Zed Founders Chat #4

Summary

The transcript discusses the development and philosophy behind Zed, a code editor that aims to balance power and speed. The team talks about the spectrum between full-featured IDEs and minimalist editors, their preference for minimalism without sacrificing performance, and the challenges of integrating collaboration and other features without cluttering the user experience. They also touch on the importance of extensibility, community feedback, and maintaining a high-performance editor that avoids bloat.

Takeaways

• 🌟 The ideal tool would combine powerful features with a sleek, minimal, and fast user experience, avoiding the trade-off between performance and feature-richness.
• 🚀 The goal is to create a tool like Zed that is powerful yet maintains a fast and minimalistic UI, similar to the streamlined design of a Tesla Model S.
• 🤔 The line between IDEs and text editors is becoming increasingly blurred, with modern editors gaining language awareness and smarter features through technologies like language servers and Treesitter.
• 💡 There's a desire for an editor that integrates development environment aspects, such as collaboration and terminal usage, without clutter or performance loss.
• 🔧 The vision for Zed includes a balance between being opinionated about its core features and being open to extensions that allow for customization and additional functionality.
• 📈 The development of Zed is focused on extensibility and performance, ensuring that adding new features or extensions does not compromise the core user experience.
• 🔄 Emphasis on community feedback is crucial for refining Zed, with active engagement helping to shape the tool based on real-world usage and user needs.
• 🛠️ Extensions are seen as a way to enhance Zed's capabilities without bloating the core product, allowing users to tailor the experience to their preferences.
• 📊 The team behind Zed is mindful of the balance between including 'batteries included' and relying on extensions for additional features, aiming to provide a solid foundation out of the box.
• 🎯 Zed's philosophy includes innovating and offering better ways to perform tasks, but also respecting user familiarity and standards when it benefits the broader user base.

Q & A

What is the main goal for the development of Zed in terms of user experience?

The main goal for Zed is to combine powerful features with a sleek, minimal interface that is super fast, without introducing latency or sluggishness. The aim is to provide a tool that is both incredibly powerful and user-friendly, focusing on minimalism in the UX.

How does the speaker feel about the traditional trade-off between powerful IDEs and faster editors?

The speaker has always been frustrated with the trade-off, as powerful IDEs often come with a cost of slowness and a cluttered UI. The dream is to have a tool that is both incredibly powerful and fast, without sacrificing performance for the sake of features or minimalism.

What is the speaker's analogy for the ideal user experience in an editor?

The speaker uses the analogy of a Model S Tesla, where the door handle pops out when needed but is tucked away when not in use, to illustrate the ideal user experience of having features available when needed without creating drag or clutter.

How has the landscape for editors and IDEs changed over the past 10-15 years?

The landscape has changed significantly with the introduction of language servers and technologies like Treesitter, which have allowed editors to gain language-aware features and smarter syntax understanding without the traditional bloat of IDEs.

What is the speaker's vision for the future of Zed in terms of collaboration?

The speaker envisions Zed integrating more concerns related to collaboration, moving away from the traditional IDE model where everything is bundled into one experience, and instead focusing on a more seamless and efficient workflow that acknowledges the existence of other people and collaboration.

What does the speaker think about the concept of 'opinionated' software?

The speaker is cautious about being too opinionated, as they do not want to dictate a single way of doing things. However, they do believe in innovating and offering a better way of doing things when they are confident in their vision.

How does the speaker feel about the addition of emojis or pixelated emojis in Zed?

The speaker is open to adding emojis or pixelated emojis as long as it aligns with the aesthetic of Zed and does not detract from the overall user experience. The decision would be made based on community feedback and the value it adds to the users.

What is the speaker's stance on the integration of web technology in Zed?

The speaker is hesitant about integrating web technology due to concerns about slowing down Zed. However, they acknowledge that certain utilities provided by web technology could be valuable and are open to exploring these options carefully.

How does the speaker view the role of the community in the development of Zed?

The speaker highly values the community's engagement and feedback, as it provides insights into how Zed is used in the real world and helps shape the development of the software to better meet user needs.

What is the speaker's approach to handling feature requests and potential over-complication of Zed?

The speaker is cautious about adding features that might complicate Zed or slow it down. They prefer to maintain a focus on core features and performance, and are willing to remove or refactor features that do not align with the vision of a fast and minimal editor.

Outlines

00:00

💡 The Spectrum of Editors and IDEs

The discussion begins with the participants musing on the nature of Zed, pondering where it falls on the spectrum between an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and a text editor like Nano. They reflect on the historical evolution of IDEs, noting their feature-rich yet often sluggish interfaces. The conversation touches on the desire for a tool that combines power, speed, and minimalism, akin to the sleek design of a Tesla Model S. The participants express their dream of a tool that is both incredibly powerful and fast, without sacrificing user experience (UX) or introducing unnecessary latency.

05:01

🌐 The Convergence of Editors and IDEs

The participants delve into the modern capabilities of editors, highlighting the impact of language servers and tools like Treesitter on the development landscape. They discuss the shift from a clear distinction between editors and IDEs to a more integrated experience where editors gain syntax awareness and semantic understanding. The conversation touches on the potential for further enhancement of these tools, including the possibility of expanding Treesitter's capabilities. The participants also consider the trade-offs between adopting IDE features and maintaining the speed and focus of an editor.

10:03

🔄 Balancing Feature Integration and Performance

The group continues to explore the balance between integrating development environment features and maintaining performance. They discuss the importance of not abstracting away essential tools like git and cargo test, and the desire for Zed to be aware of and integrate cleanly with the command line and terminal. The conversation also touches on the potential for extensions and the challenges of ensuring they do not slow down or clutter the editor. The participants express a commitment to maintaining Zed's speed and minimalist UX, even as they consider new features and extensions.

