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[flagged] Notepad++ 7.9.1 – pour Samuel Paty (notepad-plus-plus.org)
212 points by speedgoose on Nov 19, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 173 comments


For those out of the loop - Samuel Paty was a middle-school teacher in [redacted] who was murdered in the October 16 terror attack in [redacted].

More information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Samuel_Paty


He was targeted, and beheaded, for showing Mohammed drawings on class (above it sounds like “a victim”, not the victim).


For a broader context, 16 years earlier something very similar happened in the Netherlands:

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Theo_van_...

“The murderer Mohammed Bouyeri, an Islamic extremist, killed van Gogh. The reason for murdering Gogh was to oppose the controversial film which criticised Islam: “Submission”. Bouyeri shot and stabbed van Gogh, then cut his throat. Finally the killer attached a 5 letter page to van Gogh's chest with a knife.“

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4716909.stm

“Bouyeri had told the court he had acted out of religious conviction. Clutching a copy of the Koran, he said that "the law compels me to chop off the head of anyone who insults Allah and the prophet"”

What was in the letter: it “threatened Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She had written the script for Van Gogh's controversial film Submission, which criticised the treatment of women under Islam.”

(Completely unrelated to that event, the killed artist’s great-great uncle was Vincent van Gogh.)


Why you talk about things happened few years ago? The act of terror occurred at least once per three day.

>> From 2016 to 2018, Spain had the most court cases for terror offences (343) in the EU, followed by the UK (329), France (327) and Belgium (301). >> In 2018, 61% of verdicts for those cases in EU states were classed as "jihadist terror offences" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51560046


Just because the killing of van Gogh predates today more known 2005 event (1) the first publishing of the caricatures which Samuel Paty discussed in his class, and also significantly predates the mere existence of ISIS, while still being very similar to the 2020 murder.

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_carto...


I am not sure that the publishing is the reason of terror. The terrorism is the reason of terror. If you want all thing that you do could be the reason for terrorist to kill you. The goal is not question of allow-ability for some drawing. The goal is to show you have to fear, you have to obey.


Wow that was unexpected. I wonder how many such stories don’t come to light


I'm not sure what you mean. This was headline news even in the US when it happened.


Maybe more context can explain the "unexpectedness": from the New York Times article covering the event in 2004:

"Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende called for calm and asked people to let investigators do their job before jumping to conclusions. "Nothing is known about the motive," he said in written statement."

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/03/world/europe/dutch-filmma...

And even more context, the transcript of a 2005 speech by George W. Bush, mentioning that event:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/administratio...

"In a courtroom in the Netherlands, the killer of Theo Van Gogh turned to the victim's grieving mother and said, "I do not feel your pain because I believe you are an infidel."

And in spite of this veneer of religious rhetoric, most of the victims claimed by the militants are fellow Muslims.

BUSH: When 25 Iraqi children are killed in a bombing or Iraqi teachers are executed at their school or hospital workers are killed caring for the wounded, this is murder, pure and simple; the total rejection of justice and honor and moral and religion.

These militants are not just the enemies of America or the enemies of Iraq, they are the enemies of Islam and the enemies of humanity.

(APPLAUSE)"


The NYT seems to have a history of such titles. The initial title for the article about Samuel Paty's murder was "French Police Shoot and Kill Man After a Fatal Knife Attack on the Street".


The Washington Post is just as bad: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-50205592


Goddamn, there's no way this wasn't intentional. Imagine if Fox News had called Dylann Roof something like a "mild-mannered young man", we would have never heard the end of that.

Frightening to see that from the Post.


The whole of the US press has been behaving like absolute cowards when it comes to caricatures and islam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-yYhq3nOng


By what metric was Samuel not the victim? Is it against the law in France to share offensive religious imagery? Is the legal punishment beheading by vigilante?


He wasn't a victim, he was The victim, that's what the commentor above tried to say, he was specifically targeted


English articles "a" and "the" are weird. I'll never understand them.


Specificity. "The" implies one specific subject. "A" implies that there are multiple instances of the subject, and in many cases such subjects are used to categorize things. "The dog is a golden retriever." --. "The dog" is the specific dog being mentioned, and "a golden retriever" is its category.

"He was the victim" implies he was the only victim. "He was a victim" implies that there were other victims.

What's your first language? All of the european languages that I've studied have this feature.


This is a good general rule but this still breaks down. For instance, I say "I'm going to the bank". But really this means "I'm going to a branch of the bank that I bank with". The same occurs with words like theatre, mall, etc. I kind of think this is a holdover from a time where towns only had one theatre, one bank, one school, etc.

It would be correct to have a conversation like:

> Let's go to the mall.

> Which one?

> I don't know. Do you have a preference?

Then we have places like "school", "work", "home" where we drop the "the". If we say "I'm going to the school" this implies that we're going for a different reason than normal where we'd say "I'm going to school".

Proper names don't usually have "the" in front of them but then we say "The Ukraine" and "The Philippines" and "The Yukon" as if we're distinguishing them from other Ukraines.

