8 ms·

Doesn't indicate perf improvements... Not trying to troll, but that surprises me given the large number of complaints about performance.

llamataboot 11y ago
Yeah, Atom is really my favorite editor at the moment in terms of features and add-ons but is totally unusable for me due to various performance issues. Not only does it choke on large files but something like a full-project search can take upwards of 30s to finish while Sublime Text finishes it in about 2-3s. I'd like to switch personally, but I can't until some major performance improvements happen. YMMV.
- ngrilly 11y ago
  What kind of computer and OS are you using?
  - llamataboot 11y ago
    Late 2013 Retina MBP w/ 16GB of RAM
- melling 11y ago
  Unless you tell someone your OS and hardware, it's really not helpful for people to decide, or even address the problems. Does Atom use a lot of ram or cpu? I've got a 2 year old Mac Book Pro with 16 GB RAM and an SSD. I downloaded Atom 1.6 after the announcement and leave it open to maintain my notes and I haven't noticed any performance problems with a couple dozen files. I might try to use it for another project once I evaluate the plugins.
  - dublinben 11y ago
    You shouldn't need a $2000 laptop to run a text editor.
    - dzhiurgis 11y ago
      But you will most likely have it anyway.
      - dublinben 11y ago
        Speak for yourself. My primary computer is a $200 laptop.
        melling 11y ago
        ok, try Atom and report back. The guy who was complaining had projects of several thousand files, some of which were 50,000 line xml files.
    - melling 11y ago
      No one said you did. I simply stated what I owned and explained how I use it, and how it performed. I imagine the same performance as my 2 year old laptop is equivalent to $500-$800 desktop today.
  - llamataboot 11y ago
    yes, I have a few thousand files, some of them are 50k+ line XML files. Sublime still searches my full project in many magnitudes of less time that Atom does. I use Atom for my small toy projects as well.
- crucialfelix 11y ago
  Yes, search is really slow. But atom-fuzzy-grep is near instantaneous even on large projects. Uses ag pt ack or grep https://atom.io/packages/atom-fuzzy-grep https://atom.io/packages/atom-fuzzy-grep The nice thing about Atom is that you can replace anything that isn't performing.
sandstrom 11y ago
I think it's gotten much better this year. It used to be somewhat slow (especially on large files), but it's alright now. Still room for improvement though.
- benatkin 11y ago
  Many devs could get a faster computer, too. I'm considering getting a Surface Book.
santaclaus 11y ago
The performance problems on a clean Atom install are incredibly vexing. Microsoft's Visual Studio Code is built on similar foundations and has great performance, so I don't think Atom's performance problems are fundamental.
- vvanders 11y ago
  Yeah, I've been really impressed with how snappy VSCode is.
- rayiner 11y ago
  Visual Studio Code is a totally different foundation. The only shared piece is the Electron shell for embedding Chrome.
  - jsmeaton 11y ago
    That's sort of the foundation though right? The editor built into the electron app is completely different, suggesting that atom is theoretically able to achieve similar performance. I haven't used visual studio code myself, but does it use a mix of JavaScript and HTML to render and process the text? If so then isn't the major differences the algorithm choices for rendering and editing text?
- sdesol 11y ago
  > Microsoft's Visual Studio Code is built on similar foundations This is my understanding of things: - Electron is built on top of Chromium, where the technology was mainly driven by Google and their engineers. - Vscode is based on Monaco which Erich Gamma and his team spear headed. - Atom is based on work done by GitHub. The analogy would be they both use Honda engines, but Microsoft appears to be able to use Honda's engine way more efficiently than GitHub.
  - altano 11y ago
    No this is pretty wrong. They are both built on Electron which is just the window shell hosted in Chrome. The actual text editors are completely different code bases that have nothing to do with each other. The better analogy would be they are both built using Honda doors, but they each have completely different engines.
seanwilson 11y ago
I've been using Atom for over a year and haven't had any major performance problems. Luckily for me I don't have to regularly access code files that are megabytes long but I can see why not being able to do so would be annoying.
eknkc 11y ago
They had decent performance improvements in recent major releases. It's pretty good now, except for the initial boot time. Takes ages to launch it. But after that, runs smooth on my laptop.
cortesi 11y ago
I'm making a bit of a habit of chipping in on Atom performance complaints with a counterpoint. I've now used Atom as my primary editor for more than a year, and I have no complaints about the performance. This could be because I'm using OSX on recent hardware - I've noticed that my friends using Linux desktops seem to have more issues than I do.
- ShrpErinaceidae 11y ago
  Having both Atom and VS Code installed on recent hardware I can say VS Code definitely feels snappier in multiple aspects. It's hard to believe both editors share Electron roots. And not to make this an X is better than Y comment, but the much better (in my experience) high-DPI handling with VS Code does the same. I wonder what exactly VS Code does to manage to be the only Electron based application that I've used that scales properly across multiple monitors at different DPIs.
  - imron 11y ago
    > I wonder what exactly VS Code does to manage to be the only Electron based application that I've used that scales properly across multiple monitors at different DPIs. It's released by a company that has internal controls on making sure released apps are high-DPI compliant.
- ShrpErinaceidae 11y ago
  Having both Atom and VS Code installed on recent hardware I can say VS Code definitely feels snappier in multiple aspects. It's hard to believe both editors share Electron roots. And not to make this an X is better than Y comment, but the much better (in my experience) high-DPI handling with VS Code does the same. I wonder what exactly VS Code does to manage to be the only Electron based application that I've used that scales properly across multiple monitors at different DPIs.
- galistoca 11y ago
  It's alright for small files, but whenever I paste in a huge csv or json file it hangs for minutes. And I use pretty recent macbook pro with high specs. This doesn't happen with other editors.
shakeel_mohamed 11y ago
I don't know when the perf improved, but it definitely has recently. In the past month I downloaded Atom on OS X (for the third time) to see if the perf had improved and I was impressed! I added a huge project's folder and indexing was done insanely fast (iirc less than 30 seconds). I don't really have a need for Atom at the moment since Sublime Text exists, but I might recommend it for new programmers since it's free + hackable.

