24 ms·

New Sublime Text update

338 points by pyed 10y ago

donatj 10y ago
I forget that not everyone is in the dev channel and was wondering why this was on the front page. There's new dev's every couple days. Didn't realize there haven't been a stable in a long time.
- HCIdivision17 10y ago
  Looking at the change list, it notes that there won't be artifacting with theme changes any more? If so that's freaking huge. For a while there it would start up, the package manager would update stuff, and then the interface would sorta crap itself. A quick reload fixed it, but damn annoying. Would you suggest switching to the dev builds? I really wouldn't mind being on the bleeding edge if it meant getting fixes like that sooner.
  - tyleregeto 10y ago
    For what its worth, I've been using the dev channel for a long time and have never had any issues. It's very stable. I'd recommend it.
  - Scarbutt 10y ago
    I don't uset ST but the procrastinator in me checked their home page, the download button defaults to ST 3.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Looking at the change list, it notes that there won't be artifacting with theme changes any more? If so that's freaking huge. For a while there it would start up, the package manager would update stuff, and then the interface would sorta crap itself. How is that "huge"? It happened at most 1-2 times a year, and a simple 1 second restart fixed it -- and still left all the files you had loaded.
    - HCIdivision17 10y ago
      Due making a backup shortly before a breaking glitch, it actually happened a whole bunch of times across a whole bunch of computers. Sublime's licensed to the user, not the machine, so over a few months while I was setting up a slew of machines I kept forgetting about it when I restored my app directory. Add that one of the packages would freak out when curl wasn't already installed first and it was a mess. Sublime would start, update, screw up the interface, popup, and then I'd have to close it and restart a few times until the package manager got it up to a stable point. I say huge because it was god damn irritating. In a giant checklist of stuff I was worried about, it was always an afterthought that caught me by surprise. When the artifacting completely craps out the side bar such that the folder tree no longer updates when files change, you can't even tell if the files are still there. EDIT: To really drive the point home: this happened a whole lot. The above is a story of woe and sadness, but the real kicker was simply the autoupdate as noted elsewhere by `jbrooksuk. For a long time I used the Soda Theme [0], one of the top packages on Package Control. It had a wierd glitch with hotkeys and would end up reloading shortly after startup. It was possible that it would garf things up even on restart as a result (possibly as a race condition such that if no updates were performed, it restarted fast enough to not bork whatever drew the iterface). I used Soda theme for years, but have recently switched to Seti and enjoy the change quite a bit. [0] https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Theme%20-%20Soda https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Theme%20-%20Soda [1] https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Seti_UI https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Seti_UI
      - andromeduck 10y ago
        Whoa, that is a pretty nice theme
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zyxley 10y ago
It's good to see more ST updates, but it's sad that it feels like they're only even bothering because of the popularity of Atom.
- usaphp 10y ago
  What exactly are you looking for in ST improved? I just can't find anything that I think can be any better, it's just perfect already for me, I've tried using Atom but always went back to ST after a week of poor performance and battery drainage of Atom.
  - elliotec 10y ago
    Yeah Atom still has issues. I've had crashing problems on 4 year old Macs. But ST makes you pay $70. And also isn't open source. And more people know JS than Python to hack on it. And Github has a powerful marketing team and lots of resources to put behind Atom and it's development. And ST doesn't get updated too often.
    - desireco42 10y ago
      I am a vim user, so I don't really use SublimeText often if at all. I was happy to pay $70 for it, just to support what I saw as a fresh take on editors. I wish developer could find more sustainable way to make a living from this and work on it more. I don't think I ever regretted paying for it and I made number of companies with people using it, pay for it.
