[TxMt] snippets.el: a bow of deference?

[Allan Odgaard]

On 20/6/2006, at 19:16, Kamen Nedev wrote:

> [...] quote, "TextMate-like snippets (snippets.el)"...

And for vim users: “This file contains some simple functions that  
attempt to emulate some of the behaviour of 'Snippets' from the OS X  
editor TextMate” -- http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php? 
script_id=1318 :)

I believe this one even imports property lists :)

> [...] How can a resolutely closed-source application like TM  
> attract such an open-source-like community environment? Does it  
> have anything to do with software architecture (a closed framework  
> with an open approach to extensibility through bundles), or with  
> Allan's social skills?

I think Mats Persson suggested it could be my minor in psychology  
which allows me to carefully play this game of double standards ;)

Seriously though, my guess would be a combination of having it be a  
very customizable app in nature, i.e. it really invites you to  
customize, then having a user base mostly of geeks who do like to  
customize things, and lastly provide an infrastructure to cooperate/ 
comment on these things (svn, rss feed for the change log, mailing  
lists, and irc channel.) -- and of course being present myself in  
this infrastructure.

Though I agree with Alaric Snell-Pym in that alone the fact that it  
is customizable does bread end-user innovation, regardless of what  
the developer does. I believe there are also very enthusiastic user  
groups e.g. for Photoshop who writes cool extensions, even though  
Adobe is probably a faceless cooperation to most.

But no matter what it is, let it be absolutely clear that I am  
grateful for the community which exists around TextMate -- especially  
since I use a lot of functionality written by other users :)