My wife is non-native English speaker so I encounter this a lot. I understand the confusion of this. Plus a lot of other languages don't think this way. When you grow up in a language where you don't care about specificity while you're talking, it becomes pretty difficult to start thinking about it later in life.


Slavic languages (and maybe baltic) don't have them (probably also ugro-finnic ones), not sure about e.g. basque or hellenic ones.

Balto-Slavic comes from proto-indo-european and we have similar words (here in English / German / Polish)

'the' -> 'die' -> 'ten' (this) 'a/one' -> 'ein' -> 'jeden/jakiś' (one/one of many)

which come from the same PIE roots, but we don't use them as often. We generally understand from context whether we're talking about something specific or general.

And only use those helpers when we need clarification. There are also other ways to differentiate. For example speaking in singular (cat/kot) may mean 'a specific cat', but saying 'cats/koty' may mean 'a cat/cats'.

In other words, using 'the/a' is in majority of cases unnecessary from our point of view, because if we're talking about 'our cat' for an hour, we don't need to stress that it's 'the cat' that I meant when I said 'cat', or when we say 'Please feed cat' and we have a cat, it's way more likely that it's about our cat than some random cat on the street.

And this creates enormous problems for us when learning English or German (not sure about romance languages). We often ask ourselves, if we know whether we're talking about something specific or in general should we always use 'a/the -> ein/die'. And the answer is 'pretty much'. Unless you don't use it :)

'Love is a powerful emotion', and not 'A/The love is a powerful emotion', and even more elusive cases where those articles are not used.


My first language is Russian. I just don't have mental wires in my mind to fully understand the differences. I know them in theory, but it's hard for me to fluently apply and understand the nuances which is not the case with other language constructions.


one of many, one of one

If I say "pass me a glass" I don't care which glass you pass me, whereas if I say "the glass" it's implied context has a specificity so that there is a specific glass I'm requesting


Think of them as separating the general from the specific. "a" refers to one of many, "the" refers to the (only) one.


In this case, "a" could also mean that there were multiple victims, and he was one of them.


I think you misunderstood what you replied to, in at least two ways.


Murdered is a light way of putting it.


Notepad++ is written by an immigrant (non-french native) . In https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/a-propos-du-tweet-contre-... , the photo says: "Please uninstall Notepad++ if you voted for the National Front" (he was assuming the xenophobic party)

Each release has a message on what he believes in: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news


> I don't care if I lose users and I want you to know your Notepad ++ is written by an immigrant, and it pisses you off.


Well, all of humanity are immigrants to some extent: From Africa where the early primates lived to all the other continents. It's just a question of when we've arrived...


I'm not French, but even if I were and were a NF voter, I doubt I would care about his political tweets let alone uninstall the software as a result.

...as someone not involved in that political fight, I slightly worry that this will serve as a distraction for him in future project development, maybe lead to a broken release or a dev path and force me to look for a new tool - zeal often crowds out focus.

...but hey, it's a free tool and he has the right to express his political views.

I persoanlly feel that publicly mixing work and politics is immature and bad for your resume, but to each his own.


Why is it any more of an issue in software engineering than, say, a singer or actor publicly supporting a cause?


Politics is an interesting domain. Everyone has an opinion. Most are convinced they know what’s going on, despite the fact that they lack the skills and knowledge necessary to evaluate the subject matter (math, science, medicine, law, business, economics, etc.) and absolutely refuse to do the research necessary to have anything approximating a valid opinion. It’s D-K at it’s worst.

I went through a phase of deeply researching topics in an attempt to communicate the realities and facets of many issues. After a year of nothing but frustration (and worse) I stopped caring. People take sides on these issues like picking colors. It’s crazy. It’s amazing to see just how attached they are to their chosen perspective while knowing so little and making no effort at all to research and understand.

One of my favorites is Climate Change. Both deniers and supporters are engulfed and fully invested in their respective delusions. This means the reality of the matter is in the hands of a minority with no voice.

The same brain that allowed us to survive in the wild is now driving mass delusion. We are still cavemen.


Singers/actors doing it is cringe inducing as well.


Those are even worse. Why can't we let political discourse stay in political spaces? That used to be the norm and everyone was far less stressed out and amicable for it. Now every space has become a battleground for sociopolitical discourse and we're drawing lines everywhere.


Standing against discrimination, whether it's taking the form of racism, sexism, homophobia, or something else, isn't a political act.

It's a human rights act.


I'm not sure what people think the word "politics" is. Human rights is politics...

Like... I agree with the sentiment of your comment, 100%. Standing against discrimination is something everyone should (and should feel the right to) do. But.. it is a political act. Which is good.

I understand the context and reasons behind "politics" becoming a taboo word (there is, by definition, "bad"[0] politics). But that doesn't invalidate the "good"[1] politics.

[0][1] Yes, "good" and "bad" are of course subjective.


Standing up for human rights is absolutely a political act, but it shouldn't be a politically controversial act. I think that's why people have always been more willing to make political statements in favor of human rights in contexts where making other political statements would usually be considered distasteful.

Basic human rights for everyone should be the common ground that everyone agrees upon. Everything else we can debate in the appropriate contexts.