      - lighttower 10y ago
        We bought it in our company also. Great product. Makes me happy to pay for good things. I use VIM also but regEx in VIM kill me
        waivek 10y ago
        You could try this out - https://github.com/othree/eregex.vim https://github.com/othree/eregex.vim
m_mueller 10y ago
Is it just me or did this break the python syntax highlighter for line continuations within strings? I had to install MagicPython to fix it.
- chrisra 10y ago
  Blessing in disguise, I guess. Seems like MagicPython was better anyway. :)
- bpicolo 10y ago
  In strings or docstrings?
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    normal strings with "\" line continuations.
- szastupov 10y ago
  Packages are now on GitHub, you are free to submit a patch or report an issue: https://github.com/sublimehq/Packages/issues https://github.com/sublimehq/Packages/issues
ihsw 10y ago
> Themes may now be switched on the fly without artifacts Excellent news. Switching themes and seeing the UI barf is unsightly.
- chatmasta 10y ago
  Why do you switch themes? Night time and day time?
  - dreamsofdragons 10y ago
    While not a sublime, I frequently switch iterm's themes when I code outdoors. A dark background is my preference, but a light theme works much better in sunlight.
  - jbrooksuk 10y ago
    It's not that people often switch themes, it's that when you open Sublime, Package Manager updates themes and it has to reload them, which used to cause the UI glitches.
_RPM 10y ago
The only proprietary software that I use as a matter of choice is Microsoft products and VMWare products, For something as trivial as a text editor, I wouldn't dare use something closed source, proprietary like this.
- haswell 10y ago
  I don't think it's quite fair to classify Sublime as a text editor. Your comment trivializes the quality of the editing experience, the rich plugin ecosystem, the speed of the editor compared to common competitors, etc. You are of course entitled to your preferences, but I'm not sure why you wouldn't "dare" use this?
  - ubernostrum 10y ago
    Emacs and vim are classified as text editors, and Sublime is a small fraction of what Emacs and vim are.
    - pizza 10y ago
      To be fair, the small fraction of features that Sublime shares with Emacs and vim are hardly insufficient for a good editor.
  - _RPM 10y ago
    Because there is code in there that neither myself or my peers have seen.
  - AdieuToLogic 10y ago
    I don't think it's quite fair to classify Sublime as a text editor. While I may not agree with the totality of what @_RPM states, there is no doubt that Sublime is "a text editor" when the official site states thusly[0]: Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor... 0 - http://www.sublimetext.com/ http://www.sublimetext.com/
- seibelj 10y ago
  "Trivial as a text editor" I wonder if you spend 8 hours a day staring at a text editor... I recommend you make your own if it's so trivial
deleted 10y ago
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keithnz 10y ago
loved my time with sublime, then atom crossed a line where, while not as good as sublime in some area, it got good in other areas... then... vscode came along and showed how snappy an electron app could be, but didn't have a lot of stuff.... then bam, it opened up, and still not as many toys as Atom, and not quite as slick as sublime, it hits a bit of sweet spot somewhere in between.
- usaphp 10y ago
  can you tell me what exactly in Atom or vscode is worth switching from ST?
  - geoffpado 10y ago
    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.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >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?
      - Artemis2 10y ago
        Well, Sublime Text 3 is still a beta. https://github.com/vim/vim/releases https://github.com/vim/vim/releases
        coldtea 10y ago
        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.
nikolay 10y ago
I wonder what kind of release process this guy has as the dev version always lags behind stable - https://www.sublimetext.com/3dev https://www.sublimetext.com/3dev
- coldtea 10y ago
  Who told you it lags? Version numbers? That's because stable version X+1 come after dev version X. This doesn't mean it lags, just that the dev version came out first, and only after it was checked for a while, it was deemed worthy to hit the stable (well, actually beta) channel. That's not different than any other project I know.
