Re:Sublime Text vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Atom Performance ...
by antfarm on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @04:07AM
(#13307877)
You should give VS Code a try. I used it with novice programmers and find it has the easiest to use (and explain) step debugger I have ever seen. Being able to stop a program and inspect variable state and the call stack proved very helpful when learning concepts such as loops, recursion and variable scope.
Re:Sublime Text vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Atom Performance ...
by danso on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @05:18AM
(#13308168)
Thanks for the tip. How is its cross-platform consistency?
Re:Sublime Text vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Atom Performance ...
by antfarm on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @07:08AM
(#13308586)
I had students using it on Linux, Mac and Windows with no problems. Only had to assist with setting up the debugger to make it use the right interpreter (Ruby, Python, PHP).
The integrated terminal is also a nice feature.
Re:Sublime Text vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Atom Performance ...
by trishume on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @08:12AM
(#13308839)
Normally I defend Sublime Text, but I think this is the ideal use case for Atom/VSCode. It has great defaults and is easy to get started with without plugins.
Sublime is still easier than VIM/Emacs for beginners but it does require some effort to get up to full awesomeness.
1. Atom has nice defaults, such as spaces for default tabbing and automatic trimming of white space upon save. In ST, you have to manually alter the user config file.
1.5 Atom has much better file handling in its project sidebar -- e.g. Right-clicking a file brings up the expected options for moving/copying/etc a file. And the dialog box is much clearer. In ST, IIRC, I have to install 2 separate plugins to have that convenience.
2. Atom's package manager is built in. In ST, you have to activate the console and paste in a Python command to install the PM.
3. The prominent "Download" button on sublimetext.com, until recently, defaulted to 2. And the download page for 3 lacks a call to action, at least in comparison to the page text that warns the reader that 3 is still in beta. I was always amazed at how many students installed ST2 contrary to my instructions until I visited the ST homepage for myself (which I never do unless I have to reinstall ST from scratch).
4. Atom installs the 'atom' CLI command by default. ST requires manual shell configuration to get 'subl'
5. Atom is free. ST has a free trial but then nags the user upon every nth save. I know, minor inconvenience, but as a happy purchaser of ST, I found that I vastly underestimated how much that nag dialog broke the flow, especially if students followed my advice to hit Cmd-S casually.
I agree with the OP that ST is substantially more performant, which is why ST is still my editor of choice. But for my students, performance is less of a concern. For most novices, their concept of a "text editor" is Microsoft Word...so a 3 second load up time won't bother them.
That Atom chokes on non trivial data files, e.g. a CSV of 100K rows, has been the strongest reason to stick to ST. But I now see that as an asset when it comes to teaching beginners. I make them learn the command line, and no better way to drive home the importance of tools like head, tail, sed, and grep than to have students experience firsthand Atom's grinding death when trying to render even simple text.