15:04

📋 Prioritizing Extensions and Scriptability

The discussion shifts to the role of extensions and scriptability in Zed. The participants consider the potential for extensions to enrich the user experience by adding functionality without cluttering the interface. They discuss the importance of carefully engineering APIs to support extensions without compromising performance. The group also explores the idea of allowing users to solve their own problems through scripting, emphasizing the value of flexibility and the potential for community-driven innovation.

20:07

🔄 The Evolution of Core Features and Extensions

The conversation addresses the challenge of determining which features should be included in the core of Zed and which should be left for extensions. The participants acknowledge the impossibility of satisfying every user's needs with core features alone and the importance of allowing for extensibility. They discuss the concept of 'batteries included' and the potential for over-inclusion, emphasizing the need for a balance between core features and user customization. The group also reflects on past decisions and the learning process involved in developing Zed.

25:08

🤔 Navigating User Feedback and Product Philosophy

The participants discuss the influence of user feedback on the development of Zed, highlighting the importance of community engagement. They consider the challenge of incorporating diverse workflows without creating a Frankenstein-like product. The conversation touches on the potential for overcorrecting in one direction, adding features and then integrating them if necessary. The group acknowledges the difficulty of making principled decisions about small features like emojis and the desire to maintain a cohesive and well-designed product vision.

Keywords

💡Spectrum of collaboration

The term 'spectrum of collaboration' refers to the range of ways in which people can work together, from simple to complex. In the context of the video, it is used to discuss the varying levels of collaboration features that could be integrated into the Zed editor, reflecting a balance between powerful collaboration tools and maintaining a sleek, minimal interface.

💡IDE (Integrated Development Environment)

An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. It typically includes features like code editors, compilers, and debuggers. In the video, the team discusses the pros and cons of IDEs, such as their feature-rich nature versus potential sluggishness or cluttered interfaces.

💡Performance

In the context of software and editors, performance refers to how quickly and efficiently an application runs, including aspects like responsiveness and speed. The video emphasizes the importance of maintaining high performance, especially in the user interface and core functionalities, to ensure a smooth and fast user experience.

💡Minimalism

Minimalism in design refers to the practice of using the least amount of elements necessary to achieve the desired effect. In the context of the video, minimalism is valued in the user experience (UX) to keep the interface clean and focused, reducing clutter and enhancing usability.

💡Language Servers

Language servers are processes that provide support for programming languages, including features like autocompletion, syntax highlighting, and error checking. They are an integral part of modern text editors and IDEs, enabling them to offer advanced language-specific functionalities.

💡Treesitter

Treesitter is a fast and efficient parser generator tool for creating language parsers. It is used in text editors to provide syntax highlighting, code folding, and other language-aware features without the performance overhead of traditional parsing methods.

💡Extensions

Extensions are add-on components that extend the functionality of a software application. In the context of text editors, extensions can add new features, integrate new tools, or modify existing behaviors to cater to specific user needs or workflows.

💡Collaboration

Collaboration refers to the act of working together with others to achieve a common goal. In the context of the video, it relates to the features and tools that could be integrated into Zed to support teamwork and communication among developers.

💡User Experience (UX)

User Experience (UX) refers to the overall experience a user has while interacting with a product, focusing on aspects like usability, accessibility, and the user's emotional response. In the video, UX is a central concern as the team aims to create an editor that is both powerful and intuitive.

💡Scriptability

Scriptability refers to the ability of a software application to be programmed or scripted by the user to automate tasks or customize its behavior. In the context of the video, scriptability is seen as a desirable feature that would allow users to tailor the editor to their specific needs and workflows.

Highlights

The discussion revolves around the product philosophy and the balance between an IDE and a text editor, specifically in relation to Zed.

IDEs often come with many features but can be sluggish or have a cluttered UI, whereas text editors like TextMate are fast but lack features.

JetBrains has made efforts to streamline the UI, but it still doesn't feel as fast as a traditional editor.

The ideal tool would be powerful yet sleek, minimal, and super fast without introducing latency.

The goal is to create a tool that doesn't compromise on performance or minimalism, keeping the code front and center.

The distinction between IDE and editor has become less clear-cut due to advancements like language servers and treesitter.

Editors have evolved to include syntax awareness and can call out to language servers for semantic understanding.

The architecture of editors has improved, but there's still room for expansion in what treesitter and language servers can do.

Zed aims to integrate collaboration into the development environment, which is a departure from traditional IDEs.

The vision for Zed includes combining the power of an IDE with the speed and minimalism of an editor.

Extensions are seen as a way to enrich the core features of Zed without cluttering the UI or slowing down performance.

The challenge is to find the right balance between including features and maintaining performance and minimalism.

Zed's philosophy includes being opinionated about text editing but not forcing a single way of doing things.

The team is open to innovation and willing to explore different ways of doing things, but with a focus on maintaining a high-quality user experience.

The community's engagement is valued, and their feedback helps shape the development of Zed.

Zed aims to be a holistically designed product that resonates with its users and meets their needs without becoming a Frankenstein of features.

The team is cautious about overextending Zed's surface area, as it increases maintenance and can dilute the product vision.

Zed's development is iterative, with the team willing to add and integrate features based on community feedback and product principles.

The discussion highlights the importance of performance and user experience in the design and development of Zed.