The political opinions of celebrities popular on social media goes far beyond the human rights issues they discuss.

Most of them are simply pushing specific candidates, without even a mention of any human rights issue at all.


Humans have a right to ownership of their property which includes their bodies and who they interact with.

That includes having the right to discriminate. While it may be unkind, it is a greater evil to force someone to interact with someone they don’t want to, even if it’s for reasons of race, sex, living gay, or just being ugly, mean, old or young, or any other reason.

Only in an unfree world there is no discrimination.

I’m reminded of a tattoo I once saw written in runes: “free men are not equal; equal men are not free”.


Do you think it should be okay for businesses to hang "Help Wanted" signs in their windows that also say "no Irish need apply"?


I will judge the business owner as prejudiced - but it does not make it ethical to send armed men forcing them to trade money for labour with Irishmen. Government laws in the end require enforcement, otherwise they are just nice words. It’s not moral to force someone do act against their will, even if they are unfair, as long as they themselves are not using force against others.

The same principle holds for borders and other forms of property.

Issues of right and wrong often are issues or greater vs lesser evil.


The fact that you pose this question admits the political nature of these cultural conflicts. There are multiple avenues of resolution, some which involve government, some don't. We're all welcome to have differing opinions on how to deal with them, even if we can come to agreement on common values.


That used to be the norm

When was that? In the US you can go back as far (at least) as Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe for popular figures getting involved in politics. In terms of actors and singers, you can go back to Bert Willams in the 1910s to numerous outspoken figures in the 1950's and beyond.


Clearly there is a palpable difference between the sociopolitical climate of today and the sociopolitical climate 20 years ago. There were other times in history where it was similar to this, but not in most of our lifetimes.


The implied privilege and obliviousness about it in this comment make me mad.


That you assume I'm privileged because I want a more peaceful society suggests you will constantly seek to divide and set social groups against each other for the sake of some personal satisfaction.


No. I would love peace. I don't seek divide.

But saying that we "let politics be politics" is a privilege. If you are in a minority, either by choice or by birth, it's not that simple. Standing up against discrimination and making that one of our core beliefs should not be as controversial as you make it out to be. And it's great for you that you can just keep politics in "political space", go home and live in peace. But others can't turn racism they experience off. I would highly suggest watching this video of a psycho-social experiment [0].

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPZEJHJPwIw


There is no such thing as "the political space". Politics is just the word we assign to the concept of people organizing and working out (or failing to work out) their differences. Everything we do is a component of it. None of us are absent from it. And just because you don't value someone's particular job does not mean they do not get to have or express an opinion on politics.

When people complain about "politics", what they are complaining about is often a perceived failure within a system. Chesterton's Fence[0] is a parable that describes the need to understand where the system came from before making changes to reform it.

For example, in a large corporation, we might say that the yearly review system is "political", but getting rid of it completely would be removing the one (albeit, flawed) means that the organization has to evaluate employee performance. In its absence, a new system would have to be created to replace it. Any system that would replace it would also be prone to being perceived as "political" to some people.

What does that have to do with software? We write software to be used by and for the benefit of people. There is no point to it, otherwise. Writing software is fundamentally a political process.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...


Your deconstruction of "political spaces" is deflecting from the concept which is intuitively understood by us all. Politics in this context means discourse about contentious government policy. Political spaces are places where these politics are typically discussed: think tanks, halls of congress, public debates, forums, close family, etc.


It was always like that. :) Artists, writers and singers did have political alignments and either benefited or suffered from them. In US-centric world post-9/11 reality may seem different and politically charged, but the rest of the world haven’t experienced the same “Belle Époque” as America in 1990s. And even in USA just 20 years before that plenty of things happened.


To me, it's an integral part of celebrity. We expect them to be role models, give up their privacy and generally hold them to higher standards, so why shouldn't they be able to use their fame to support something they believe in?


> We expect them to be role models

This seems like an odd expectation since so few of them have functional relationships and are an endless source of scandal.

Also, literally nothing about their profession makes them an authority on any political, social, or human rights issue.


Agree on both counts, I don't think worshipping celebrities is doing us much good. But the fact is that we (as a society) currently do it, so it seems unfair to be upset when they use their platform for something political.


It's always fair to be upset when people use a powerful platform to spread ill-considered ideas, slander, and/or divisive rhetoric. Everyone agrees with this. If celebrities are significantly more likely to do this because they live sheltered lives and don't spend significant amounts of time considering what they call for, then they're more likely to use their platform irresponsibly.

But the more prevalent issue is that using their platform politically results more in tribalism than the genuine changing of minds.


It's one thing to be upset at a specific instance of a celebrity expressing a horrible opinion. I'm totally down with that.

What was commenting on here was a wider remark that celebrities should just avoid making political comments in general. "He's a football player, he should just play football. Keep politics out of sports."

This is the part I find unfair. If Kanye West has an opinion on global warming, we shouldn't reject it by default. If it's harmful, we should criticize it proportionaly to the reach of his platform (so... A lot). And if the negative effects get out of hand, we should be educating people on getting their environmental information from reliable sources, not limiting Kanye's freedom of speech.


