The Passing of a Legend
Sunday, August 6th, 2023
This morning, a friend sent an email with a link mentioning the passing of Bram Moolenaar, the initial creator of Vim. There aren't many folks who have impacted my professional life as much as the creators of Vi, and then Bram and Vim.
I remember first using Vi at Purdue in my final year of Undergrad on the ADM terminals, and then making sure I could find termcap entries for all the terminals I could get my hands on in the days when you had terminals hooked by serial lines to the Dual VAX 11/780 system at the Electrical Engineering Department. After that, it was Auburn, and Vim on my Amiga, and then Mac System 6, and on virtually every system I had from 1985 on.
The only tool that even comples close to that longevity is GCC.
I know nothing lasts forever, and I know people pass on, but I honestly didn't expect to be so surprised by this news. I read it again, a couple of hours later on one of the RSS Feeds I read on my iPad, where, again, I have Vim. Still the same sense of sadness.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls...