Go is my the most favourite language, so I'm happy to see a Go based editor. However this days I'm writing code mainly in typescript (for Cloudflare workers). TS is the most popular language and you guys will definitely need to prioritize TS.
I like the idea of making it trivial to work across multiple machines but I’d really prefer not to have to trust your coordination server and encryption approach etc.
Could this (optionally) just run over Tailscale (I suppose ssh is always an option)
Yes, SSH is always an option, but it could totally work with a Tailscale network. In fact, we embed tsnet in Rune and use headscale as the coordination server, so there's nothing special about Rune's network. In the future, we're planning on adding more clients (iOS, Android), so hopefully it'll be more compelling then.
> we will give participating contributors a contractual right to share in the revenue generated by Rune, directly or indirectly.
this sounds like a terrible idea.
the only incentive to contribute to your project should be to fix a bug or contribute a feature upstream you yourself need.
consider the fallout of Hacktoberfest, 'Tide' or the ai produced PR spam for social clout on GitHub as of today and then imagine what happens if someone provides a direct financial incentive to do it.
(I will try this as soon as there is a package in Fedora... That's my personal subjective bar to choosing a new EDITOR. But I definitely hope this succeeds, I'm a fan so far.)
I've been using Arch Linux and macOS for the longest time, so I never saw the appeal with flatpak. It could be a good option until Rune is popular enough. fwiw I'm also working on a cask for homebrew.
Claude in a terminal is becoming more and more my IDE. I use emacs to do some edits or to look at some files, but orders of magnitude less than when I wrote all the code.
Syntax highlighting? Yes, for readability. Completion? I noticed today that maybe I broke the language server for Ruby but I didn't bother to investigate. Maybe next week, or next month.
Git log, blame, diff, yes, as usual.
I don't see a bright future for IDEs. Vi or emacs from the 90s could be all we need.
Non developers using AIs to vibe code their projects maybe won't need any editor at all, nor an IDE.
That’s exactly why Rune is also a terminal multiplexer. Rune acts as a bridge between automated and manual programming. You can fuzzy-search for symbols and files and reference them right from the chat UI, without having to copy and paste. When the agent is working, it uses Rune’s symbol index and IDE-grade toolset instead of greping the codebase. It also gets compilation errors right after applying patches.
And this is just the beginning. I think there’s so much more to explore in this space.
What about search, and "find usages", and other affordances for navigating the codebase? I know vi can search within a file, but I think with larger codebases you need something more powerful.
I have found that I need more than this. A document viewer is critical so I can see HTML prototypes, review docs and other output and give feedback contextually inline (through a commenting system). I also need a task lists for my project/ agents so I can see where things are. I created an app like this for myself that is built around an integrated terminal, after I had the epiphany that VS Code (and VIM) were becoming the wrong tool because I am not actually spending time _writing_ the code.
Author here! The post explains some of the details behind using Go as the primary language for building an IDE. It also introduces our novel contributor program, which will distribute some of Unstable Build's proceeds amongst participating developers, as opposed to making them sign a CLA to surrender their rights to a company. Happy to answer questions!
The open ledger and profit-sharing for contributors might be an even more interesting innovation than the IDE itself. I like my existing IDE but Rune looks very nice so I'll certainly give it a whirl.
I'm always looking for new gui code editors. For me right now Vscode is still the top (and since I've been trying Lean out it's required). Zed is a very close second.
One thing I would like to see on the home page is a video showing it being used. Also would like to see how it looks in a light theme. The repository says it's keyboard driven does that mean it's modal or can I still use it like a normal modeless editor?
> One thing I would like to see on the home page is a video showing it being used.
Fair point. I've been meaning to record a video for a while, but I hate being in front of a camera.
> Also would like to see how it looks in a light theme.
Not great. I prefer dark themes so I haven't spent enough time making it look good on a light theme.
> The repository says it's keyboard driven does that mean it's modal or can I still use it like a normal modeless editor?
There's three modes, vim, emacs and standard, which determine the key bindings not just when opening a file, but also everywhere else. https://docs.rune.build/learn/standard-editor
vtebench is just what I've been wanting! Rune looks pretty cool too. Awesome to see people working on polishing things.
I've been building my own editor and gui toolkit, but modeled on Cocoa/OpenStep and similarly found tuning terminal performance involved more about tuning memory access and storage. That sounds somewhat similar to the experience in TFA.
Go is my the most favourite language, so I'm happy to see a Go based editor. However this days I'm writing code mainly in typescript (for Cloudflare workers). TS is the most popular language and you guys will definitely need to prioritize TS.
I like the idea of making it trivial to work across multiple machines but I’d really prefer not to have to trust your coordination server and encryption approach etc.
Could this (optionally) just run over Tailscale (I suppose ssh is always an option)
https://docs.rune.build/learn/network
Yes, SSH is always an option, but it could totally work with a Tailscale network. In fact, we embed tsnet in Rune and use headscale as the coordination server, so there's nothing special about Rune's network. In the future, we're planning on adding more clients (iOS, Android), so hopefully it'll be more compelling then.
