A while back when Sublime Text 2 was in beta, I was fascinated by all the pretty colors and smooth transitions (and the python scripting of course) so I figured that I’d give the cool new kid on the block a chance. At the time there were very few plugins for C++, so naturally there was none for Cscope (there was one for Ctags, but it wasn’t particularly useful at that point). So, to fill the void, I made my own.

While making the plugin, however, I realized how limited the plugin API really was, and it always irks me when someone stops me from using something they’ve made to its fullest potential. Besides, most of the plugin API was (and still is) woefully lacking in documentation, so I figured that ST2 didn’t quite fit the bill. However, I wasn’t prepared to go back to Vim because of how arcane and obtuse it is (if you don’t believe me, just go search for “Vimscript reference” in your favorite search engine and tell me what you find. For god’s sake (note the lack of capitalization) even the user manual for Vimscript is named “usr_41”) so I decided to check out what all the fuss around Emacs was about. And the rest, as they say, was history.

As a result of this, the Cscope plugin for ST2 was pretty much abandoned and was in a state of disrepair for a couple of years (despite which it still managed to get a couple of hundred installs). That was until I set about improving the plugin for the folks at my company. A couple of weeks after I cleaned up the output of the plugin and moved it to its own buffer, two github users started raising issues and commenting on each other’s issues. Then, when I fixed one issue, more issues came in, along with a pull request to fix one of them! One of the new users stood out: he would consistently provide helpful advice, he provided a couple of fixes, cleaned up the code a bit, and seemed to have a decent idea as to where the plugin should go next. So, I present to you, the new contributor to the plugin: Jason Kasper.

(I don’t know if this is as big a deal as I’m making it out to be, it’s just that I’ve never seen anyone take so much interest in my work or be so appreciative of my effors before - he prefaced two of the issues he raised with “Let’s thank Amey for providing such a wonderful plugin!” - and I’ve also never had anyone submit pull rquests or agree to become a contributor on one of my repos before, so this is a pretty big deal for me)