Summary

Drew DeVault announces 'Vim Classic,' a fork of Vim based on version 8.2, motivated by his opposition to generative AI being used in Vim and NeoVim's development. He reflects on his deep personal relationship with Vim and pays tribute to Bram Moolenaar, Vim's creator who passed away in 2023. DeVault argues that generative AI causes widespread environmental, social, and political harm, and he refuses to use software tainted by it. The fork strips out Vim9 Script and all post-Bram changes, drawing a clean line at the last version untouched by AI-assisted development. He invites like-minded users to contribute patches and help maintain this deliberately conservative fork.

Key Insight

When the tools you depend on become entangled with systems you find ethically intolerable, forking is an act of conscience — a way to mourn what was lost while preserving what mattered.

Spicy Quotes (click to share)

• 3

  Using it just feels like my thoughts flowing from my head, into my fingers, into a Vim-shaped extension of my body, and out into the world.

• 5

  I find myself in another unusual moment of mourning: mourning Vim itself. What an odd feeling.

• 8

  I think it's more important that we stop collectively pretending that we don't understand how awful all of this is.

• 7

  I don't want to use software which has slop in it.

• 9

  The AI boom is driving data centers to consume a full 1.5% of the world's total energy production in order to eliminate jobs and replace them with a robot that lies.

• 7

  All this to enrich the few, centralize power, reduce competition, and underwrite an enormous bubble that, once it bursts, will ruin the lives of millions of the world's poor and marginalized classes.

• 7

  I don't think it's cute that someone vibe coded 'battleship' in VimScript.

• 5

  To keep my conscience clear, and continue to enjoy the relationship I have with this amazing piece of software, I have forked Vim.

Tone

elegiac, principled, defiant