Total Focus

There are myriads of text editors out there, and I've written about them. In my last post, I landed on Helix as my ultimate editor. Lately however, I've been using a different program to write code. It has no "smart" features—no LSP, no autocomplete, no go to reference/definition—only syntax highlighting and good search. Despite this simplicity, in the past three months, using this editor, I have written the most critical lines of code in my entire career as a software engineer.

The program is called Focus Editor. It's written in Jai, a long-anticipated programming language created by Jon Blow that is yet to be released. The compiler has been distributed among closed beta testers. The author of Focus Editor is one of those early testers. Jai is promised to be a language for writing high-performant software, primarily geared towards game development. In fact, Jon is developing a full-blown complex puzzle game alongside his work on the compiler and the language. Jai aims to equip developers with all of the necessary tools to author truly fast and memory efficient programs. And with Focus, it shows.

I used to think that VSCode was snappy. Then I tried Neovim. I thought that a lightweight Neovim setup is the speed achievable. Then I tried Helix. After that leap, I was certain that it's the ceiling. Finally, I tried Focus.

As fast as you can type—that's the speed at which you edit in Focus. And such speed is reachable only by reducing the editor only to its most essential features. Focus has the fastest text editor you can imagine; intuitive VSCode-like file search; fastest project-wide search; adequate syntax highlighting; and some basic split-screen features. And that's basically it! This might feel too spartan, but honestly, it feels refreshing to code without getting bombarded with autocomplete pop-ups or error reports. The name is truly fitting—Focus.

Just to be clear, I'm not some neckbeard that hates all modern software. I appreciate LSPs and I use AI in my work. It's just I've come to a realization that I don't want them in my editor. I also use Focus for work-related note-taking. The responsiveness of the editor makes you wanna write more. While I definitely could deliver that critical work I mentioned in any other editor with all of the usual smarts, I would never enjoy it as much as I did with Focus.

I'm someone who enjoys learning and trying new things. I still check every release of Helix, Neovim, and Kakoune. But for the foreseeable future, I don't see any of them overcoming Focus.

So, for the time being, ahoj, Focus, and ahoj the rest!