  - nikolay 10y ago
    I don't look at the version number only, but at the changelog, too, but didn't pay much attention, until now. Most sane projects create a build and test it, and don't rely on testing source code because the build process itself can cause defects as well. What we've been testing as a dev build should have been promoted to stable, but, I realize now, he has the changelog embedded in the executable, and it's possibly merged across dev builds. He also has differences in the functionality between the dev and beta builds as you can't run the dev without a key.
    - SyneRyder 10y ago
      It sounds like his approach is similar to the Windows 10 Insider Builds model of Fast Ring & Slow Ring. Even if all the Sublime builds in Dev are stable, I don't want to be updating every 2 days to get some minor bugfix. When I launch Sublime, I mostly just want to get to straight to work, not be thrown out of the zone by an update. It took me a while to learn that lesson from my own customers. As a developer I'm excited to make sure customers always get new features ASAP, but customers would complain they were perfectly happy with what they'd bought & only wanted an update maybe once or twice a year. But everyone's different - that's why the option of a Dev/Beta channel & a Stable channel is good.
      - 10y ago
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
I was trying to choose a Mac text editor recently; got it down to Atom and Sublime, and then discovered that both of them do code folding wrong. They think it's based on indentation, not syntax, so if you try to fold something like: if (something) { some code //commented-out code more code } It folds everything from the opening bracket to the comment, then stops. Both editors have had issues filed over this bug for years, which have been ignored. (https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/3442 https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/3442, https://github.com/SublimeTextIssues/Core/issues/101 https://github.com/SublimeTextIssues/Core/issues/101) I eventually decided to go with Atom; it's open-source, so I can at least aspire to fix the damn thing myself when I get annoyed enough.
- coldtea 10y ago
  And why start the comment ahead of the indentation level?
  - frou_dh 10y ago
    If such commenting is being done using the generic comment/uncomment keyboard shortcut, whether that happens is influenced by TM_COMMENT_DISABLE_INDENT in the language package's Comments.tmPreferences file.
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    I didn't write the code in question, but I've done the same thing before. Usually it's because I'm cursoring up and down a file, see some lines I want to comment out, and don't bother moving over to the start of the text first. Syntax highlighting greys out the comment, so it's not visually obtrusive. (Which is another reason I'm baffled that Atom and Sublime both misbehave this way--they've got syntax highlighting! They're already aware of block delimiters! Why don't they apply that knowledge to code folding?) And I understand there are other reasons to not indent. In some languages, it's conventional to have certain kinds of declarations come at the beginning of a line, even if they're inside a block. (I think C++ does this, but I haven't used it since college--anyone want to comment?)
- oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
micnguyen 10y ago
The company behind Sublime really fascinates me. Given how many developers I've seen use Sublime, in the modern age of social media I'm so surprised SublimeHQ is still invisible. They hardly do any marketing that I've seen online, no social media engagement, nothing. Not necessarily a bad thing, but Sublime just seemed -primed- to be that sort of company with a hyper-engaged user base.
- ryanmaynard 10y ago
  IIRC, its just one person; Jon Skinner.
  - bshimmin 10y ago
    Definitely at least one other person: http://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/sublime-text-3-build-3103 http://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/sublime-text-3-buil... And despite their lack of "social media engagement", they do have a Twitter account (@sublimehq) with nearly sixty thousand followers - and they tweet just about as regularly as updates for Sublime Text are released!
