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A comment on Atom now using Io.js. Parent comment

Re:Atom now using Io.js by awalton on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @04:49PM (#8993644)
It needs to be amazing at something though.

And well... it isn't. The biggest thing I can tell is that it's "hip". Meanwhile Sublime Text spins around it at 40MPH doing donuts.

I tried. I really tried to use Atom. But the text editor is just so slow and unresponsive, and that is a flat out dealbreaker for a text editor. Its extensibility isn't any better than Sublime's, and I feel like Python's a way better language than Javascript, so I'm happier tooling against Sublime.

I too wish Sublime Text was open source, coming from an open source development background, but I understand exactly how hard it is to develop open source software and feed and clothe yourself - people only buy "support contracts" for the first year and rarely renew, and only for software they feel is technically complex enough that they might actually need help or customizations.

For the record, I also backed GNOME Builder (which I also already find superior to Atom) in the hopes of some day it becoming the text editor and development environment I lust after. But my greatest fear is that more time will be spent on the shiny features and not enough time on the things I really care about like a decent GUI debugger so I don't have to live with poking at GDB, ahead-of-build compiler warnings/errors, and code refactoring tools.

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Re:Atom now using Io.js by georgeecollins on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @09:23PM (#8994966)
I was really interested in Atom but I found it to be a little sluggish (particularly when I switched it to the background) and sometimes unstable on my Macbook.
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Re:Atom now using Io.js by crucialfelix on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @05:32PM (#8993968)
Perhaps your computer might be older. Its blazingly fast on my machine. as people move to newer machines then speed is not going to be an issue.

Compared to Sublime, Atom developers can build much richer interfaces.

my own supercollider IDE in Atom:

https://atom.io/packages/supercollider

this is a full repl with a debugging call stack

haskell IDE:

https://atom.io/packages/ide-haskell

preview your development work in a web pane:

https://atom.io/packages/mobile-preview

but yet I think the packages are still young and there is much more that can be done. its early days.

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Re:Atom now using Io.js by mwcampbell on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @05:40PM (#8994015)
The trouble is that an editor shouldn't require a 2010+ MacBook Air in order to be blazing fast. As I recall, we were running syntax-highlighting editors on ~166 MHz Pentium machines in the mid 90s. Hell, maybe I even ran one on my old 80486 laptop.
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Re:Atom now using Io.js by awalton on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @06:35PM (#8994333)
I have a 2014 Macbook Pro and it's sluggish there. I have half a dozen Linux machines around me daily and it's entirely unusable on them. You can visibly tell when the GC is running, it's that terrible.
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Re:Atom now using Io.js by jsheard on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @08:48PM (#8994875)
Time to launch various editors on my SSD-backed, 4x4ghz Windows desktop:

ST3: Instantanous, VS2013: 1 second, Atom: 3 seconds

You know you've got problems when Visual Studio is running rings around you.

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Re:Atom now using Io.js by pbiggar on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @05:02PM (#8993732)
You just described a load of things that it's amazing at:

- it's hip (dont discount that, its important. it excites people, and gives contributors a reaso to contribute)

- it's in JS - maybe not right for you, but there are lots of people who have the opposite opinion.

- it's open source: for some, a closed source editor is a deal breaker. Imagine the people who say "i hate emacs and vim; I'd love to use sublime but it's closed source" - they'll run to atom.

- its got corporate backing (gnome builder may die or wither, there are many who can believe that atom wont because of GitHub's backing)

So those are some pretty big niches right there!

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Re:Atom now using Io.js by kristianp on Wednesday February 04, 2015 @03:13AM (#8995827)
None of those things are actually features.
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Re:Atom now using Io.js by pbiggar on Wednesday February 04, 2015 @01:07PM (#8998441)
Doesnt matter. They're reasons to use it. (I'd argue being in JS is a big feature for many, but since it doesn't matter, nothing to discuss :)
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Re:Atom now using Io.js by hit8run on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @05:44PM (#8994032)
Sublime seems to be back on track. In the last week it received two updates :)
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Re:Atom now using Io.js by thedufer on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @05:34PM (#8993986)
The biggest issue with Sublime is that it's been unchanged for over a year. I think that's the big problem that Atom is solving - Sublime + active development.
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Re:Atom now using Io.js by awalton on Wednesday February 04, 2015 @05:49AM (#8996185)
Sublime devs released a build today:

http://www.sublimetext.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17509

The product is alive but understandably slow with a single developer.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Atom now using Io.js by Cthulhu_ on Wednesday February 04, 2015 @09:11AM (#8996833)
Single developer shouldn't be that big of a factor in slow development and complete media silence for six months to a year on end; any half-decent developer can churn out an update every week, whether it's a new feature or just a bugfix. That's how you keep people excited about your program, and how to prevent it from seeming stale and dead.
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Re:Atom now using Io.js by danellis on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @06:22PM (#8994261)
What is it that you would like to see fixed in or added to Sublime Text?
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Re:Atom now using Io.js by thedufer on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @07:39PM (#8994605)
I don't use it; I just know that this is the reason many of my coworkers are moving away from it. I've heard concerns about it breaking on a future OS upgrade, or just failing to keep up with others in features.
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Re:Atom now using Io.js by SchizoDuckie on Wednesday February 04, 2015 @02:37AM (#8995741)
https://twitter.com/sublimehq Development will speed up in 2015. 2 releases in a week 'stable' enough for you?
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Re:Atom now using Io.js by MozMorris on Wednesday February 04, 2015 @03:24AM (#8995855)
Is my Twitter screwed? No tweets since Dec 2013.
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Re:Atom now using Io.js by bpicolo on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @09:35PM (#8995002)
Except it HAS changed. http://www.sublimetext.com/3dev
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Re:Atom now using Io.js by thedufer on Wednesday February 04, 2015 @10:38AM (#8997388)
If you're looking to lose any and all good will you've established, charging all previous customers $70 to get updates is a great way to do it. ST2 dev is dead, which is what matters to the people who already paid for the product.
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