I'm not totally against, in general, artists and celebrities publicly sharing political opinions, but I am saying that those places which are supposed to be shared, places of common unity, shouldn't become places of polarization. Kanye West is welcome to have political opinions and go on podcasts and share them, but it would be inappropriate to bring them to something like the Grammys or a late-night talkshow. Colin Kaepernick is welcome to go to a BLM rally, but when he creates a spectacle of it on the field, he's wholly inconsiderate of those who don't agree with that sort of cop-hating message. People criticized him a lot for it, but is anything better for it?

These things aren't changing minds, they're just dividing people. People who agree with the messages feel good about it, and people who disagree turn away. Right-leaning people, who would otherwise hold Kaepernick in high regard as representing their city, now see him as an enemy, and he holds them in the same regard. This sort of thing is happening everywhere now, and it is what it is, but no one should be surprised when the country becomes increasingly polarized and uninterested in any sort of unity.


>> a singer or actor publicly supporting a cause?

> Those are even worse.

What? Music and acting are and have always been involved with politics and society at large. As a modern example, see One by Metallica.

Is that not political?


In what that timeframe do you see that as having been the norm?


Past 40 years.


Are we supposed to pretend politics has no impact on our day to day lives?


Are we supposed to pretend it's the only thing that determines our governs our day to day lives?


Because the the whole planet is a "political space". Politics is everywhere.


> I persoanlly feel that publicly mixing work and politics is immature and bad for your resume, but to each his own.

I think your opinion here is a commonly held one, which I find increasingly frustrating and bizarre.

I personally feel that work and politics are by definition inextricably linked, and attempting to separate them as some sanctimonious attempt at taking moral highground is naïve (at best, insincere at worst). Which makes the use of the epithet "immature" here particularly ironic.


I'm not sure either. I find that (in my personal opinion), mixing work and politics, despite they're being linked, is to me a disturbing trait.

To be clear, I'm talking about office talk.

If a co-worker does it, it implies to me he or she are uncivilized, and cause themselves and other people embarrassment. When co-workers do it, I secretly think of it as farting in public, or vomiting your ideas on my shirt, or drooling your ideas. Political thought is important for me, and I have my opinions, but I do not want to force them on other people, not in direct conversation.

From experience, most people I know hold deep political convictions and couldn't be persuaded to see differently in a short office conversation, so it's short of pointless, a waste of words and a waste of my time and everyone else's, just so someone could farting his ideas in my general direction, and feel a bit better about himself / herself. Note that this is regardless of whether I agree with their ideas or not.

I do enjoy reading other people opinions, whether they are the same as mine or different, in forums such as NH. But the key thing here is that this is a thing I do of my own volition, in my own free time, not subjected to it. To contradict myself a bit: while I find Notepad++ author making a political statement with his software releases just a bit odd, it's not as disturbing as someone doing it in a direct conversation, and he also does it a pretty non-intrusive way, which I'm fine with. In a way I almost like it, it's sort of refreshing.

But that's just me. I'm not a very social person, though, so I guess my outlook might seem very bizarre to other, more social people.


This is an opinion commonly held by people that know that if you want to coexist peacefully with other people it's better to not talk about politics, religion (and money if you're French).

If nobody ever settled the Vi vs Emacs debate there's absolutely 0 chances we're going to settle more complexes debates with real life implications so it's better for everyone's enjoyment of our global community if we could agree to keep politics were they belong and not everywhere.


Mh, not sure. It's not different than the vegan friend who cannot stop speaking about his choices, or the newage-y one who will shove magical wisdom down your throat at every occasion, or the sjw who will enumerate your privileges at every turn. Yes, I have thought about these issues, yes, I have developed my opinions, yes, I am doing actual things to change the world as much as I can, but no, I don't need you to constantly remind me how you see things. Really boring attitude, and I am saying this as someone who agrees "politically" on every single point he makes in the changelogs.


That belief is in fact just another form of politics.


Exactly. Politics permeates everything. It's unavoidable, and believing it should be (avoided, or even can be) is the point I find naïve.

Sure, I get (as sibling commenters point out) that this can be tiresome, but just because something bores you doesn't mean pretending it doesn't exist is productive or progressive.


>I slightly worry that this will serve as a distraction for him in future project development, maybe lead to a broken release or a dev path and force me to look for a new tool - zeal often crowds out focus.

Between free software itself being highly political, with plenty of zealots writing code, and the progressivism (and anti-progressivism) in SV and the tech community at large, I don't see much evidence that holding political views creates more bugs or degrades software quality. When that happens, the culprit tends to be deadlines or negligence.

The closest thing to an example I can come up with of this happening is the developer who pulled left-pad from NPM for essentially political reasons, but that was an act of deliberate sabotage rather than the result of distraction.


I work for a company with a six figure employee count. Notepad++ is available in out internal app store... but with the poltical message in the About dialog removed.


That feels so violating. Who are a company to reap the rewards of someone's work whilst denying them their platform? Disgraceful.