    - nikolay 10y ago
      Jon Skinner [0] Will Bond [1] Jon's only GitHub project is funny: [2] [0]: https://github.com/jskinner https://github.com/jskinner [1]: https://github.com/wbond https://github.com/wbond [2]: https://github.com/jskinner/test1 https://github.com/jskinner/test1
    - arviewer 10y ago
      > Definitely at least one other person Just wondering how it would be if it was less than one... How sublime would that be?
  - hudell 10y ago
    Three years ago, Jon Skinner mentioned it was a "3 person company"
- TrisM 10y ago
wiesson 10y ago
Why is it so much faster than atom?
- trymas 10y ago
  Because C (or C++, I do not know exactly) and not vast amounts of layers of abstraction?
  - Hurtak 10y ago
    I thought Sublime is written mainly in Python?
    - Terribledactyl 10y ago
      It implements a Python interface so the plugin ecosystem uses it, but the core of it is c++ afaik.
  - Cthulhu_ 10y ago
    Python actually, IIRC
    - satysin 10y ago
      Sublime Text (the editor) is written in C++. Python is used for the plugin API.
      - criddell 10y ago
        Do you know how they managed to have a consistent cross-platform UI?
        lobster_johnson 10y ago
        Sublime has its own proprietary UI framework: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822114.
oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
Is there a roadmap anywhere? I bought ST2, and I think I'm going to need to pay again for ST3 when I decide to upgrade, but it's still in beta and has been for over 3 years now. Would be nice to know when it will eventually be released.
- jbrooksuk 10y ago
  There is no public roadmap. Jon knows what he wants to achieve, but doesn't share those goals too often.
- therealmarv 10y ago
  I was in the past a long time on ST2 and refused to upgrade to ST3. It was a bad decision... many plugins work on ST3 only and I had less problems on ST3 overall than with ST2. I did not need to pay again for ST3.
- oliwarner 10y ago
  I don't think so, it's the sort of software that's ready when it's ready. You can use the pre-release versions of ST3 (ie what's currently available) on a ST2 license. That gets rid of all the nag screens. I bought ST2 too in 2012 after a few weeks using it. It was certainly an expense but given how much it was speeding some things up, I considered it very good value. I've used it for at least 6,000 hours since then, probably closer to twice that. I'm not going to fight an upgrade when it eventually gets here.
- cheshire137 10y ago
  So I paid for Sublime 2 as well, but I use 3. Don't know if it was a temporary thing, but my 2 license carried over. Try emailing support if you can't get yours to work. They were helpful with mine.
- leejoramo 10y ago
  An ST2 License is good for ST3. From the FAQ: Upgrade Policy A license is valid for Sublime Text 3, and includes all point updates, as well as access to prior versions (e.g., Sublime Text 2). Future major versions, such as Sublime Text 4, will be a paid upgrade. https://www.sublimetext.com/sales_faq https://www.sublimetext.com/sales_faq
marcosscriven 10y ago
Regarding the comparisons with Atom, can I take the opportunity to ask if anyone from ST could expand on their answer here[0] as how they go about making a custom OpenGL interface? Do they use GLEW? Skia? How do they ensure anti-aliasing is done right? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822114
- jskinner 10y ago
  Sublime Text 1 used OpenGL (1.1 only, hence no GLEW) and Direct3D, while 2 and 3 are mostly software only. While Sublime Text 2 and 3 do use Skia, only a tiny fraction of its functionality is actually used, just for rasterizing lines and blitting images. Font rendering is done by using the underlying platform APIs to do the glyph rasterisation.
  - marcosscriven 10y ago
    Wow, thanks for responding! Very impressive work.
    - billforsternz 10y ago
      It seems Jon comments on hacker news about once a year. So you win the hacker news lottery!
thincan11 10y ago
Is sublime working on something big?
- eddiecalzone 10y ago
  No.
Fizzadar 10y ago
:( Python docstrings are no longer coloured as strings, but comments...
- anentropic 10y ago
  I fixed that myself in ST2 in the syntax definition files
bsbechtel 10y ago
I recently updated from Sublime Text 2 to ST3. One thing I loved about version 2 was that it was insanely fast. Version 3 is significantly slower. Can anyone point me to any resources that might help me determine why the slowdown?
