{"slug": "acme", "name": "Acme", "category": "editors", "category_name": "Editors and IDEs", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 7, "warners": 0, "score": 4.315, "rising": 1.35, "first": "2025-11-21", "latest": "2026-10-08", "why": "I think that Acme is very underrated in its domain", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 2, "compare": 1, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I think that Acme is very underrated in its domain", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": "9p.io", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Acme", "acme", "ACME"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 800201536, "item_id": 50012596, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50012596", "by": "e12e", "date": "2026-10-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It might be different if these things leaned a little bit into acme", "excerpt": "It might be different if these things leaned a little bit into acme - or at least had some justification for what was similar and what was difficult [hah, Freudian autocorrect. Meant: different]. Like; do you want to be a powerful text-oriented tool, or just a mostly-dumb print out? There are reasons for both - but ignorance shouldn't be one. https://9p.io/wiki/plan9/Using_acme/index.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: K10s \u2013 A Clickable Kubernetes TUI (Go, Bubble Tea)"}, {"id": 790473954, "item_id": 49404622, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49404622", "by": "MisterTea", "date": "2026-08-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you look at the Sam and Acme text editors you will find they are true modern TUI programs.", "excerpt": "Look at Plan 9's devdraw. https://man.9front.org/3/draw devdraw can be thought of as a 2D rendering engine. You load assets like text, bitmaps and so on then issue draw commands to render them. There is no SSH. Instead you connect to a remote machine and export resources served by your local machine including your keyboard, mouse and display, each of which is a network transparent microservice. The window manager, Ri", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 759451136, "item_id": 47465696, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47465696", "by": "kalterdev", "date": "2026-03-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Rio, Acme, and occasionally Sam from plan9port", "excerpt": "I use Rio, Acme, and occasionally Sam from plan9port [1]. The only major problems are X.org dependency, lack of mouse warping in XWayland (essential for Acme), and slow text rendering on Raspberry Pi 5. [1]: https://9fans.github.io/plan9port/", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "ma"}, {"id": 757308272, "item_id": 47331767, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47331767", "by": "kalterdev", "date": "2026-03-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Acme for everything except web browsing", "excerpt": "Acme [1] It steps down from \u201ccustomize everything\u201d mantra, believing that approach leaves users with an underdeveloped essential system. But it still has two major API: one for windows manipulation [2], the other for text-based integration with the surrounding system via plumber [3]. All textual CLI tools (that is, those without pseudographics) work by default and are the heart of its style. I use Acme for everything", "context": "", "use_case": "modular text editing with CLI tools", "switched_from": "", "story": "Writing my own text editor, and daily-driving it"}, {"id": 753435408, "item_id": 47089713, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47089713", "by": "kalterdev", "date": "2026-02-20", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it\u2019s optimized for this style of work", "excerpt": "When I have this problem, I catenate two outputs: man curl |grep -e -L man curl This way, I have all the matches at hand. When I pick the one I need, I select the line and search for it, finding the next occurrence in the full man-page. Checking sub-command section is trivial as well. Because the editor remembers the exact location of the cursor, you can always go back to it after scrolling up and down however you fe", "context": "", "use_case": "reading man pages in a text editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Notes on Clarifying Man Pages"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "kalterdev", "context": "Software developer with a demanding main job and young family", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46578400", "date": "2026-01-11"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["text editing", "modular text editing with cli tools", "reading man pages in a text editor", "6502 assembler", "note-taking and programming", "certificate automation"], "compared": [{"slug": "sam", "name": "sam", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50009904", "title": "Show HN: K10s \u2013 A Clickable Kubernetes TUI (Go, Bubble Tea)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49384210", "title": "Stop Making TUIs", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47286511", "title": "ma", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47331034", "title": "Writing my own text editor, and daily-driving it", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47065972", "title": "Notes on Clarifying Man Pages", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47057824", "title": "Terminals should generate the 256-color palette", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 1}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {"compare": 1, "recommend": 2}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 800201536, "item_id": 50012596, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50012596", "by": "e12e", "date": "2026-10-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It might be different if these things leaned a little bit into acme", "excerpt": "It might be different if these things leaned a little bit into acme - or at least had some justification for what was similar and what was difficult [hah, Freudian autocorrect. Meant: different]. Like; do you want to be a powerful text-oriented tool, or just a mostly-dumb print out? There are reasons for both - but ignorance shouldn't be one. https://9p.io/wiki/plan9/Using_acme/index.