Disgraceful? Notepad++ is free software. The free software movement considers the right of all users to modify and redistribute software for any purpose, without obligation or restriction (other than respecting those rights for other users,) to be an unqualified moral good.


Not everyone has the option not to pick sides in this particular fight.


Since we're sharing our personal feelings:

I agree that in general, waving your personal politics around for petty matters is not a good look.

He's not waving his around for petty reasons.


> He's not waving his around for petty reasons.

Supporters of (in this case) the NF may thinks so, since "petty" is entirely subjective.


I personally feel that various aspects of politics are more important than a fucking resume.


Excuse the hyperbole, I don't want to judge, I just genuinely think it's an interesting dilemma.

Would you write software needed to support a genocide? Would you consider someone complicit if they did? I'm assuming no and yes, but where do we draw the line? How much bad stuff can I do in the name of professionalism before I should start worrying about moral aspects?


I'm honestly trying to imagine what kind of software would be needed to commit genocide...


There's a book called IBM and the Holocaust[0] covering one such example from WW2.

I really meant anything where you are fully aware that your work will directly cause people to suffer. Like someone asking you to run a simulation to determine where to drop a bomb for the highest death count.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust


... unless you are in SV. There it's fully acceptable, and to some extent even mandatory to publicly take a political stance in bashing Trump and praising whoever is the Democratic Party hero of the day.


WTF does this has to do with anything?!

The guy built a software everyone uses! You don't agree with what he believes in? So what?! As long as you are not "forced" to believe or do something you don't agree with i don't understand your complain!!!

He as his freedom, you have yours! Just because you like yellow it does not mean everyone as to like it as well.

Thank the guy, and if you don't agree with him appoint a debate with him thru some chat.......


The beginning of the text accompanying that photo (tweet) is: “I’m not proud of what I tweeted, but I have no regret. Nevertheless, I would like to clarify some points about my tweet against FN.”


[flagged]


Ah, the old "he's no angel" method of sidestepping an utterly reasonable position!


The perfect amalgamation of ad-hominem and whataboutism


Oh, we’re policing humor now? Can you please send me a copy of the guidelines for internet jokes, thanks


Those comments aren't humorous to me as they're all cheap shots on the same level as racist jokes. People who use that so called humour are either A, trying too hard to be edgy or B, a complete dick.

If you're going for offensive humour then there better be a clever punchline instead of blatant, tired sexism. Instead we get the equivalent of "black people steal" "mexicans are lazy" and so on.


He admitted it was both sexist in poor taste and apologized. I think he owned up to it.


> If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, its yours forever. If it doesn't, you hunt that bitch down and kill her.

That's just awful. Yikes.

> I'm not saying I hate her. I just hope she gets fingered by wolverine

This one I find hilarious. I wouldn't say it's sexist either, it's clearly targetted at a single person he doesn't like, not women in general.

> If you ever wanna know what a woman's mind feels like? Imagine a browser with 2857 tabs open, all the time.

Again, this one is just awful. It wouldn't even be funny if it wasn't sexist on top of it.

> The reason women will never be the ones to propose is because as soon as she gets on her knees, he will start unzipping.

Isn't this also sexist against men? The main joke here is the "men just can't keep their pants up" cliche.

> I'm no gynecologist, but I know a cunt when I see one.

I can totally see this being used to insult a guy. :%s/cunt/dick/<CR> and the joke still works the same, so no, not sexist.


Why did you feel the need to edit your post to include those examples?


Saves a click.


Hang on. Do you actually believe that the author of Nodepad++ believes those things? If you don't, and you do instead agree that they are jokes (arguably in poor taste), then how can you even begin to compare this person to Front National, a political party made up of people who do believe what they say, and definitely aren't making jokes?


I assume an overwhelming majority of National Front voters don't want people like him out, they just don't want their salaries dumped and their teachers beheaded.

Also, it's not the first time this guy uses his influence as the leader of a popular project to push his politics. It's getting boring.


You're free to not use his software or pay any attention to what he names his releases.


I am. And thankfully I am also free to comment on his immature attitude.


As a french: your assumption is wrong.


As a French too it is well known here that FN votes have a 5% basis of hardcore far right, the rest is mostly a protest vote.


the rest would be happy to throw immigrants out because "dey took er jobs"


FWIW it's this kind of dismissive attitude that brought Trump to power.


If I had a nickel for every patronizing rationale given for Trump's popularity, I would have enough nickels to fund that wall he wanted to build to keep the Mexicans from coming over and taking everyone's jobs.


I'm so glad that after 4 years of seeing this copy-paste, I can finally say this:

It's this kind of (anti-immigrant/xenophobic) attitude that got Trump voted out and Biden as our next President.


As a french: “as a french” is incorrect english. That does not mean anything.


As a French I don't understand why a party showing conservative but reasonable political ideas are always treated like extremist nazis while an angry and dangerous communist can get praised.



Absolutely not wanting to diminish the success of Notepad++ among its user base, I'd still like to mention that Notepad++ is a Windows only editor, where the main functionality is actually provided by the multiplatform editor engine called Scintilla, written by Neil Hodgson, and published since 1999 under a very permissive BSD-like license. The first version of Notepad++ was published in 2003.