Transcripts

want to kick things off product

philosophy talking about product

decisions let's do it all right um the

funny thing is I somehow again have this

idea of a spectrum here which popped up

last time right the spectrum of

collaboration um but let's kick this off

so my my question is where do you think

Zed falls on a

spectrum between IDE and editor from say

Visual Studio to

Nano and where should it land idees have

always had a certain connotation for me

that comes from idees I've used in the

past which is they have a lot of

features but you always seem to have to

pay for those features uh in the form of

either sluggish UI or a cluttered UI or

both seems like maybe jet brains has

done a better job like streamlining the

look of their UI but it still doesn't

feel feel quite as fast as the vibe I

would get in what traditionally I would

call an editor so something like them or

back in the day like textmate I just

remember the contrast

between text like you know early in my

career writing Ruby and textmate where

really you know there wasn't a lot of

help but it was at least fast um and

then you know eventually adopting Ruby M

or whatever and getting all that power

but just being so frustrated with the

latency um so it's always been this

trade-off and my dream has always been

to have po to have a tool that was

incredibly powerful um but also had a

Sleek minimal Vibe and super fast super

fast and those are tough to combine I

mean yeah sort of spent like most of my

career trying to get to the point where

we could combine them um but that's the

goal but I always want to air on the

side of minimalism in the ux and yeah

the analogy I always use was like on the

model S Teslas where you walk up and the

door handle like pops out of the side so

it's like tucked away when it doesn't

when it would create drag you know but

then available at just the right moment

that's the dream so

performance as many features as possible

but

not at the cost of performance or

minimalism or bloat or something yeah

not at the cost of slowness and noise um

like keep my code front and center and

don't introduce latency between the

fundamental act that I'm trying to

achieve which is editing that code right

like that fundamental experience needs

to be fast no matter what Antonio do you

want to add something yeah I mean yeah a

couple of thoughts like one one thought

is this you know my the first

programming language that I picked up

was uh C and I used to be a Windows user

so I remember like opening Visual Studio

not Visual Studio code this is you know

OG visual ual studio and like they had

this loading screen because like the the

the startup time was so slow that like

it would you know it would be like

Visual Studio 2005 whatever loading you

know dll 1 2 3 BL blah um so yeah that

was yeah same same as Nathan like the

contrast from that to using I think was

text mate that I used U after that was

insane um yeah I think like the

distinction between IDE and editor I

don't know I don't haven't really

thought about you know why you know it

exists to me like I don't know like I

would love to have all the features of

an IDE and I think it is possible for an

Editor to have all those features the

theory I have and I just formulated this

Theory so I some very well thought

through is that I think it is possible

to combine them all it's just that I

don't know my sense is that those slow

IDs are just the result of you know

tacking things on you know adding things

on top like bolting them on it's like oh

we could have this this feature okay

let's add it we could have this other

feature okay let's add it and like then

you end up with a list of like check

boxes and like things that are not

really you know integrated with with one

another so you have all these features

but they're not you know thought through

U vertically I don't know if that's true

or not but that's that's always the

impression I had you know oh let's add

another checkbox but it's it's not

really like you know the vibe we're

going for with Z yeah I guess the thing

is you know maybe it was a trick

question because this line between IDE

and editor it's not that clearcut

anymore is it like 10 years 15 years ago

you had Nano right no no language aware

features not even syntax highlighting I

don't think Nano ever had syntax

highlighting or was wasn't there Nano X

not sure but none of that and then

Visual Studio on the other side and now

with language servers treesitter all of

this stuff that you can plug into

editors things have changed and I guess

the interesting bit is is you know where

do we want to land like what you said

Nathan like which tradeoffs do we want

to make and what things will we not

adopt that an IDE has or what things you

know do we want to adopt I think I think

things have the situation has improved a

lot since there since the time when

there was a really big distinction

between editors and and Ides I think I

think the language server protocol

helped a lot uh Tre Setter helped some

for the editor to be like smarter than

you know have a like basic awareness of

Syntax for me like I think the

architecture we're at where the editor

has like syntax awareness and then for

like semantic understanding we call out

to a language server that like is not

coupled to any one editor is a pretty

good architecture and that's see like

that's kind of how you know Vim when

people say editor versus IDE usually

like in the editor camp they're talking

about vim and emac is like the point

essential editor but even those tools

now have LSP support and Tre sitter

inside so I I kind of think we're like

converging on a better design where like

editors have syntax awareness and not

just Zed but editors in general um but I

I still think

like there's improvements to be made

like one thing that you know I'm

thinking about ux that I still enjoy in

ide even though it's not it's not like I

would it wouldn't make me use them but

like I I still enjoy the act of like

renaming a variable in intellig and like

it highlights it you're editing and it's

like live editing the names in the other

places and I remember that was the thing

when we implemented rename and Zed that

was the thing in my mind I was like

that's a pretty cool thing that they do

with all their you know built-in

language analysis and we try we we like

explored doing it um you know we have

this combination of syntax awareness

with Tre sitter and then like a rename

call that we can do to a language server

and and that like I think for the most

part that's a pretty good it gives you

what you want it doesn't quite let us do

all the fancy stuff that IDE do but

maybe there's like room

for expanding what treesitter can do and

what the language server can do to like

let

us um you know do things like that so do

you think say performance wasn't an

issue and say it could be tucked away to

use Nathan's analogy is there anything

thing that comes to mind from the IDE

world that you would never add to zed

because you think this does not fit in

here this is not a z editor thing this

is an IDE type of thing not that I can

think of mhm I just like the term IDE

just always seemed weird to me like yeah

but I get the distinction but I don't

know it's a code editor you're just

trying to get work done as yeah I guess

so to integrate the development of

environment I guess I mean one thing

we're adding is like I think you know if

we're whatever it means to integrate the

development environment but one thing

that a lot of idees don't do a good job

