https://github.com/sirwumpus/ioccc-ae
Best Utility (vi) - IOCCC 1991 Winner
https://github.com/sirwumpus/ioccc-ae
c editor ioccc text-editor
Last synced: 4 months ago
JSON representation
Best Utility (vi) - IOCCC 1991 Winner
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/sirwumpus/ioccc-ae
- Owner: SirWumpus
- Created: 2017-12-05T13:32:41.000Z (over 8 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2023-10-24T18:13:02.000Z (over 2 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-06-14T16:06:14.058Z (about 1 year ago)
- Topics: c, editor, ioccc, text-editor
- Language: C
- Homepage:
- Size: 995 KB
- Stars: 21
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 1
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
**emacs like**
ae - Anthony's Editor
=====================
`ae` is a light-weight Curses based text editor for POSIX systems. It is an example of the "Buffer Gap" method outlined in the [The Craft Of Text Editing](http://www.finseth.com/craft/) used by many Emacs style editors.
* [Best Utility - IOCCC Winner 1991](91)
Original winner with spoiler source code.
All IOCCC winners are in the Public Domain.
* [July 1993](93)
Last major release with some additional functions; cleaned up for GitHub.
Now under BSD-1-Clause license.
History
-------
Written by Anthony Howe, the original `ae` is a full screen vi-style text editor written in less than 1536 bytes of C source code and won the [International Obfuscated C Code Contest](http://ioccc.org) [1991 Best Utility](https://www.ioccc.org/years.html#1991_ant). It later appeared in Don Libes's book "Obfuscated C And Other Mysteries".
After, `ae` grew with additional commands, like block cut/paste, inline help, macros, and ability to be configured for vi-style (modal) or emacs-style (mode-less) text editing. It was published as part of a trio of tools in [CUG #388 Anthony's Tools](http://www.hal9k.com/cug/V300E.HTM#cug388) (which included [am](https://github.com/SirWumpus/ioccc-am), [ag](https://github.com/SirWumpus/ioccc-ag)) as reviewed by "The C Users Journal".
`ae`, because of its small binary size, was the base system and rescue disk editor for Debian 1.1 (Buzz) through to Debian 2.2 (Potato). `ae` was replaced in Debian 3.0 (Woody) by `Nano` (see [Debian 3.0 Package Removals](https://www.debian.org/releases/woody/i386/release-notes/ch-appendix.en.html#s-removed-other)). Again for its small size, `ae` was also part of the [Linux Router Project](https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3223).
`ae` has inspired some derivative editors: a Japanese version [Ari](https://github.com/ari-editor/ari), several by Hugh Barney (Femto, [Atto](https://github.com/hughbarney/atto#derivation), [Zepto](https://github.com/hughbarney/zep#derivation)), Terry Loveall's [ue](https://github.com/kisom/editors/tree/master/ue), and [kg](https://github.com/kristofer/kg#Derivation) written in Go.
### Publications
* Don Libes, Obfuscated C and Other Mysteries, Wiley, 1993, pg 369.
ISBN 0-471-57805-3.
* Dale Scheetz, The Debian Linux User's Guide, Linux Press, 1997, pg 192.
ISBN 0-9659575-0-0.
* Bill McCarty, Learning Debian GNU/Linux 1st ed, O'Reilly, 1999, ch 4.5
ISBN 1-56592-705-2.
* The C Users Journal , November 1993, pg 121, ISSN: 0898-9788
**vi like**
### Rant
I tried to get a version of this history saved on the english Wikipedia, because the [French Wikipedia version](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony's_Editor) I stumbled on lacked the history. Wikipedia english rules are so demanding that they just deemed `ae` unworthy, because it wasn't talked about enough. Middle finger to Wikipedia for any help in perserving smaller parts of tech. history.