> we will give participating contributors a contractual right to share in the revenue generated by Rune, directly or indirectly.
this sounds like a terrible idea. the only incentive to contribute to your project should be to fix a bug or contribute a feature upstream you yourself need.
consider the fallout of Hacktoberfest, 'Tide' or the ai produced PR spam for social clout on GitHub as of today and then imagine what happens if someone provides a direct financial incentive to do it.
(I will try this as soon as there is a package in Fedora... That's my personal subjective bar to choosing a new EDITOR. But I definitely hope this succeeds, I'm a fan so far.)
It’s a long process to get into Fedora, but we’re gonna give it a shot for sure.
It is, but you can start with a COPR repo instead.
Since it's written in Go, you might want to reach out to the Fedora Go SIG and see if they can help you. :)
:) https://forge.fedoraproject.org/go/sig/issues/1#issuecomment...
what about flatpak?
I've been using Arch Linux and macOS for the longest time, so I never saw the appeal with flatpak. It could be a good option until Rune is popular enough. fwiw I'm also working on a cask for homebrew.
Claude in a terminal is becoming more and more my IDE. I use emacs to do some edits or to look at some files, but orders of magnitude less than when I wrote all the code.
Syntax highlighting? Yes, for readability. Completion? I noticed today that maybe I broke the language server for Ruby but I didn't bother to investigate. Maybe next week, or next month.
Git log, blame, diff, yes, as usual.
I don't see a bright future for IDEs. Vi or emacs from the 90s could be all we need.
Non developers using AIs to vibe code their projects maybe won't need any editor at all, nor an IDE.
That’s exactly why Rune is also a terminal multiplexer. Rune acts as a bridge between automated and manual programming. You can fuzzy-search for symbols and files and reference them right from the chat UI, without having to copy and paste. When the agent is working, it uses Rune’s symbol index and IDE-grade toolset instead of greping the codebase. It also gets compilation errors right after applying patches.
And this is just the beginning. I think there’s so much more to explore in this space.
What about search, and "find usages", and other affordances for navigating the codebase? I know vi can search within a file, but I think with larger codebases you need something more powerful.
I have found that I need more than this. A document viewer is critical so I can see HTML prototypes, review docs and other output and give feedback contextually inline (through a commenting system). I also need a task lists for my project/ agents so I can see where things are. I created an app like this for myself that is built around an integrated terminal, after I had the epiphany that VS Code (and VIM) were becoming the wrong tool because I am not actually spending time _writing_ the code.
Lovely write-up! Will take a look at rune as an alternative to my Zed setup.
Not because I dislike Zed, I'm just addicted to trying out IDEs :)
Thanks! We spend so many hours staring at these UIs.. I totally get it. It’s like driving a new car.
Do I have to use Rune Network? Can it can run offline?
Yes, you can disable it but if you don't login with your Rune account, it won't ever connect. You can also disable auto-joining, even if logged in, with the following config: https://github.com/unstablebuild/rune/blob/main/cmd/rune/run...
Author here! The post explains some of the details behind using Go as the primary language for building an IDE. It also introduces our novel contributor program, which will distribute some of Unstable Build's proceeds amongst participating developers, as opposed to making them sign a CLA to surrender their rights to a company. Happy to answer questions!
The open ledger and profit-sharing for contributors might be an even more interesting innovation than the IDE itself. I like my existing IDE but Rune looks very nice so I'll certainly give it a whirl.
Thanks! We're still working on the legal details, but should have something finalized in the coming weeks.
I'm always looking for new gui code editors. For me right now Vscode is still the top (and since I've been trying Lean out it's required). Zed is a very close second.
One thing I would like to see on the home page is a video showing it being used. Also would like to see how it looks in a light theme. The repository says it's keyboard driven does that mean it's modal or can I still use it like a normal modeless editor?
> One thing I would like to see on the home page is a video showing it being used. Fair point. I've been meaning to record a video for a while, but I hate being in front of a camera.
> Also would like to see how it looks in a light theme. Not great. I prefer dark themes so I haven't spent enough time making it look good on a light theme.
> The repository says it's keyboard driven does that mean it's modal or can I still use it like a normal modeless editor? There's three modes, vim, emacs and standard, which determine the key bindings not just when opening a file, but also everywhere else. https://docs.rune.build/learn/standard-editor
vtebench is just what I've been wanting! Rune looks pretty cool too. Awesome to see people working on polishing things.
I've been building my own editor and gui toolkit, but modeled on Cocoa/OpenStep and similarly found tuning terminal performance involved more about tuning memory access and storage. That sounds somewhat similar to the experience in TFA.
Lovely to see, this was my main gripe the last I saw it. Also great to see it under the GPLv3, and not some crap like MIT.