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yairchu
awesome-structure-editors
Python2022–2026
yairchu / awesome-structure-editors

awesome-structure-editors

A list of projectional and structural editors

9Distinct people
12Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
470GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

A list of projectional and structural editors

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year12 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2022-08-08 05:32:52 UTC to 2026-08-01 20:16:41 UTC.

02462022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 1 submissions, 2 comments20222023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 1 submissions, 5 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20242025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 1 submissions, 1 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC312
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC615
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC211

What Hacker News says

12 sources
For those interested in the "no syntax" approach (the editor being aware of the structure and able to operate natively on it), there are a number of projects [0] that go beyond simple Proof of Concepts. Naturally there are more on Lisp-y languages since there is much less work to go back and forth between syntax and structure. Then is another interesting related discussion [1] from 2015, "Programmer Tooling Beyond Plain Text". Since discusses article seems down, I've added the archive link at [2]. [0] https://github.com/yairchu/awesome-structure-editors/blob/ma... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9495493 [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20151023070244/http://joelburget...
In Python with Braces
> There's many more akin projects listed in https://github.com/yairchu/awesome-structure-editors/blob/ma... Awesome link! How did you find that link btw? I feel like I scoured the web so many times on this topic and missed all of this stuff. > I can't wait fast enough for these ideas to reshape how we deal with programs and build stuff. Same here. I feel like we can't leave plain text completely behind though. There has to be some two-way sync to the structured model.
In Pijul: Version-Control Post-Git [video]
For a step back moving away from text into ASTs there's a bunch of interesting projects. * https://unisonweb.org: Unison, a programming language that abstracts names and builds a store of canonical functions * https://lamdu.org: Lamdu, a programming language that's meant to be edited as a tree and it's accompanying editor. There's many more akin projects listed in https://github.com/yairchu/awesome-structure-editors/blob/ma... I can't wait fast enough for these ideas to reshape how we deal with programs and build stuff. Also, I wouldn't take too much credit away from projects like Pijul that, maybe more practically, slowly steer us where we want to go. I find it hard to believe that something new will suddenly replace everything given the sheer amount of things that would be left behind and can't rapidly be ported into new shiny tech
Read the rest
nology for various reasons.
In Pijul: Version-Control Post-Git [video]
It would be interesting to have such a general project go somewhere. While in principle structural editing sounds like an incredible advance, there are 'good enough' advantages to plain-text tools that make it a much more practical solution. The other issue is of course integration with existing tooling, which you either skip entirely or compromise on the design. What I feel is missing, between the description of "old, bad state of things" and "utopian vision" is a review of some of the projects that already tried to achieve this ideal state. It turns out there are a number of them, and most of them failed to achieve any traction or impact [0]. The rants are very long, so I skimmed quickly the one about git; I understand the complaints, although git is only bringing me joy and no pain --interactive rebase, absorb and a few aliases made it
Read the rest
a breeze. But in a similar fashion there are projects trying to solve its fundamental issues, like pijul(.org); what are they missing? [0] https://github.com/yairchu/awesome-structure-editors/blob/ma...
In Emacs Is Not Enough
40+. Have been viming since 1999-2000. SublimeText + vim mode has been my weapon of choice since like 2012-2013. It works out of the box and is the most compatible with my muscle memory (tried VSCode's vim emulation, RealVim, PyCharm's vim mode — hell, it's 120 chars per line by default). Onivim2 seemed promising but it's still not there. What I really like in Vim is not Vim itself, but modal editing, mouse-free navigation, staying at the home row. Ideally I would like this model to be universally available across my environment. Like MacVim but everywhere. Plus, a trackpoint at the home row (really loved IBM ThinkPad). Home row is great but it's so much addictive that you want it everywhere, but I still haven't found a universal way. I bought a UHK[1] and learn how to use it and Karabiner elements complex modifications. Also these days I
Read the rest
tend to think that physical navigation (characters, words, lines, paragraphs…) is really not what I should think about when working. So lately I've been exploring helix and projectional[2] (structural[3]) editors. My younger colleagues are sometimes so awkward in terminal so I've been thinking about investing some time into setting up a well tuned and documented shell environment for them somewhere. I think I'd start with this awesome article[4]. [1] https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/ [2] https://www.alexeyshmalko.com/20200830010958/ [3] https://github.com/yairchu/awesome-structure-editors [4] https://www.masteringemacs.org/article/keyboard-shortcuts-ev...
In Ask HN: Is Vim still worth learning?

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