integrating into the development

experience is the fact that other people

exist and that we're collaborating so

like I think we're kind of continuing

that IDE Vision by integrating yet more

concerns because that's the idea of an

IDE right it's it's not like I edit over

here and then I got my terminal and I'm

switching back and forth and I'm using

this like Hodge of tools it's all

combined into one experience and so I

think collaboration could be included in

that but no the only thing I want to

ditch from ades is the slowness and

the and the buttons

everywhere yeah so okay that's but

that's interesting that means when you

you're saying you want to integrate all

of it at basically no cost that's the

goal right no performance cost no

clutter cost so there's this other

spectrum of editor

and I would say on one end there's emac

on the other end there's vim and there's

multiple in between of course but on

emac the one end is to me editor as the

operating system you have this one thing

and you do everything in there and that

is the force multiplier because you are

always in emac and your shell is in emac

your compiler runs in emac your emails

your coffee machine everything's emac

means you you never have to leave it and

you're much more productive right

writing emails cooking coffee then on

the other hand there was this article I

think was by now 10 years ago somebody

was saying uh Unix as the IDE them is

the one tool in this environment of

other tools and that's where its power

comes from it's just one of many tools

so what you're saying that you want to

integrate more does that mean you're

tending more towards the emac side of

things and saying the power comes from

us putting more stuff into Zed for

example collaboration so you know it's

it's yeah I mean I don't want to like

the I want to surface like the fact that

a command line exists and like I like

that world I hate the world of there's

some esoteric project file that has all

of the details like that's very xcode

right where like interesting xcode P or

whatever and like everything is done via

this like point and click I don't know

so like that I don't want so maybe

that's an answer to that earlier

question of like I don't want like to

replace the command L experience with

buttons like that I don't think is a big

deal like I I I like being close to the

machine and communicating with the

machine linguistically but I would also

like if I don't know so I want the IDE

to be aware of and integrated cleanly

with the fact that there is a terminal

and there is a command line and and Aid

void the state where we try to like

Define everything in this visual

Paradigm be a natural outgrowth of Unix

the Unix philosophy and complemented I

think is more my

speed um but yeah if I can like hit a

single key binding instead of switching

to the terminal hitting up and hitting

inner to run a test which like uh you

know K and P are working on I'll take it

but like I don't want it hidden from me

the fact that that's just running a

command yeah that's a good I like that

Bare Bones Vibe yeah but just be

productive in it I think that might also

be one thing that I associated with

idees in that you just boot it up and

then you hit that green play button and

you don't know what happens but somebody

told you this is how you run it and then

when something goes wrong you don't know

what exactly happened there I feel like

so I don't want magic sorry yeah no no

yeah that's what you don't want right

you don't want this abstract way in

hidden but you want it cleanly supported

yeah anything to add into a new Max emx

versus wh where does it land with a z

land yeah um not not much to add I I I

think that yeah I don't want to abstract

away um like Nathan said I don't think

we want to abstract away things like git

and cargo test um but I also think

there's times when like the most

efficient way to use a tool is not

through the command line I think and I'm

I'm a little skep iCal of the like Unix

as the IDE Vision where it's like you're

fast like that the fastest possible user

experience for anyone no matter how good

their muscle memory is just to like

shell out to to like a code like if they

want to look up something like shell out

to do a command line search for it I

think that often we're going to by

integrating into the tool you can kind

of have a faster keyboard driven

workflow than than having

and anything you could do with like a

terminal editor running in a terminal

yeah but I mean I don't think we're

going to be building an email client

into Zed I could see building an email

client in gpy because I they all drive

me

crazy I mean it's definitely not at the

top of a list and it would

come those kinds of things would come I

would be very careful before adding them

because I I would worry they would

dilute our Focus so um if we become

extensible enough such that someone

could build an email client like cool um

but that seems like a ways out and not

our priority at all our priority is wri

in software and how do extensions fit in

because I do think that there might be a

danger

of extensions ruining this concept where

you add so many extensions and then

people say this is now slow there's like

15,000 buttons in the UI and then every

company has like a z default plug-in

configuration

and we end up with you know 50,000

buttons and it takes 30 seconds to boot

up like how do you see extensions coming

into this here I think it'll be I don't

want to say there's anything that we

won't let extensions do but I I

definitely think there's going to be a

our first several like Milestones with

extensions is going to be more about

like plugging into existing Zed features

and um you know obviously first one

adding languages but I think also things

like um you know we're adding this task

system and extensions that like help you

discover tasks to run and expose them to

you so there's like an existing workflow

all users ofet have and the extension

enriches like I think that's a very

there's a lot of mileage we can get out

of that or you know extensions letting

you kind of script workflows that are

unique to you like um opening files

looking for certain types of code in

certain files doing things with your

cursor in certain files making edits

that that you personally make you more

productive that that's like my priority

with extensions right now and less like

adding adding any new UI or like

building an email client building a

concept that doesn't even exist instead

using extensions I think it's something

we we may do but it's not

um I don't know it's we're not it's not

going to be like whereas like with Adam

from the start extend everything was an

extension so like everything we did had

to be doable via an extension it's it's

a different approach than that um and I

really think oh go ahead go ahead I

don't think that having a lot of

extensions has to be slow but that is

going to involve carefully engineering

the apis and how we run extensions like

they're going to be running isolated in

their own web assembly runtime on their

own thread I do think as we if we ever

put an extension and I don't know that

we ever will but if we ever did like say

we would put an EXT ition um on the

critical path of typing so that like

maybe it could inspect every character

you're inserting and do something I

would always want to if we ever did that

put like a deadline around it I think

I've talked about this in other

scenarios like where there there

explicit performance bounds that the

extension author has to hit or we just

