An exploration of Acme, a text editor from the Plan 9 operating system, framed as an 'integrating development environment' rather than a traditional IDE. The author argues that the real appeal of terminal-based tools isn't the terminal itself but the consistent, text-based interaction model. Acme achieves this in a GUI context by integrating Unix command-line tools directly—any selected text can be piped to a command—and using the 9P protocol to support extensibility via helper programs. Notably, Acme has no configuration, no color themes, and no syntax highlighting, which the author sees as a feature rather than a limitation, freeing users from endless tweaking.
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