llamataboot 11y ago

Yeah, Atom is really my favorite editor at the moment in terms of features and add-ons but is totally unusable for me due to various performance issues. Not only does it choke on large files but something like a full-project search can take upwards of 30s to finish while Sublime Text finishes it in about 2-3s. I'd like to switch personally, but I can't until some major performance improvements happen. YMMV.

ngrilly 11y ago
What kind of computer and OS are you using?
- llamataboot 11y ago
  Late 2013 Retina MBP w/ 16GB of RAM
melling 11y ago
Unless you tell someone your OS and hardware, it's really not helpful for people to decide, or even address the problems. Does Atom use a lot of ram or cpu? I've got a 2 year old Mac Book Pro with 16 GB RAM and an SSD. I downloaded Atom 1.6 after the announcement and leave it open to maintain my notes and I haven't noticed any performance problems with a couple dozen files. I might try to use it for another project once I evaluate the plugins.
- dublinben 11y ago
  You shouldn't need a $2000 laptop to run a text editor.
  - dzhiurgis 11y ago
    But you will most likely have it anyway.
    - dublinben 11y ago
      Speak for yourself. My primary computer is a $200 laptop.
      - melling 11y ago
        ok, try Atom and report back. The guy who was complaining had projects of several thousand files, some of which were 50,000 line xml files.
  - melling 11y ago
    No one said you did. I simply stated what I owned and explained how I use it, and how it performed. I imagine the same performance as my 2 year old laptop is equivalent to $500-$800 desktop today.
- llamataboot 11y ago
  yes, I have a few thousand files, some of them are 50k+ line XML files. Sublime still searches my full project in many magnitudes of less time that Atom does. I use Atom for my small toy projects as well.
crucialfelix 11y ago
Yes, search is really slow. But atom-fuzzy-grep is near instantaneous even on large projects. Uses ag pt ack or grep https://atom.io/packages/atom-fuzzy-grep https://atom.io/packages/atom-fuzzy-grep The nice thing about Atom is that you can replace anything that isn't performing.