Neil Hodgson also maintains the multiplatform editor called SciTE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SciTE

which uses the same engine, and which, from my perspective, has some important advantages over the Notepad++ (it's multiplatform, and, for me, more "hacker oriented" and more "hackable" (e.g. having Lua as its scripting engine)).

Edit: regarding the "UX" mentioned in the responses -- the configuration of SciTE is performed by editing text files, whereas the configuration of Notepad++ is done by the dialogs. That's exactly why I consider SciTE more "hacker oriented". I've also mentioned the integration of Lua in SciTE. That's the UX that, for better or worse, matched my needs. I've never claimed that SciTE has "better dialogs" or something like that. Regarding "more LOC" claim, I claim that Scintilla is very carefully written, and that the LOC aren't the reflection of unnecessary abstractions, but correspond to the real non-trivial problems solved by the code. Whoever disagree should should demonstrate where the LOC could be reduced.


> *the main functionality is actually provided by a multiplatform engine called Scintilla

As a former user of SciTE, the definition of the word "main" here is highly subjective. If you mean "more LoC", then maybe, fine. But the value in Notepad++ is in UX, which is an immeasurably better than SciTE's (and an extremely challenging thing to get right—I'm not faulting SciTE for lacking here, UX is hard).


Scintilla only provides the textarea control that can perform syntax highlighting. It doesn't include any of the application or options interfaces: menu bar, toolbar, tabs, settings, themes, etc. Your post makes it sound like Notepad++ is "just" a thin wrapper around Scintilla. But there is a lot more that goes into any text editor than just the bit that does the syntax highlighting.

However, not to detract from Scintilla. It's a great project and has bindings in lots of languages[0]. I've used it to add editors to lots of bespoke editor GUI tools. Can highly recommend using Scintilla.

[0] the bindings might all be 3rd party, I don't remember clearly (it's been a while). Whatever the case, I was using it from .NET, myself. It was very easy to use.


No, it's provably not true that "Scintilla only provides the textarea control that can perform syntax highlighting."

So what actually loads and saves the files, even if they are many megabytes? Scintilla. What is what makes that loading fast, compared to the implementation of Windows Notepad (which is how people discovered Notepad++)? Scintilla. What performs all the editing operations fast? Scintilla. What maintains all the undo information? Scintilla. What performs all the rendering of everything shown, in all the fonts and with all the configured properties, (and it works on all platforms, which is far from trivial)? Scintilla. And yes, what does all syntax coloring for all the languages? Scintilla. It's in its source base:

https://sourceforge.net/p/scintilla/code/ci/default/tree/lex...

Scintilla does provide all the programming level interfaces for its configuration, which can be also seen in the sources. In Notepad++, the dialogs which use these interfaces are, true, written by the Notepad++ author. So yes, most of the main functionality of the editor is in its editor engine, Scintilla, and the dialogs and menus are implemented by Notepad++.


I really, really wish I could run this program natively on macOS.

Previously I had a windows computer for work (though I am a mac user generally) and this is the only thing I miss since I managed to get a mac for work.

I know there are plenty of text editors available but Notepad++ just ticks all the right boxes for a simple text editor.

Edit: CrossOver for mac (fancy version of wine) is way cheap than I thought (30 quid), so I've bought that. Hello Notepad++ :)


I hear ya!

While i'm more of a linux user - not a mac user - for personal computing, i used to use notepad++ for years and years on windows machines that were issued to me at my day jobs. However, for the last few months i've been using Geany [https://www.geany.org/], based on many positive comments i had read elswhere that it comes closest to notepad++. So, I'm running Geany on my work machine (windows), and any/all of my personal linux machines. While Geany is amazing, it is not as good as notepad++ (in only a few small ways); though it really does comes the closest that i've seen compared to other text editors. Plus, it runs natively across windows, linux, and mac! I have no wish to persuade you to switch if you've already found a notepad++ alternative. But, if it helps you, i've grown to really love geany. And, as much as i still love notepad++, i yanked out notepad++ from my work windows machine and only run geany. I do this because i now have a consistent, unified experience (for my text editor) regardless of the OS, which is important to me. So, again, not trying to persuade, but if you haven't, give Geany a look-see. Good luck!

EDIT: I failed to add that...i've heard folks suggest running some sort of emulation layer or maybe Wine on linux in order to run notepad++...but for me, needing to run some extra layer for a text editor just didn't sit right with me. YMMV


I used to be like you but I started to (wo)man up and read the emacs tutorial with the fantastic doom-emacs and now I can get myself around with Emacs and do OK with it!

(on a second thought I do miss n-pp)


There are so many things on feature parity, but the button layout and general jist of np++ is just perfect.

If I could run a swiftUI style np++ with the buttons in exactly the same places & exact feature parity it'd be a dream.


Agreed. I've got VSCode and Textmate installed on my Mac but I guess my earlier years of Windows experience and Notepad++ being ubiquitous on all my machines and servers have set it as the baseline for my text editing experience. Only thing I found it wasn't great at was really big files - had to find specialized tools for those but other than that it was great (nice to see lots of active development still!)