like disable the extension so I think

there are ways now and then when you're

saying like thousands of buttons like

that's another matter um but again when

we add those extension points where we

allow to be surfaced that's going to

require us thinking pretty carefully

about how to tuck those things away uh

and

avoid chaos but at least from

performance like the problem with Adam

was we just like ran people's extensions

on the main threet like

goodbye We're not gonna make that

mistake again yeah Antonio you were

trying to jump in oh yeah I think one

example that comes to mind and you know

one could say a lot of things about Mech

API you know I I certainly could say a

lot of things about

apis uh interacting with them as as a

nightmare sometimes but you know if you

if you think about an iPhone and like an

application on an iPhone there's no way

you can like go in the home screen and

kind of clutter you know the the base

experience right and I really like that

it's like okay you have a lot of

flexibility right but you know it's in

places where like don't degrade the

overall experience and so yeah like

Nathan was saying saying like it's going

to be like a not only an engineering

effort I think also like a ux effort

understanding like what you know what

those uh extension points are what those

seams are and where where to plug them

but yeah I like the idea of yeah doing

it uh the Apple Way in that in that

sense um but I mean that's really hard

no in that the easy way easy that's also

hard but the easy way would be to just

restrict a lot of things and say say

extensions can only do this and this and

that but I do think I mean I think

Nathan you mentioned it last time that

we do want something like scriptability

right and we do have things like

presetter which allow you to really in a

nice way you know modify the code or

script around it so we want to expose

some of this but isn't that really hard

to find that exact spot where you give

enough power without the whole thing

falling over I think I don't know I'm

feeling pretty bullish about our

current

design of using web assmbly and

eventually we could do the same thing in

like a V8 isolate or presumably python

has their own equivalent if we had to

going that way our whole application is

multi-threaded we have a real clear

distinction between the main thread and

the rest we have shared memory

concurrency um so yeah it's hard we've

put a lot of investment into the

technical choices we we've made

uh to make it doable at least from a

performance perspective but yeah I mean

I don't take it lightly um but I also

think that like we are positioned to do

it well uh if we think carefully as we

proceed from a design perspective but

yeah it's hard building apis I mean we

really learned that with Adam of just

like having an extension API is really

hard uh versioning it uh evolving it CH

it's all challenging but I think having

done it once before I made a lot of

mistakes we're pretty well positioned to

avoid those mistakes and the foundation

that we have is pretty solid so when you

then say scriptability

um what do you have in mind like what

would be oh let's take a step back sorry

I I do think with the stuff that Zed has

and treit I think there's a lot of

powerful stuff you can build on top of

it or in extensions if that stuff works

Expos and I'm

wondering what do you have in mind what

do you think would be the first big

milestone for script ability or

extensions or something like

that I mean and it being possible be

great because there's a lot of people

that want that yeah um so that's one

thing so that means just you know the

ability to modify tax with Tre apis or

syntactic we apis or something like

that yeah um I don't even know how Sy

Ally aware em it needs to be but

obviously it would be potentially

helpful in making sure that we're doing

these expansions in this particular

example and in a context where it makes

sense I mean yeah the hard part for me

is like my imagination runs a little

short on this because like I don't need

to write any extensions since I can just

do whatever I want to do write in the

editor but maybe you guys have better

ideas like off the top of your head for

me it's a Val what I like about it is

that I don't know what people are going

to going to do with it although that is

challenging like you do need

to build an API with something in mind

for what people can do um so specific

use cases I I haven't maybe spent enough

time thinking about the max do you have

any more having dug in started working

on it yeah for scripting I mean I can

imagine myself wanting

to have uh like simple commands that I

might run where I would like I'm in a

pain editing some file and I run a

command and it uses a combination of

tree sitter and like GP to like look for

tests for the file that I'm in and like

open them up in another pain and a split

or something and like put my cursor just

like you

know scroll the view to show the

test um or yeah things like that like

moving searching for things in the

project searching for things in a buffer

searching using rexes searching using

syntax positioning cursors maybe doing

edits I feel like there's like a I can

think of a lot you could do with like a

pretty small number of apis like that

where if you you can open a pane you can

you can find the open pane you can you

can do a search I'm imagining at

different different code bases people

would have certain things that they do a

lot like you know maybe if you're

working I don't know like on a rails

code base and you want to like open the

what I don't even remember now

controller tests for the controller

scripts in Vim that would do stuff like

that and would be a lot of times with

just GP it would be done and um but

stuff like that I want to make really

because I think that is important for

people's productivity and I think it's

not it's like pretty low hanging in that

like you don't need to build custom UI

for it you just need these like ability

to Min editors and pains and it's really

um a lot of the productivity in

scripting is around like core features

like that

um I want to do a good job with those

apis one issue that came up I think a

couple weeks back where some user was

saying I want to be able to execute any

function that I have my cursor on and

then the first reaction from bunch of us

was what what does that mean but I think

now that we've talked with the user I

think what they want is similar to I

think what you have in emac where you

could put your curse on any s expression

and then say evaluate this and that's

why I think we we could do something

like this with tri right you could say

I'm in a ruby file so now when I hit

this key binding evaluate the expression

or the biggest block or whatever it is

that I have my cursor in um so that

stuff would be really cool this

interactive evaluation of code syntax

like bringing in um Kyle Kelly like he's

been playing around with just like a

couple days with was it look like to get

Jupiter runtime support um yeah where

you can yeah so what would the extension

API look like for that it might not be

like everything you need to build the

Jupiter integration but it might be like

oh this exists and um you can reach out

and gra tree sitter and call the other

API to a valent and appropriate runtime

yeah that would be awesome and for me

the the thing I've always thought is

just like the ability for people to just

solve their own problems um is going to

scale much better long term I think than