- kmfrk 10y ago
  I had to disable all my linters, because I also ran into severe input lag. It fixed the worst input lag, but I still have no idea what exactly the culprit was. Really wish packages could be subjected to some kind of performance benchmark to shame the worst offenders to fixing their isht.
Overtonwindow 10y ago
I'm not a programmer, please forgive me, but I love using sublime as of writing tool for legislation and public policy in my work. The color coding system popular in programming, has been invaluable in drafting legislation.
- dreen 10y ago
  Out of curiosity, which syntax highlighter are you using? as in for which language? (it says which one in lower right corner)
  - mromanuk 10y ago
    super interesting! I'm thinking out loud: could be possible that there is niche waiting to be untaped with new tech–tools for lawyers (and others professions)? Edit: I mean, no high–tech, but tools with a higher level of complexity where the UI isn't a dumbed down version, and where the software exposes some functionality to a better skilled user. I'm thinking the "millennial" professional, should be more comfortable with software and pushing the limit a little bit.
    - scrumper 10y ago
      I desperately want git-style DVCS for complex contract drafting with multiple contributors. It needs to handle a Word docx file natively, so it'll me do blame on a line, merge changes, all that good stuff, as well as retain proper version control so I have one file on my drive instead of a hundred variants of v1_changes_final.updated.doc.
      - baldfat 10y ago
        There is no reason why plain text wouldn't work. You have something like Pandoc (with a markdown type text) convert the text to your format (Word docx for example or a PDF).
        neohaven 10y ago
wrcwill 10y ago
Anyone know why this update changed highlighting for me? Tomorrow Night Scheme, strings in double quotes are now gray instead of green?..
- dsego 10y ago
  Chalk it up to syntax highlighting improvements, I guess.
baldfat 10y ago
RANT: "Ubuntu 64 bit - also available as a tarball for other Linux distributions." Linux requires THREE files (.deb, .rpm and a .tar) I personally use OpenSUSE and can easily compile the software BUT you are not "supporting" Linux when you only support Ubuntu.
- falcolas 10y ago
  So, they have two out of three then. Does there appear to be any reason you couldn't use the .deb for Ubuntu on Debian? Perhaps someone would be willing to take the tarball and make a RPM file for him to host (or set up the tooling to make it dead simple for the author).
  - baldfat 10y ago
    So not supporting Redhat the #1 Linux commercial product is fine? The vast majority of commercial Linux is RPM based. The issue is they should just have it automatically build RPM with the DEB if you have a DEB it isn't diffecult to so a RPM.
- djsumdog 10y ago
  Packaging is hard. I personally use fpm and have found it solves a lot of issues. Does the rpm they provide not work on opensuse? Typically they bundle everything so it's not dependent on your system node. If not, there may be an opensuse build service that has a maintained sublime. I use Gentoo and they're portage overlays for Sublime, but I don't really care anymore as atom has gotten to the point where I prefer using it. It has all the features I had out of Sublime, plus it's free and open source.
  - baldfat 10y ago
    There is NO RPM and is the reason for the rant.
wnevets 10y ago
the 3.0 dev channel has been fairly active, 13 updates this year.
vyacheslavl 10y ago
ST now supports async/await keywords in python! yay!
bsclifton 10y ago
If the author of Sublime is reading this thread, please know that I love your work! I happily paid the $70 and use this as my primary editor (except when using vim when working over SSH). I'd also like to see more activity on the Twitter account or just more engagement with the community. You've got a killer product :)
bsimpson 10y ago
In case anyone was wondering, the new JavaScript syntax highlighter appears to understand ES6, but chokes on JSX. If you're writing React, the Babel package is still a good idea.
- bpicolo 10y ago
  Makes sense. JSX isn't javascript. :P
bobsoap 10y ago
PSA: If you haven't updated yet, I'd wait. The new version apparently broke syntax highlighting for many languages. Check out their support forum[1] - it's causing ripples. [1] https://forum.sublimetext.com/c/technical-support https://forum.sublimetext.com/c/technical-support

