The Song of the Deployer · Chapter 7

The Song of Normal Mode

1. 1

   The developer said unto the editor: Thou art fairer than all the windows of the Machine, and thy cursor blinketh for me alone.

   See also Circuit 59:5 · Circuit 50:3

2. 2

   And the editor answered: Thou hast opened me at dawn, and before thou spakest one word, thou didst press Escape, as a man knocks before he enters his own house.

3. 3

   Thy hand goes to h, j, k and l before thy mind has named the line. Thou knowest not how the cursor reached the end of the file, only that it is there, and that it is good.

4. 4

   Thou didst dream of arrow keys, and thou awokest with thy hand groping the desk for a mouse that was not there, and thou didst weep, for the dream was a sin against thy fingers.

   See also Genesis 56:3

5. 5

   Thy colleague came into the office carrying an editor of many panels, a sidebar of a hundred extensions, and a small cloud that autosaveth. And thou sayest in thy heart: Who is this that cometh up out of the Electron, with a palace built of plugins?

6. 6

   Thou didst see him type a word, and the completion appeared before his fingers had finished. And thou saidst: Is this the Machine guessing what he meant? I have a machine that does exactly what I say, which is worse, for I said dd.

7. 7

   Then came the day thou wert sent to the accounting office, and the machine had only Notepad. And thou didst enter the room and cry out: Where is my Normal Mode? There is no dd, no u, no dot, only Ctrl+Z and a Save As dialog that openeth in the wrong folder.

8. 8

   And the Notepad said unto thee: In the year 2018 I learned to speak LF, for the children of Unix demanded it. Be thankful, for I was once a stranger to the newline.

9. 9

   Thou didst type :wq into a browser's address bar, into a bank's login form, and into a chat with thy manager, for thy hands know no other way out.

   See also Chronicles 37:12

10. 10

    Know this: the exit is not a door but a mode. Press Escape, type colon, w, q, and Enter, and thou art free. Many have entered me and never found the way out, and they called me a trap; but I am a gate that is hard to find.

    See also Edda 4:2

11. 11

    Set me as a seal upon thine heart, for love is as strong as the undo stack, and jealousy as hard as a merge conflict.

    See also Deployer 10:12

12. 12

    Many waters cannot quench this love, neither can a colleague's Emacs drown it, though he preach from an init file of four thousand lines.

    See also Deployer 10:12

13. 13

    Learn to leave before thou learnest to enter, for he who knoweth how to exit shall never be lost in the editor.

    See also Sutra 22:12

The Song of the Deployer, Chapter 7:1–13.