Disclaimer: I haven't used any of the 3 extensively, but I do play around in them from time-to-time. The main difference to me is that ST comes as a bare-metal editor with the potential to do just about anything, while Atom and VSC come with some built-in features that just make life easier and the ability to extend it further.

A concrete example would be VSC's git support; out-of-the-box, it's a full-featured git client, and even if you prefer the git cli for most operations like I do, VSC automatically reads the .git directory and then creates a tab that shows your current changelist (modified, staged) with a visual diff of the files. Also allows you to easily do the common stuff like checkout a branch, commit, push, etc.

If you're a big fan of ST, you probably won't like the alternatives unless you have some frustrations with ST, because ST is probably more powerful overall, but compared to Atom & VSC, the learning curve is also quite a bit higher.

The git support is a big deal. I loathe SourceTree and the like, but VSC is basically a better `git add -p` for me.

It's funny that the Git support of VSCode is better than that of Atom, since Atom is from GitHub, haha.

The fact that a minor update got released isn't a rare enough occurrence to warrant a highly-voted post on HN.

Snark aside, VSC has grown up quite a lot, very quickly. If you like Sublime, good for you, stick with it. But it looks like VSC is going to pick up support for more new things, faster. Personal favorite: support exists to plug in third-party debuggers and get debug tools/build errors inside VSC.

>The fact that a minor update got released isn't a rare enough occurrence to warrant a highly-voted post on HN.

Reality appears to disagree with you on this point.

>The fact that a minor update got released isn't a rare enough occurrence to warrant a highly-voted post on HN.

So, it's not as mature enough and still adds things regularly, including still struggling with speed issues?

How often does Vim have updates released? Who even cares for most of them?

Well, Sublime Text 3 is still a beta.

https://github.com/vim/vim/releases

That doesn't mean much, it's just a label. ST3 has been stable (and my main editor) for 2+ years now.

React was 0.15 until recently, and Node was adopted by major companies like Microsoft at 0.xx versions.

The way people number their versions does not mean anything (React is actually in v15 now). 0.xx has no meaning, except if the developer of the software explicitly indicates it's unfinished. Version numbers are entirely subjective by default.

I agree with you on the stability of Sublime Text, but the label beta has, on the opposite of version numbers, a consistent meaning: it's not finished.

This may or may not matter to you, but VSCode and Atom are open-source.

That means a lot to me, but I understand that some people won't really care.

Can you tell me how many times have you used their advantage of being open-source? Everybody keeps talking about ST not being open sourced, but how many people have actually went and dig into the Atom code and changed something in a core of it? I just want to write code with a fast editor, I don't really care if its open source or not if it does what I want it to do

I'm still using ST, but there have definitely been times when I wished it would be possible to modify some functionality. [1] I've sent them feature requests, but as they barely manage to implement their own ideas, mine have been ignored. If it were open source, I could've implemented it myself, which I certainly do for other tools that I use and find lacking.

[1] For example the find-replace dialog closes itself when I press "Replace All", as opposed to other editors I've used where it doesn't. It's annoying to have to reopen the dialog after every different search.

The benefit of open source is really better plugins. It's much easier to create plugins for an editor if you can see the editor's source code. This is true for IntelliJ IDEA and Atom in particular. I have been able to create pretty great UIs and other features in IntelliJ plugins from looking at and introspecting the IntelliJ code to see how it was done there.

The other benefit is that if the company dies you know you wont have wasted all that effort with the editor because open source editors don't live and die at the behest of the company that started them.

Even if you don't fix or extend anything yourself, a sufficiently popular open source project is immortal in a very real sense.

Think of it as insurance for one of you most important tools.

I've stepped through some atom code to figure out how to properly configure syntax highlighting (ended up being me misunderstanding how certain regexes work...)

I haven't changed anything in core, but having the ability to walk through all the code is super useful in debugging.

> how many people have actually went and dig into the Atom code and changed something in a core of it?

More than 1144: http://blog.atom.io/2016/05/06/two-years-open-source.html

>I don't really care if its open source or not if it does what I want it to do

You care about the utility of your editor, and that's fine. Several other comments here try to highlight ways in which open source projects are more pragmatic, like the ability to make modifications yourself or take advantage of community contributions.

All of that is just arguing about utility, though. For many people open source is a moral issue. RMS is a notable example here. And I prefer open source tools for this reason.

If you believe open source software is morally superior to closed source software then the utility considerations are of secondary, or perhaps even zero, importance.

I think it is not about doing the actual digging and changing code of open source project. It is more the idea that it is possible and can be done if needed.

Why does the advantage necessarily have to be personal? Why can't it be communal? Though I don't fancy myself as capable to make significant contributions to FOSS projects, I do use and promote them (though, if I'm honest, HN exposes more to me than I do here) so that others can have exposure to them, use them, provide feedback/contribution to the project.

ARM builds are something that I want from ST; if it were OSS that would not be impossible

He cares deeply about open-source because it usually comes attached to free-as-in-beer-ness.

They are free and open-source. The latest VSCode has my code to fix CJK word wrapping (and Kinsoku Shori).

VSC has built-in debuggers for node, go, python and c# that work very well.

Also the linter/autocomplete stuff seems much better integrated and snappier.

Atom and VS Code listen to your .gitignore when showing a folder of files. Quick searches ignore those files as well. In Atom those folders/files are still openable (the explorer pane thingy shows them as grayed out).

To get the same functionality in Sublime, AFAIK, you have to create a couple of project files first and add folders into it. Then, if you later make a new folder via the terminal you have to edit your project file to include it.

That's been my biggest headache around Sublime vs. Atom. It's the smallest thing but it's like sand in my shoe.

There are often times when I want certain files ignored in gitignore, but I still need to work with them and/or search them in the editor.

For me, it's nice to have a separate way to tell Sublime what to hide.

For me the OSX integration was better for Atom. Little things like the 'Duplicate' option in the project tree drawer. Also better PHP plugins.

Atom is a small bit slower than sublime, but it has just as many or possibly more plugins, has a nicer settings and plugin interface, and is open source and free.

I switched to Atom a few months ago, and I agree with all your points, but I think you're being a bit generous calling Atom "a small bit slower". On my machine (2013 MacBook Air) Sublime opens instantaneously, while Atom takes 2-3 seconds. Opening files is also noticeably slower, though not by as much. Memory usage is also far higher, in the hundreds of MBs vs tens.

This has been my experience as well, in addition to an increase in energy use.

Me too. I poke at Atom every few months — but speed + battery time are why I'm currently sticking with ST.