Building my own Vi text editor in BASIC

A programmer decided that using an ordinary writing tool was simply too mainstream, so they built their own Vi-style text editor in BASIC — yes, the old-school language many people associate with retro computers and classroom nostalgia. The project, called yvi, started as a tiny experiment with simple movement keys and ballooned into a surprisingly usable editor with saving, searching, deleting lines, undo, and more. In other words: what began as “how hard could it be?” turned into a full-on handmade digital passion project.

But the real fireworks were in the comments, where readers immediately split into two camps: “This rules” and “Why would you do this to yourself?” One commenter practically screamed the community’s collective double-take: BASIC? On purpose? Another admitted the creator might be “having fun wrong” — a delightfully dramatic line that sums up the whole vibe. Meanwhile, supporters rushed in to defend the chaos, calling it a great learning project and praising the joy of building your own tools instead of accepting bloated software.

Then came the jokes. One reader couldn’t resist teasing about whether the code was “vibecoded” and said they’re now waiting for the language server written in BASIC also :D, which is the kind of nerdy one-liner that instantly turns a comment thread into a comedy club. Others treated it like part of a bigger retro comeback, pointing to a mini BASIC resurgence and cheering the return of old-school, handmade computing. So yes, the editor is real — but the true spectacle is the crowd watching someone reinvent the wheel and arguing whether that wheel is genius, stubbornness, or both.