Smartparens is 5 years old today
Five years ago I've published the first version of Smartparens on Github. To celebrate the occasion I've just released Smartparens version 1.11.0 packed with new features, bug fixes and some performance optimizations.
This project has become a huge part of my life and evolved along with me over the years. I have started working on it pretty much on the day when I first started using Emacs. One can almost say that the project was only born thanks to my ignorance of Emacs landscape—had I known of paredit I would have probably never started, or maybe start but a lot later and with different setup in mind.
Today with over 350.000 downloads on MELPA it is one of the biggest projects in Emacs land; and I'm aiming for the top! The ubiquity of it still shocks me and every time I randomly read a blog post or an article where someone mentions Smartparens it feels just like years ago—a sense of deep appreciation and gratefulness, not only for the kind words but also simply for the fact that I am able to do something like this and can rightly call myself amazingly fortunate.
I had no idea what I was doing but the response from the community was amazing and very encouraging. One special shout out has to go to the amazing Bozhidar Batsov who switched Prelude to use Smartparens not even half a year after I started the project. This was a huge deal for the growth of the project with thousands of new users coming in pretty much over night.
This early success encouraged me to start other (Emacs) projects of which I now have well over 50 and I have contributed to countless others.
Thanks also go to all the contributors who helped to move Smartparens to where it is now; and also many others who reported issues and provided suggestions for improvements. I can't name you all but your efforts are much appreciated!
I had pretty rough and packed year but I hope to get back on track with the release schedule and start a more rapid release cycle. Expect more goodies to come soon :)
Thanks again and enjoy the new release everyone!
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