Maybe the author doesn't want to "steal" the 30% of the Apple's future Mac AppStore revenue...


There isn't and never has been a limitation on installing mac apps from the internet.


Currently isn't... but Apple is moving toward AppStore on OS/X...


If they block installation of non AppStore apps it will be a big mistake for them.

It will just make Linux and open source more popular again and Apple will slowly start loosing the developers and power users, again. Others will eventually follow.

Combined with already risky move to ARM, they have to be crazy to go that route.

I think digital signatures are purely a security measure, and the dev account requirements are a way to establish some kind of chain of trust to the developer, to prevent bad actors from signing up on the spot and pushing out tons of malware unimpeded.


Politely disagree


Well Apple definitely wants to go that way, but it's unclear if users will rebel enough for Apple to give it up.

My guess is that Apple will make it step by step more difficult to install non-store apps so that people get used to it and only then cut it off.


I disagree, I think they want the average user to use the Mac App Store, but installing non app store apps is never going to go away.


Even if they don't the notarization requirement is a strong first step to at minimum a games console-style licensing program, or further integration with the existing developer program.

It would be nice for Apple to not do this, but if they can keep their ARM chips highly competitive it would be insanely lucrative to do so. Corporations are for-profit entities first and foremost.


And there is another strong factor: stock holders want to maximize the profits. Apple has learnt how to earn from AppStore. So the natural way would be to try to earn the same money on OS/X with Mac AppStore...


It's irrelevant. Apple could stop this any second by making homebrew break. They havent, it works fine on M1 and it can run x86 through rosetta.

If apple wanted to shut down alternative app stores macports and homebrew would already be dead.


It's no harder to install a non app store app today than it was when I got my first mac. So I'm not sure why this opinion is held so strongly.

It wouldn't be lucrative, because all the pro users (basically the mac userbase) would just not buy one. What's the point in getting one over an iPad?


> What's the point in getting one over an iPad?

Better keyboard, larger screen, more connectors. And despite a lot of devs using macs, most of the userbase aren't devs, but are instead designers, artists, or just average people like college students etc. Most of those don't need third party stores, or execute any type of software outside of an apple approved list. Give them their specialist DAW, Adobe suite, etc. and they are content.


Irrelevant. If developers abandon a platform (no matter how small a percentage they are) then the platform dies. Especially one like macOS where the only true environment to develop native compatibility is one of their machines itself.


30% of free is still free.


I'm happy with TextMate. Has a lot more features than Notepad++, too.


I don’t think I’ve ever quite fully appreciated N++‘a array of features.

What features do you find really help your workflow and how do you find it compares to Sublime Text in that regard?


Given that Notepad++ has several extension mechanisms, what features are you actually missing?



As far as I'm aware Wine doesn't run on Catalina.

EDIT: Had no idea Crossover was so cheap. Purchased!


Latest CrossOver even works on the new Silicon hardware: https://www.codeweavers.com/blog/jwhite/2020/11/18/okay-im-o...

(I work there.)


Work you guys do is great for the mac community :)


You can get vanilla Wine to run Notepad++ too:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/376427/40801


CrossOver does, it's paid software however.


I didn't know it was such an engaged project, a lot of their releases have a message:

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/


The founder of the project even said once that he didn't want anyone voting for the National Front to use his piece of software.


Makes me wonder if he's considered putting anything in the code to prevent it... Perhaps someone should test a few racist phrases with wireshark on?


Yes...because everyone knows that the best way to find out what open source software is doing is to fire up wireshark and type out racism...

Totally no other way.


...ah. I forgot it was open source. Stupid me.


You're free to look, it's OSS.

Answer: no.


https://notepadqq.com/s/ on Linux is an excellent alternative, but it lacks the plugin system and some of the tools from N++, which is a bummer. I still keep N++ installed via Wine, but use NotepadQQ most of the time since it starts up faster.

Notepad++ is a superb program.


NotepadQQ was something I tried to use as a Notepad++ alternative on Linux, but what really killed it for me was the absence of the UDL functionality. Ended up using Npp via Wine.


I remember notepad++ from way back in the day. Haven't used it since my shift to Linux in 2006, but it used to be the only editor worth talking about for Windows.

I was blown when I discovered column mode. I think I learnt to think about editing as an operation through it. It's carried forward to my vim usage now as well. I've seen Devs not make maximum use of these features and while I do respect their choices, I have to (embarrassingly) admit, it annoys me. I don't show it of course, but whenever a junior comes to me and asks me how I type fast or how I use so many shortcuts I make sure I take the time to teach them.

I owe that paradigm largely to Notepad++. Owe the dev a lot.


I just discovered Notepad++ macros today. Need to put speechmarks and a comma around every line? Record a macro, then repeat it N times. Brill.


I must admit, I have never heard the word speechmarks until just now.


How about inverted commas?