uh us trying to solve everybody's

problems for them just doesn't scale and

we could build you know a version of Zed

for python and a version of Zed like I

think jet brains takes that path but I'd

much rather build one tool that uh is

flexible enough for people to make their

own that was the same dream behind Adam

we just took it you know we turned the

dial to 11 and which I'd love to get the

dial to 11 but maybe it gets to 11 in

year four instead of year one like uh

sort of incrementally get there while

holding our other values uh constant and

I do think I mean correct me if I wrong

here but there's this I don't know why

I'm thinking in terms of these axes but

batteries included versus nothing at all

right you you Z out of the box right now

understands a lot of languages

understands a lot of language servers

people call it out and they say nice I

open that the first time in my tpes

project and it immediately did Auto

complete in all of this super cool do

you think there's a limit to that where

you know this is the core subset of

batteries included but no more than

eight batteries 10 batteries is a little

bit too much something like this the

rest you have to go with

extensions be I mean and again like I

think the hard part it might be

everybody needs a different battery

right for whatever they're doing but

what are your thoughts on this yeah for

me like whenever we include something in

the editor I feel like we're making a

promise that's going to work as certain

way and so like basically like

classifies this core as like as like

things that we can you know uphold where

we can uphold that promise to our users

yeah everything else I don't know it's

like I mean of course yeah like you said

everybody needs types you know different

types of batteries and you know um yeah

I'm not sure like yeah where to draw the

line um I that is where you draw it

though yeah it's just like it is not

humanly possible and and we want to grow

our team but even if we do grow our team

like it's just not possible for our team

to cover every everything like but it is

possible for us to cover a lot and I at

the end of the day people just want an

editor that works the way they want it

to

work I think like they don't I don't

know I guess there is a some set of

people that really get off on like you

know engineering their own keyboard out

of wood with like uh doing their own

soldering and then customizing their

editor you know they just want an editor

tool and put it all together but I think

the vast majority of people kind of me

included would be happier if they just

turn it on and it works um so yeah

that's kind of we're trying to find the

right balance there I think like we took

a lot of languages into core because we

didn't have extensibility quite ready um

some of those were going to be spinning

back out because it's just like the

quality of that experience is going to

be higher if people other than us are

maintaining it so it really just boils

end that like I think Antonio you got to

it great like can we

and we're not yeah we're going to try

but like you you know we may drop the

ball from time to time like forget to

update a language server to the latest

version or we're not using the right one

um but like I think that's the right

attitude like if it's in the core then

it should be good and we're maintaining

that and there's only so many of us so

many hours in the day did you have this

uh principle say 8 weeks ago was this

newly formed when we hit

you know the open sourcing of Zed and

all of the issues came in and the pull

requests oh we knew it would be like

this yeah I I did yeah uh it's why

extensibility was like pretty high up in

the road map because and Linux as well

both of those

because those are both kind of like we

knew people would want to get it working

on Linux and whether we liked it or not

or you know scheduled it then or not

people were going to attempt to

contribute on that front so we wanted to

be receptive to that and then we knew

that people were going to attempt to

contribute things that yeah Jason

Rudolph who used to work with us on Adam

said like yeah open source contributions

are sometimes like someone giving you a

free puppy and

like so it's to feed it scheduling the

extensibility now is very deliberate

which is like we knew uh we didn't want

to delay o Source on that stuff being

ready but we knew like pretty soon we'd

need kind of an escape for free puppies

that we just couldn't adopt and also I

want to add on top of that that's not to

say that if something's in the core you

know it's still an open source project

like people can still help us maintain

you know improve the quality of that

yeah um it's just like yeah the barrier

to entry I guess is going to be a little

higher you know we're going to we're

going to be more we're going to feel

more responsible about maintaining you

know a certain type of quality uh for

anything that goes into core so I don't

know how to formulate this and in it's

sounds they mean it less controversial

it sounds but okay we've all been

involved in this one issue where the key

bindings were changed from The Zed key

bindings to the vs code key bindings

yes so this was uh yesterday right yes

yesterday default key binding changed to

one that was more vs code like and I do

think you know you all powered through

or are powering through I don't know if

you changed it locally still powering

through yeah through never give up but I

think I think it brings up an

interesting question where you know

would you ever tell a user not in these

words but through the product

that hey the way you've been doing it is

wrong or here's a better way when

somebody says hey here's here's

something we should build in the editor

like I don't know I want to show

pictures next to my code so I can type

off code of pixelated jpack so whatever

it is is I don't know dumb example is

this something where you would say no we

found a better way to do this this is

not something we want in here or would

you always

say whatever you want like you you want

a shortcut to duplicate a line 5,000

times and that's built in go for it you

know does anything come to mind here

where you say this is our philosophy of

text editing and we know what it is and

if you know there's stuff that can bump

against it and that we don't want inste

I think for me I like to not

I you know in that instance of the

switching our bindings to be more like

VSS code even though it was going to be

painful for all of us like for me what

won out was like being if there's

something that we can just be compatible

with such that we don't have to explain

anything to anyone someone is going to

show up and it's just going to just work

for them with no explanation from us

needed I value that really highly um and

that's why I even though I think the key

bindings are I don't like the new

default key bindings as much like there

you know we we basically added a key

binding for alt up back when that didn't

I don't think that conflicted with

anything and vs code didn't have a

default binding for select larger syntax

node that that's example that I'm keep

bumping up against and so we picked one

but now the vs code ships with that

feature um and they have a default

binding for it I think it makes sense

for us

to um use it because it's still you know

if someone really hates it they can

customize it I might have to do that

because I'm not able so far to get used

to the VSS code one um but I I really do

value being just sort of compatible with

any standards that exist not that vs