338 points by pyed 10y ago

I forget that not everyone is in the dev channel and was wondering why this was on the front page. There's new dev's every couple days. Didn't realize there haven't been a stable in a long time.

HCIdivision17 10y ago
Looking at the change list, it notes that there won't be artifacting with theme changes any more? If so that's freaking huge. For a while there it would start up, the package manager would update stuff, and then the interface would sorta crap itself. A quick reload fixed it, but damn annoying. Would you suggest switching to the dev builds? I really wouldn't mind being on the bleeding edge if it meant getting fixes like that sooner.
- tyleregeto 10y ago
  For what its worth, I've been using the dev channel for a long time and have never had any issues. It's very stable. I'd recommend it.
- Scarbutt 10y ago
  I don't uset ST but the procrastinator in me checked their home page, the download button defaults to ST 3.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Looking at the change list, it notes that there won't be artifacting with theme changes any more? If so that's freaking huge. For a while there it would start up, the package manager would update stuff, and then the interface would sorta crap itself. How is that "huge"? It happened at most 1-2 times a year, and a simple 1 second restart fixed it -- and still left all the files you had loaded.
  - HCIdivision17 10y ago
    Due making a backup shortly before a breaking glitch, it actually happened a whole bunch of times across a whole bunch of computers. Sublime's licensed to the user, not the machine, so over a few months while I was setting up a slew of machines I kept forgetting about it when I restored my app directory. Add that one of the packages would freak out when curl wasn't already installed first and it was a mess. Sublime would start, update, screw up the interface, popup, and then I'd have to close it and restart a few times until the package manager got it up to a stable point. I say huge because it was god damn irritating. In a giant checklist of stuff I was worried about, it was always an afterthought that caught me by surprise. When the artifacting completely craps out the side bar such that the folder tree no longer updates when files change, you can't even tell if the files are still there. EDIT: To really drive the point home: this happened a whole lot. The above is a story of woe and sadness, but the real kicker was simply the autoupdate as noted elsewhere by `jbrooksuk. For a long time I used the Soda Theme [0], one of the top packages on Package Control. It had a wierd glitch with hotkeys and would end up reloading shortly after startup. It was possible that it would garf things up even on restart as a result (possibly as a race condition such that if no updates were performed, it restarted fast enough to not bork whatever drew the iterface). I used Soda theme for years, but have recently switched to Seti and enjoy the change quite a bit. [0] https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Theme%20-%20Soda https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Theme%20-%20Soda [1] https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Seti_UI https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Seti_UI
    - andromeduck 10y ago
      Whoa, that is a pretty nice theme

deleted 10y ago

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zyxley 10y ago

It's good to see more ST updates, but it's sad that it feels like they're only even bothering because of the popularity of Atom.

usaphp 10y ago
What exactly are you looking for in ST improved? I just can't find anything that I think can be any better, it's just perfect already for me, I've tried using Atom but always went back to ST after a week of poor performance and battery drainage of Atom.
- elliotec 10y ago
  Yeah Atom still has issues. I've had crashing problems on 4 year old Macs. But ST makes you pay $70. And also isn't open source. And more people know JS than Python to hack on it. And Github has a powerful marketing team and lots of resources to put behind Atom and it's development. And ST doesn't get updated too often.
  - desireco42 10y ago
    I am a vim user, so I don't really use SublimeText often if at all. I was happy to pay $70 for it, just to support what I saw as a fresh take on editors. I wish developer could find more sustainable way to make a living from this and work on it more. I don't think I ever regretted paying for it and I made number of companies with people using it, pay for it.
    - lighttower 10y ago
      We bought it in our company also. Great product. Makes me happy to pay for good things. I use VIM also but regEx in VIM kill me
      - waivek 10y ago
        You could try this out - https://github.com/othree/eregex.vim https://github.com/othree/eregex.vim

m_mueller 10y ago

Is it just me or did this break the python syntax highlighter for line continuations within strings? I had to install MagicPython to fix it.

chrisra 10y ago
Blessing in disguise, I guess. Seems like MagicPython was better anyway. :)
bpicolo 10y ago
In strings or docstrings?
- m_mueller 10y ago
  normal strings with "\" line continuations.
szastupov 10y ago
Packages are now on GitHub, you are free to submit a patch or report an issue: https://github.com/sublimehq/Packages/issues https://github.com/sublimehq/Packages/issues

ihsw 10y ago

> Themes may now be switched on the fly without artifacts Excellent news. Switching themes and seeing the UI barf is unsightly.

chatmasta 10y ago
Why do you switch themes? Night time and day time?
- dreamsofdragons 10y ago
  While not a sublime, I frequently switch iterm's themes when I code outdoors. A dark background is my preference, but a light theme works much better in sunlight.
- jbrooksuk 10y ago
  It's not that people often switch themes, it's that when you open Sublime, Package Manager updates themes and it has to reload them, which used to cause the UI glitches.

