I wrote a code editor in C and now I'm a changed man

37 pointsposted 15 hours ago
by birdculture

18 Comments

spankibalt

15 hours ago

The Old Man and the C

But who is Terry Davis? Some sort of bird fancier?

IshKebab

14 hours ago

He was a crazy guy (in the mentally ill sense) that wrote TempleOS. The religious craziness in this project is some kind of weird tribute to Terry, who also filled TempleOS will religious nonsense. (He believed all sorts of insane things and was also racist.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_A._Davis

danparsonson

14 hours ago

Or, with a little more empathy: he was suffering from schizophrenia.

tptacek

14 hours ago

A homeless man suffering from schizophrenia who was mascotized by trolls.

For my part, I'd just flag anything like this that I see on the front page.

sshine

2 hours ago

> mascotized by trolls

That’s perhaps true for some segment of Internet users. But I believe for just as big a part, there is an understanding and respect for computer use as a coping strategy for hardship.

Writing an operating system while suffering from schizophrenia is a testament to how far that cope might stretch.

sshine

2 hours ago

> also filled TempleOS will religious nonsense

An example of what I perceive to be an ideological design choice in TempleOS is the lack of virtual memory; if programs are good (in the moral sense), virtual memory is much less useful.

throwaway613745

14 hours ago

Terry is what happens when extremely intelligent people don’t get the help they need.

He was abandoned by his family and society and became the play thing for internet trolls.

His life was a tragedy in every sense.

As someone who also has a young family member who’s potential was also utterly destroyed by schizophrenia, Terry’s story fills me with immense sadness.

pbronez

12 hours ago

Somebody should write a book or make a movie about Terry. It’s a very modern, very human story.

abnercoimbre

6 hours ago

Crazy that you were downvoted. Oh well, the submission's flagged anyway.

heliumtera

14 hours ago

And also a genius. All you said was true, but templeOS is a masterpiece.

hyperhello

14 hours ago

How so? I know nothing outside of seeing one screenshot, but was there more to it than just a particular implementation of the same table stakes algorithms in every MSCS program?

krackers

13 hours ago

hyperhello

12 hours ago

Thank you. It looks like the inventions were mothered by necessities of having one developer and one user.

eska

10 hours ago

There are many bad things to be said about TempleOS, many aspects of it that seem poorly constructed or wouldn't work in the "real world". I'm going to ignore them here. It's very easy to be negative, but you will never learn anything new by doing so.

I think you should reflect on why you’re so dismissive of other’s work. When I see comments like yours it makes me think the commenter must have some self-worth issues requiring them to put others down in order to feel better about themselves.

user

14 hours ago

[deleted]

rexpop

14 hours ago

Even if it's satire, it's still creepy.