JOE
Fewer than 5 people recommend it so far, so there's no written verdict. Here is what commenters said.
4recommend
0warn against
May 12, 2026first mention
Oct 12, 2026latest mention
Why people recommend it
“JOE still remains my preferred editor as a result.”
“JOE [0] for editing directly in terminal (Linux, macOS)”
switched from MS-DOS Editoron “Ask HN: What's the oldest software tool you still re…”
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“you may appreciate JOE”
grew up on WordStar-style keybindings via Turbo Pascal and Turbo Con “WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)”
“I use joe for mostly everything”
Caveats and dissent
No one in these comments warned against it.
Often compared with
Who recommends it in their own words
From the makers not counted in the ranking
“It had a bad integrated editor, so I wrote my own editor as its replacement, this became the editor JOE.”
wrote JOE in the 1980son “Emacs Turns 50”
Threads where it came up
- WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996) 3 mentions
- Ask HN: What's the oldest software tool you still rely on every day? 2 mentions
- Emacs Turns 50 1 mention
- The vi family 1 mention
Also written as joe. Data: joe.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 6
“JOE still remains my preferred editor as a result.”
“JOE [0] for editing directly in terminal (Linux, macOS)”
“Slackware comes with joe, which I hear is close to WordStar.”
“you may appreciate JOE”
“I use joe for mostly everything”
“When I don't have a GUI available, I use micro, nano, joe.”