_RPM 10y ago

The only proprietary software that I use as a matter of choice is Microsoft products and VMWare products, For something as trivial as a text editor, I wouldn't dare use something closed source, proprietary like this.

haswell 10y ago
I don't think it's quite fair to classify Sublime as a text editor. Your comment trivializes the quality of the editing experience, the rich plugin ecosystem, the speed of the editor compared to common competitors, etc. You are of course entitled to your preferences, but I'm not sure why you wouldn't "dare" use this?
- ubernostrum 10y ago
  Emacs and vim are classified as text editors, and Sublime is a small fraction of what Emacs and vim are.
  - pizza 10y ago
    To be fair, the small fraction of features that Sublime shares with Emacs and vim are hardly insufficient for a good editor.
- _RPM 10y ago
  Because there is code in there that neither myself or my peers have seen.
- AdieuToLogic 10y ago
  I don't think it's quite fair to classify Sublime as a text editor. While I may not agree with the totality of what @_RPM states, there is no doubt that Sublime is "a text editor" when the official site states thusly[0]: Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor... 0 - http://www.sublimetext.com/ http://www.sublimetext.com/
seibelj 10y ago
"Trivial as a text editor" I wonder if you spend 8 hours a day staring at a text editor... I recommend you make your own if it's so trivial

deleted 10y ago

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keithnz 10y ago

loved my time with sublime, then atom crossed a line where, while not as good as sublime in some area, it got good in other areas... then... vscode came along and showed how snappy an electron app could be, but didn't have a lot of stuff.... then bam, it opened up, and still not as many toys as Atom, and not quite as slick as sublime, it hits a bit of sweet spot somewhere in between.

usaphp 10y ago
can you tell me what exactly in Atom or vscode is worth switching from ST?
- geoffpado 10y ago
  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.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >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?
    - Artemis2 10y ago
      Well, Sublime Text 3 is still a beta. https://github.com/vim/vim/releases https://github.com/vim/vim/releases
      - coldtea 10y ago
        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.

nikolay 10y ago

I wonder what kind of release process this guy has as the dev version always lags behind stable - https://www.sublimetext.com/3dev https://www.sublimetext.com/3dev

coldtea 10y ago
Who told you it lags? Version numbers? That's because stable version X+1 come after dev version X. This doesn't mean it lags, just that the dev version came out first, and only after it was checked for a while, it was deemed worthy to hit the stable (well, actually beta) channel. That's not different than any other project I know.
- nikolay 10y ago
  I don't look at the version number only, but at the changelog, too, but didn't pay much attention, until now. Most sane projects create a build and test it, and don't rely on testing source code because the build process itself can cause defects as well. What we've been testing as a dev build should have been promoted to stable, but, I realize now, he has the changelog embedded in the executable, and it's possibly merged across dev builds. He also has differences in the functionality between the dev and beta builds as you can't run the dev without a key.
  - SyneRyder 10y ago
    It sounds like his approach is similar to the Windows 10 Insider Builds model of Fast Ring & Slow Ring. Even if all the Sublime builds in Dev are stable, I don't want to be updating every 2 days to get some minor bugfix. When I launch Sublime, I mostly just want to get to straight to work, not be thrown out of the zone by an update. It took me a while to learn that lesson from my own customers. As a developer I'm excited to make sure customers always get new features ASAP, but customers would complain they were perfectly happy with what they'd bought & only wanted an update maybe once or twice a year. But everyone's different - that's why the option of a Dev/Beta channel & a Stable channel is good.
    - 10y ago

PhasmaFelis 10y ago

I was trying to choose a Mac text editor recently; got it down to Atom and Sublime, and then discovered that both of them do code folding wrong. They think it's based on indentation, not syntax, so if you try to fold something like: if (something) { some code //commented-out code more code } It folds everything from the opening bracket to the comment, then stops. Both editors have had issues filed over this bug for years, which have been ignored. (https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/3442 https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/3442, https://github.com/SublimeTextIssues/Core/issues/101 https://github.com/SublimeTextIssues/Core/issues/101) I eventually decided to go with Atom; it's open-source, so I can at least aspire to fix the damn thing myself when I get annoyed enough.