code is a standard but it's just a it's

a lot of our a lot of people um yeah 75%

of the market or something like yeah

yeah so if there's something like that

we can just work with I'm going to air

on the side of kind of adopting that

being standard fitting in with the

ecosystem but then there's other things

right like vs codes I don't think they

have yet added multi buffers and like

that's our find experience and I just

like that better personally than like a

little menu a panel at the bottom where

it's showing you locations and you're

jumping around so we decided to Buck the

trend on that one and we've paid for it

a little bit there are some people that

don't even understand that those things

are editable like they don't you know

it's a little less familiar it's

different so it's not like we're never

willing to let like I don't I think I'll

be pretty disappointed if we just build

like a faster clone of the S code we

have our own things to express but it

needs to be like clearly better or

clearly really matter to what we're

trying to express to deviate that much

from what people expect but I think you

were also asking like how receptive are

we to kind of different ways of doing

things and I think it's going to be Case

by case I don't yeah

I think we'll add a duplicate five times

command the multi buffer I think is a

perfect example and the other thing with

the treesitter select larger and smaller

syntax note I don't think vs code has

this right they don't have the the

syntax not well theya that was what

disrupted me so much is this person like

open a PR which I think was a good

change that they suggested that they

said vs code now has these bindings by

default select larger syntax node

so Z should use the so but yes but when

we first built Z that didn't that wasn't

a thing in BS code yeah I guess you know

say you have the multip is a great

example but say you have the ability to

select I don't know you can jump to the

start of a block and then you can hit

something else to jump to the end of the

block and then that way you could select

the whole block or something like this

and then guess what with freeit you

don't even have to do this you can just

in the block say select this outer scope

or something like this and that to me is

an example of hey we found a better way

to do this and now if somebody were to

come along and say Hey I want this other

way to be built in first class and that

is you know the question of would we

then push back and say no actually we we

think this is a better way but what you

said about the multier sounds like if we

are confident we found a better way to

do something then this is what we want

to do yeah I do think we have a

perspective about how we want what we

want Envision for code ux and it's not

we I want to be standard when when

there's a onetoone thing

to yeah standard to adopt but there

often isn't like um multi buffers is

maybe one of our biggest concept that

doesn't exist in other

editors yeah like I don't I've never

worn the badge opinionated as like a

super big badge of honor cuz like I tend

to find people that are opin kind of

annoying so like I don't yeah I don't

want to be like oh we're so opinionated

we have an opinion on everything and

there's a way to do it and you got to do

it our way that's not how I want to be

uh but I also don't want to be like a

slave to how it's always been done uh I

want to be willing to innovate and go

out on a limb I don't mind like there

being redundant ways of doing things

like if there's a way that people are

used to doing things that maybe is

working for them better than our Better

Way like I would entertain it as long as

it's I don't think for but I don't think

I would like have an alternative to the

multi-buffer for fine that I would want

to maintain just because some people

preferred that like that's a pretty big

feature I want to do it that way so I

feel like it's a case by case thing but

I'm not really here to like ram my way

of doing everything down people's

throats like um yeah I want to innovate

and say Here's a good way I think of

doing things and that we're excited

about um but that aura of like

exclusivity or being a knowitall that is

going to tell you how you should code um

I don't know I'm a little I'm not

that not rotating too hard on that um

yeah here's but there you know there are

some things I think that we found that

are cool multi-buffer being one of them

of like this is just in many cases a

great way of fixing a lot of compile

errors uh so I I want people to try it I

don't know maybe that's a red flag for

people like I'm not opinionated it

enough but yeah I don't think so okay it

just means we can't expect a webinar

from Nathan of the best way to edit text

or something like

this yeah I mean I'm not even using

modal bindings these days because I used

them for a while and I got used to that

but then we wrote Adam and I had to go

back to the emac style bindings and I

just like

never yeah I kind of put up with making

that switching cost of a muscle memory

to Vim just to get like an editor hate

back then um yeah but so yeah I don't

know am I the text editing ninja of the

universe it's unclear no yeah you got

two keyboards though and in VOR so I

mean that's true like pretty ninja to

me yeah Ed the this week uh Antonio and

I were pairing and my Vim muscle memory

is pretty strong and I don't know if he

knows but in Vim he's on but in Vim

sometimes stuff is weird because you

have registers and when you delete text

it gets put in your clipboard and stuff

like this and I subconsciously grown

aware of this where I do weird things

where I paste the thing first versus

deleting something else because deleting

something else might overwrite My

Clipboard and whatnot and Antonio was

watching me when I went into a buffer

and I just wanted to place the whole

content but what I did was I jumped to

the end pasted my stuff there then went

back up selected the top half of the

buffer and then selected this and there

was a pause and he just goes can you do

command a

and past it and then we had to do it two

minutes later and I did it his way and

he he's like thank

you it I realized how awkward it was

what I was doing but I have another

question is there anything that 3 years

ago you said this will be in Zed but you

dropped it because you realize this does

not make sense or it doesn't fit in no

we we added chat like really

early and then realized like okay we're

not even editing in this thing yet what

are we

too we burned a couple weeks on that I

just gotten really excited

about collaboration and I don't know I

wanted to explore it but it was just not

the right time but now it's back uh

still a little unloved although people

from the community I saw someone opened

yeah Everson opened a pork Quest

improving it which is supposed to see so

that was one thing have we dropped

anything else I don't know I don't yeah

there's some stuff I'd like to drop from

like dentation still like the way that

we serialize workspaces I'd likeed to be

simpler but nothing from a product

perspective so far interesting um yeah

but we have so much to build it's like

yeah um yeah I mean it's like uh

skipping a meal when you're already

starting to death or something I don't

yeah so it's like yeah yeah yeah is

there anything you'd like to remove tors

move no

I no remove I I'm I discovered the

journal mode that you apparently added

Nathan two days

ago by accient I just type journal in

the command thing and then I real what