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: K10s \u2013 A Clickable Kubernetes TUI (Go, Bubble Tea)"}, {"id": 790473954, "item_id": 49404622, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49404622", "by": "MisterTea", "date": "2026-08-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you look at the Sam and Acme text editors you will find they are true modern TUI programs.", "excerpt": "Look at Plan 9's devdraw. https://man.9front.org/3/draw devdraw can be thought of as a 2D rendering engine. You load assets like text, bitmaps and so on then issue draw commands to render them. There is no SSH. Instead you connect to a remote machine and export resources served by your local machine including your keyboard, mouse and display, each of which is a network transparent microservice. The window manager, Ri", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 759451136, "item_id": 47465696, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47465696", "by": "kalterdev", "date": "2026-03-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Rio, Acme, and occasionally Sam from plan9port", "excerpt": "I use Rio, Acme, and occasionally Sam from plan9port [1]. The only major problems are X.org dependency, lack of mouse warping in XWayland (essential for Acme), and slow text rendering on Raspberry Pi 5. [1]: https://9fans.github.io/plan9port/", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "ma"}, {"id": 757308272, "item_id": 47331767, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47331767", "by": "kalterdev", "date": "2026-03-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Acme for everything except web browsing", "excerpt": "Acme [1] It steps down from \u201ccustomize everything\u201d mantra, believing that approach leaves users with an underdeveloped essential system. But it still has two major API: one for windows manipulation [2], the other for text-based integration with the surrounding system via plumber [3]. All textual CLI tools (that is, those without pseudographics) work by default and are the heart of its style. I use Acme for everything", "context": "", "use_case": "modular text editing with CLI tools", "switched_from": "", "story": "Writing my own text editor, and daily-driving it"}, {"id": 753435408, "item_id": 47089713, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47089713", "by": "kalterdev", "date": "2026-02-20", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it\u2019s optimized for this style of work", "excerpt": "When I have this problem, I catenate two outputs: man curl |grep -e -L man curl This way, I have all the matches at hand. When I pick the one I need, I select the line and search for it, finding the next occurrence in the full man-page. Checking sub-command section is trivial as well. Because the editor remembers the exact location of the cursor, you can always go back to it after scrolling up and down however you fe", "context": "", "use_case": "reading man pages in a text editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Notes on Clarifying Man Pages"}, {"id": 752986816, "item_id": 47061676, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47061676", "by": "urmane", "date": "2026-02-18", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "one day we will have a new acme, written in common lisp and displaying all the correct colors", "excerpt": "I see TFA mentions Solarized. I've been using Solarized light for longer than I can remember, even on Windows where I can (eg VSCode), and it goes a long way to making my eyes happy. I share the irritation with dark blue on black and can't stand dark mode (maybe I'm now old and no longer 31337 ... alas ...) For my ncurses brothers, saw this but have not used yet: https://github.com/dankamongmen/notcurses For my plan9", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Terminals should generate the 256-color palette"}, {"id": 749749856, "item_id": 46859366, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46859366", "by": "frpa", "date": "2026-02-02", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "It aims for ACME compatibility (same directive syntax, same output format)", "excerpt": "I built a cross-assembler for the 6502/6510 while working on a C64 project. I switch between macOS and Linux frequently, and my previous setup didn't handle that well \u2014 so I wrote my own. ASM64 is pure C99 with no dependencies beyond the standard library. It aims for ACME compatibility (same directive syntax, same output format), so existing projects should migrate easily. Features: two-pass assembly, macros with loc", "context": "", "use_case": "6502 assembler", "switched_from": "", "story": "ASM64 \u2013 A portable 6502 cross-assembler for Commodore 64 in C99"}, {"id": 745254400, "item_id": 46578400, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46578400", "by": "kalterdev", "date": "2026-01-11", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I think that Acme is very underrated in its domain", "excerpt": "Acme [1], a text editor for programmers. It\u2019s a very unusual tool and I have collected hundreds of notes (as well as dozens of bugs and inconsistencies) from the past two years of using it. Now I feel fully assimilated, I do not take as much notes and it feels the right time to start organizing the knowledge, to put ideas together. I think that Acme is very underrated in its domain (a tool for experts). The coverage ", "context": "Software developer with a demanding main job and young family", "use_case": "Note-taking and programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (January 2026)"}, {"id": 739454225, "item_id": 46215889, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46215889", "by": "eeixlk", "date": "2025-12-10", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Literally just got bit by this. I added a wildcard domain to a cert servicing multiple sites. Apparently the verification process for wildcards is more onerous and even when you have it working it wont renew in the same way as a normal cert. It requires specific workarounds based on your dns provider. Appreciative that we moved away from paid certs that required manual work to renew every year but this feels like a m", "context": "", "use_case": "Certificate automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "10 Years of Let's Encrypt"}, {"id": 736139280, "item_id": 46008705, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46008705", "by": "skydhash", "date": "2025-11-21", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "you can still form an opinion about the tool", "excerpt": "I\u2019m still waiting for an article like this one: https://jlouisramblings.blogspot.com/2013/04/acme-as-editor_20.html It\u2019s clear, informative, and even without reproducing it, you can still form an opinion about the tool. All the AI pushers\u2019s comments are either very vague or experiments whose sole quality is that it has been done with LLMs (often badly).", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Command Lines"}]}