Bram Moolenaar (born 1961,

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) is a Dutch

computer programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

and an active member of the

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...

community. He is the original author, maintainer, release manager, and benevolent dictator for life of Vim, a vi-derivative text editor that is very popular among programmers and

power user A power user is a user of computers, software and other electronic devices, who uses advanced features of computer hardware, operating systems, programs, or websites which are not used by the average user. A power user might not have extensive tec ...

s. From July 2006 until September 2021 Moolenaar was employed by

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working in the

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office. He was able to spend part of his time maintaining Vim.

Charity work and awards

Moolenaar is an advocate of the

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charity, encouraging people to support orphans in

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. He pioneered a methodology called

charityware Careware (also called charityware, helpware, or goodware) is software licensed in a way that benefits a charity. Some careware is distributed free, and the author suggests that some payment be made to either a nominated charity, or a charity of th ...

through Vim. The software itself is available for free, but it encourages the user to donate to the programmer's favorite charity. A number of other applications have been licensed this way since the inception of this concept. The opening "splash" screen for Vim encourages support of ICCF. Moolenaar has been a member of the Dutch Unix user group,

NLUUG NLUUG (formerly known as The Netherlands Local Unix User Group) is an association of professional UNIX / Linux users in the Netherlands. The group aims to increase and extend the awareness and use of Open Standards (including UNIX) and similar op ...

, which presented him with an award during its 25th anniversary, for his creation of Vim and his contributions to open source software in general.

Vim

The Vim editor started as "Vi IMitation" on the

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in 1988, but was later relabeled "Vi IMproved" and ported to many other platforms. As vi was a popular editor amongst programmers and system administrators, initially there was doubt whether Bram's 'improved' version could achieve the quality and fan following of the original. But since its first release for Unix systems in 1992, Vim has effectively eclipsed the original Vi, having won several awards and has been referred to as one of the most popular text editors.

Other software

Other software tools that Moolenaar has developed include a software build tool written in

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, called A-A-P, which is similar to

make Make or MAKE may refer to: * Make (magazine), a tech DIY periodical *Make (software), a software build tool *Make, Botswana, in the Kalahari Desert *Make Architects Make Architects is an international architecture practice headquartered in Londo ...

, and a programming language called ZimbuMoolenaar, B.
"the Zimbu programming language"
Retrieved on 16 March 2014 which puts an emphasis on readability of programs. Amongst all of Moolenaar's contributions to the field of computer science, the Vim editor remains his most prominent and widely used application.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Moolenaar, Bram 1961 births Living people Dutch computer programmers Free software programmers Google employees Vi Delft University of Technology alumni People from Lisse