there's a journal mode and I looked at

the G blame and I saw that you added it

and also fun fact that's just 150 lines

right it's not it's one file that does

all of this in Rust was pretty cool yeah

and it's not like the world's greatest

journal or anything it's just like

create a new entry you know that has a

time stamp with directory structure a

certain way it works for me I hav it

like before Z anybody was even using Zed

just because I need it yeah I do think

that's interesting because it doesn't

take up anything it doesn't cost

anything it's just you can type journal

in and if you want it you can get it

otherwise it doesn't hurt you but like

that's an example of something that

should probably be in extension I think

at some point or if it weren't an

extension I would want to like go harder

on it and

really build like a more full-fledged

journaling experience into Z and have it

but it seemed yeah one or the other um

probably the former probably make it

into an extension in the short term um

but it's like not doing that much harm

right it's 150 lines of code

and but most people don't know about it

we don't really advertise it right yeah

what I find interesting is more these

little small decisions that come up

again and again for example do we add

emojis you know to the chat or Emoji

reactions is you know there's like these

small decisions that can have a huge

impact or reactions or something to like

collaboration notes right where somebody

could leave a thumbs up or something or

do we display images is marked down by

default rendered and or always enabled

and I

think I don't know I see these come by

in pull requests and I find it really

hard I I find it easy to overthink them

right it's oh does this put us in a

different direction instead of emojis

should we have pixelated emojis is this

more in line with the aesthetic of you

know something like this

um but yeah I don't know I I think it's

really hard to find to find a principle

that you can hold through all of these

decisions I agree and yeah i' would be

lying if I said I had it all figured out

and all in my head I think we're all

like just like finding our way and the

code you own ends up owning you so like

that's one thing I'm just cognizant of

is like as we add these things these are

things that whenever we when we changed

the foundation on which that thing is

built you know now we have to go visit

it and deal with it it just adds surface

area and mass so that's the only that's

one thing and then like yeah that's

interesting Emoji R like that sounds

good to me other than we have to

maintain it and keep it working yeah um

but like those specific examples

examples sound good but it just seems

like something we'll have to figure out

as we go like yeah I guess I'd like to

be as big a tent as possible and be

inclusive and include a lot of people's

workflows without

being a Frankenstein and that's a tough

balance to strike but maybe we could

sort of like overcorrect in One

Direction like add something in and then

just realize like we can't have this

anymore it's kind of tough to take it

away cuz now it's kind of like you're

taking something away from people but

that's if you're willing to do that then

you're willing to kind of take more risk

as well in what you had um so yeah I

don't want to be like uh ill-considered

and there I I still think there are ways

for where Zed P parts of Zed can be

better resonant with other parts of Z

and there could be a more

holistic product Vision although I can't

come with any specific examples right

now so that there's that um but like

yeah so I want it to feel like a

holistically thought through

well-designed product um and so sort of

the more we expand our surface area and

the faster we do that the more

challenging it will be but I'm willing

to kind of get there sort of add stuff

and then integrate it um that's where my

head's at and we'll see if that ends up

being a good idea and how that works out

and we can adjust that's where my head's

at now cool I think that's it right

we're coming up on time does anybody

else want to add anything thing like

never coffee machine support in Z my

name stands behind this oh if it's an

espresso machine there you go

then foot pedal support in that yeah

like one crazy thing that someone's

brought up and I thought about too is

like could we embed you know the

platform specific browser so that people

could like pull up a tab that's pointing

at the site that they're building or

something yeah um you know and that's

one example of like web technology is

slow so I don't want to bring it

in but then that does have utility so

like I don't know I think that is

potentially pretty cool and like but I

don't know yeah there's no like yeah you

could maybe list some outlandish things

that I would say like yeah I don't know

it doesn't seem like we need coffee

machine support in that's for sure

um but nice yeah that's cool

I think it's I don't know we

don't just from mying the way I see it

it sounds like you have pretty strong

principles right and from from that the

rest flows as in what you said about

extensions I

think it's

pretty it says a lot when you say an

extension only has this amount of time

to do something

otherwise you know it's disabled or we

we ignored result or something like this

because that already says a value is

performance a value is speed latency and

that I think then ripples through the

rest of the system or the rest of the

community like I don't want it to be the

ideal that our North Star is like you

can't make your Zen slow like yes

because ultimately the bot stops with us

and so it's like if that means that you

can't add a feature because the author

of that feature like just didn't have

the skill or the time or whatever to

like meet your the

deadline then like I'd rather you have a

faster Z with fewer

extensions you know then letting us get

to a point where we bog down and then

we're like oh well it's you installed

too many extensions it's just like I

don't want that to be a state you can

get to so I hope we can stick to that

yeah that's cool the other thing I

noticed is this week well basically

today it changes things when you have

such an engaged community in that I

think in the worst case you put some

stuff in it goes out into the world you

don't know if anybody uses it it you

don't know whether you can remove it

cannot remove it you don't know if it

slows somebody's machine down but in

this case I changed something two weeks

ago and today people were saying Hey I

want do you think this is the good you

know the right decision can we change

this back what do you think about this

what do you think about that and this

constant form of feedback also changes

because you you you have feedbacks only

you can make these decisions and it's

not just oh you know we added all of

this stuff and we didn't know that it

boots up in 18 seconds for people

because we don't use 42 extensions or

something like this so I find it

interesting the community has this Fe

form of feedback and seeing how the

product is used in the real world I love

that yeah I mean we need the engagement

of the community cuz like I don't know I

don't even have my head wrapped around

everything that's going on in Zed right

now um and like people are going to be

able to put a lot more thought into

particular nuances that

than I might be able to so thanks

everybody that's listening to this yeah

well thank you thank you for doing this

I think we're at time right sounds good

yeah cool cool cool

Namaste bye