sandstrom 11y ago

I think it's gotten much better this year. It used to be somewhat slow (especially on large files), but it's alright now. Still room for improvement though.

benatkin 11y ago
Many devs could get a faster computer, too. I'm considering getting a Surface Book.

santaclaus 11y ago

The performance problems on a clean Atom install are incredibly vexing. Microsoft's Visual Studio Code is built on similar foundations and has great performance, so I don't think Atom's performance problems are fundamental.

vvanders 11y ago
Yeah, I've been really impressed with how snappy VSCode is.
rayiner 11y ago
Visual Studio Code is a totally different foundation. The only shared piece is the Electron shell for embedding Chrome.
- jsmeaton 11y ago
  That's sort of the foundation though right? The editor built into the electron app is completely different, suggesting that atom is theoretically able to achieve similar performance. I haven't used visual studio code myself, but does it use a mix of JavaScript and HTML to render and process the text? If so then isn't the major differences the algorithm choices for rendering and editing text?
sdesol 11y ago
> Microsoft's Visual Studio Code is built on similar foundations This is my understanding of things: - Electron is built on top of Chromium, where the technology was mainly driven by Google and their engineers. - Vscode is based on Monaco which Erich Gamma and his team spear headed. - Atom is based on work done by GitHub. The analogy would be they both use Honda engines, but Microsoft appears to be able to use Honda's engine way more efficiently than GitHub.
- altano 11y ago
  No this is pretty wrong. They are both built on Electron which is just the window shell hosted in Chrome. The actual text editors are completely different code bases that have nothing to do with each other. The better analogy would be they are both built using Honda doors, but they each have completely different engines.

seanwilson 11y ago

I've been using Atom for over a year and haven't had any major performance problems. Luckily for me I don't have to regularly access code files that are megabytes long but I can see why not being able to do so would be annoying.

eknkc 11y ago

They had decent performance improvements in recent major releases. It's pretty good now, except for the initial boot time. Takes ages to launch it. But after that, runs smooth on my laptop.

cortesi 11y ago

I'm making a bit of a habit of chipping in on Atom performance complaints with a counterpoint. I've now used Atom as my primary editor for more than a year, and I have no complaints about the performance. This could be because I'm using OSX on recent hardware - I've noticed that my friends using Linux desktops seem to have more issues than I do.

ShrpErinaceidae 11y ago
Having both Atom and VS Code installed on recent hardware I can say VS Code definitely feels snappier in multiple aspects. It's hard to believe both editors share Electron roots. And not to make this an X is better than Y comment, but the much better (in my experience) high-DPI handling with VS Code does the same. I wonder what exactly VS Code does to manage to be the only Electron based application that I've used that scales properly across multiple monitors at different DPIs.
- imron 11y ago
  > I wonder what exactly VS Code does to manage to be the only Electron based application that I've used that scales properly across multiple monitors at different DPIs. It's released by a company that has internal controls on making sure released apps are high-DPI compliant.
ShrpErinaceidae 11y ago
Having both Atom and VS Code installed on recent hardware I can say VS Code definitely feels snappier in multiple aspects. It's hard to believe both editors share Electron roots. And not to make this an X is better than Y comment, but the much better (in my experience) high-DPI handling with VS Code does the same. I wonder what exactly VS Code does to manage to be the only Electron based application that I've used that scales properly across multiple monitors at different DPIs.
galistoca 11y ago
It's alright for small files, but whenever I paste in a huge csv or json file it hangs for minutes. And I use pretty recent macbook pro with high specs. This doesn't happen with other editors.

shakeel_mohamed 11y ago

I don't know when the perf improved, but it definitely has recently. In the past month I downloaded Atom on OS X (for the third time) to see if the perf had improved and I was impressed! I added a huge project's folder and indexing was done insanely fast (iirc less than 30 seconds). I don't really have a need for Atom at the moment since Sublime Text exists, but I might recommend it for new programmers since it's free + hackable.