--- title: Acme: The Un-Terminal | daily.dev description: 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... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/acme-the-un-terminal-ucsnpfsbh twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Acme: The Un-Terminal | daily.dev og:description: 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... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/acme-the-un-terminal-ucsnpfsbh og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ucSnPFsBh.png og:image:alt: Acme: The Un-Terminal og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Acme: The Un-Terminal **[Lobsters](https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary 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. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Acme: A User Interface for Programmers](https://daily.dev/posts/acme-a-user-interface-for-programmers-3j7cbhhsy) · Lobsters · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Terminal Is an Art](https://daily.dev/posts/the-terminal-is-an-art-co7reysrn) · Dev Genius · 112 upvotes · 17 comments - [Toad is a unified experience for AI in the terminal](https://daily.dev/posts/toad-is-a-unified-experience-for-ai-in-the-terminal-ywyvh20wb) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [The IDE Is Losing to the Terminal — Coding Agents Made the Difference](https://daily.dev/posts/the-ide-is-losing-to-the-terminal-coding-agents-made-the-difference-4wqtpmdct) · Medium · 3 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#devtools](https://daily.dev/tags/devtools), [#unix](https://daily.dev/tags/unix) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/acme-the-un-terminal-ucsnpfsbh) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Acme: The Un-Terminal","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/acme-the-un-terminal-ucsnpfsbh","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/acme-the-un-terminal-ucsnpfsbh"},"datePublished":"2026-03-13T11:13:01.868Z","dateModified":"2026-03-13T11:13:26.469Z","description":"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...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/2edcb05415a576385a1c83198854bfd1?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/2edcb05415a576385a1c83198854bfd1?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Lobsters","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Lobsters","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--tl8v_Fku--/f_auto,t_logo/v1698841318/logos/lobste.jpg","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/acme-the-un-terminal-ucsnpfsbh","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"devtools,unix","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Lobsters","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Acme: The Un-Terminal"}]} ```