing it I honestly don't have the need, but I am not building TTT exclusively for myself.

The goal is an editor that is UX first, visual design and usability. Something to replace vscode with to avoid switching from the terminal. It's at a stage where I am no longer opening vscode.

> Good luck.

Thank you! And if you do try it, would love to hear feedback

Reply on news.ycombinator.com