Understanding the tools available to you is key. I admit, I get frustrated as well at the same thing. Not really that people don't know it, but the fact that they choose to actively not learn it. The same thing goes for the command line with me. People look at me and wonder how I can do things so quickly and effortlessly. When I tell them I have used the tools available at my disposal, they look at me with a puzzled expression like "It's too much work." Few people get that I am not better at my job because I'm smart. I'm better because I have more time to focus on important things, because I spend so much less time on menial operations.


Notepad++ is probably the most frequently useful Windows app I use day to day.

I dont use it as an IDE but literally as a notebook, as well as editing the odd xml / json / sql etc.

Just a fantastic multi-purpose Notepad application.


I've never learned them because I've never been shown. I've ended up in column mode accidentally and not figured out why it's useful.

Any tutorials/videos you recommend to juniors?


Thanks for asking. Despite the memes about vim and emacs, I'd recommend learning Vim. Not because it's better but because Vim, or Vi, is everywhere. And the way you move in vim can be enabled on the terminal.

type vimtutor into your terminal in any Linux box and you should get an interactive editor to teach you how to use vim. Do that. And please learn touch typing. I typed with 3 fingers for 15 years before teaching myself how to TouchType. It's been a gift. I can type in the dark without Backlit keys. I can also use split ergonomic keyboards with ease.

keybr.com for learning.

Also, look up vimcasts for vim.

Two books I recommend is No Starch Press's The Linux Command Line and How Linux Works. Both are always appearing on Humble Bundle and they're worth the entire bundle.

Another thing I recommend is if you use VSCode, learn how to use the command bar. You get thst with control alt p or F1. Editors like this enable you to do everything through the command bar. It's insane.

Additionally, learn stuff like how ctrl r can be used in your terminal to find older commands. Learn how to use your bashrc to set variables. How to debug PATH, and how to add to it.

Learn how installing Python through conda is better and easier to maintain on your dev box, and how installing stuff by sudo apt install is actually troublesome. I install everything by downloading and adding to path. It's the best way to roll.

Also, one last thing. Remap your caps lock to escape. Learn to use your shift keys. Spare your pinky.

Hit me up on twitter if you need help. I use the same ID.


Yeah I was a pretty heavy np++ user on windows until I went over to vim (I had been using pico/nano on unix). After I switched to linux and a month or so with vim I didn't look back and install it everywhere I work :) . I especially like spacevim distribution.


gedit in linux is gret tho!


Dear moderators, could it be possible to revert to the original title of the post ? I think the title is the topic, not a minor release of Notepad++.


Ok, but a minor release of software with a political cause attached is not an on-topic HN submission.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html


Sorry, my bad.


For those momentarily confused as I was, in English the title would be Notepad++ 7.9.1 – for (in memory of) Samuel Paty


I considered translating the title but the other Notepad releases have their titles in English so I guessed that the author considered important to have a French title on this one.


Thanks, I had no idea what 'pour' meant in this context


I have been using n++ more than 10 years, and just now I've noticed that each release has some social or political message.


Do you not remmember when it automatically typed "Je suis charlie"?

That was an interesting version, because afterwards the dev was hacked by people who disagreed with his message. He then had to face the fact people who endorsed what he saw as terrorism used his open-source product.

"I will always find a way to distribute Notepad++ “Je suis Charlie” edition - that’s my freedom of expression which I claim as my right."

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/npp-site-hacked-cos-je-su...


That is the weird part, my brain has filter out everything after number. So, now I am somewhat amazed.


Didn't vim use to have a message too? i dont see it now


It only pops up sometimes:

             Help poor children in Uganda!
    type   :help iccf<Enter>       for information


Vim is Charityware, see `:help iccf`.


The killer features for me is the project management. I absolutely need the way it allows you to define virtual subfolders and cherry pick files from all over your file system rather than just adding everything from a folder as so many other editors do. Is there anything on Linux that would let me do that?


Agree or disagree, whether it's the "right place" for such comments or not, I like that he is willing to risk his reputation for his convictions.

Previous versions were named "Stand with Hong Kong" or "Free Uyghur".

Source: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/


Notepad++, has a platform to communicate their views. Does this us bother you? Would you in uninstall the product because their message is in opposition of your beliefs? This reminds me of tech advocates with blogs and twitter were followers get very upset when the content creator steps out of an imagined content subject matter agreement.


I use notepad++ for years in the job and privately. Great tool! If i had one wish to improve something, then this: Remember all bookmarks of all files (open or closed) like UltraEdit does this.


I don't use Windows much, but when I do I tend to look for N++. It's a strong tool, and quicker to add to a new Win system than emacs. ;)



Ha ha, reminds me of my post from 4 years ago. I had just released PropertyWebBuilder and I was a bit wound up by the Trump election so I asked this question:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13250450

The feedback was overall negative but I have a feeling if I asked that again today it might be a bit different.


I use Notepad++ on Windows. Never cared for its author, let alone the author's beliefs.


Why the down-vote? It seems related to the other comments, and I do not see why I must care about the author of the software or their views. If ReiserFS was good (for my use cases), I would use it, although in that case I know some about the author, but only because it was quite the news around some circles.




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