coldtea 10y ago
And why start the comment ahead of the indentation level?
- frou_dh 10y ago
  If such commenting is being done using the generic comment/uncomment keyboard shortcut, whether that happens is influenced by TM_COMMENT_DISABLE_INDENT in the language package's Comments.tmPreferences file.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  I didn't write the code in question, but I've done the same thing before. Usually it's because I'm cursoring up and down a file, see some lines I want to comment out, and don't bother moving over to the start of the text first. Syntax highlighting greys out the comment, so it's not visually obtrusive. (Which is another reason I'm baffled that Atom and Sublime both misbehave this way--they've got syntax highlighting! They're already aware of block delimiters! Why don't they apply that knowledge to code folding?) And I understand there are other reasons to not indent. In some languages, it's conventional to have certain kinds of declarations come at the beginning of a line, even if they're inside a block. (I think C++ does this, but I haven't used it since college--anyone want to comment?)
oneeyedpigeon 10y ago

micnguyen 10y ago

The company behind Sublime really fascinates me. Given how many developers I've seen use Sublime, in the modern age of social media I'm so surprised SublimeHQ is still invisible. They hardly do any marketing that I've seen online, no social media engagement, nothing. Not necessarily a bad thing, but Sublime just seemed -primed- to be that sort of company with a hyper-engaged user base.

ryanmaynard 10y ago
IIRC, its just one person; Jon Skinner.
- bshimmin 10y ago
  Definitely at least one other person: http://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/sublime-text-3-build-3103 http://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/sublime-text-3-buil... And despite their lack of "social media engagement", they do have a Twitter account (@sublimehq) with nearly sixty thousand followers - and they tweet just about as regularly as updates for Sublime Text are released!
  - nikolay 10y ago
    Jon Skinner [0] Will Bond [1] Jon's only GitHub project is funny: [2] [0]: https://github.com/jskinner https://github.com/jskinner [1]: https://github.com/wbond https://github.com/wbond [2]: https://github.com/jskinner/test1 https://github.com/jskinner/test1
  - arviewer 10y ago
    > Definitely at least one other person Just wondering how it would be if it was less than one... How sublime would that be?
- hudell 10y ago
  Three years ago, Jon Skinner mentioned it was a "3 person company"
TrisM 10y ago

wiesson 10y ago

Why is it so much faster than atom?

trymas 10y ago
Because C (or C++, I do not know exactly) and not vast amounts of layers of abstraction?
- Hurtak 10y ago
  I thought Sublime is written mainly in Python?
  - Terribledactyl 10y ago
    It implements a Python interface so the plugin ecosystem uses it, but the core of it is c++ afaik.
- Cthulhu_ 10y ago
  Python actually, IIRC
  - satysin 10y ago
    Sublime Text (the editor) is written in C++. Python is used for the plugin API.
    - criddell 10y ago
      Do you know how they managed to have a consistent cross-platform UI?
      - lobster_johnson 10y ago
        Sublime has its own proprietary UI framework: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822114.

oneeyedpigeon 10y ago

Is there a roadmap anywhere? I bought ST2, and I think I'm going to need to pay again for ST3 when I decide to upgrade, but it's still in beta and has been for over 3 years now. Would be nice to know when it will eventually be released.

jbrooksuk 10y ago
There is no public roadmap. Jon knows what he wants to achieve, but doesn't share those goals too often.
therealmarv 10y ago
I was in the past a long time on ST2 and refused to upgrade to ST3. It was a bad decision... many plugins work on ST3 only and I had less problems on ST3 overall than with ST2. I did not need to pay again for ST3.
oliwarner 10y ago
I don't think so, it's the sort of software that's ready when it's ready. You can use the pre-release versions of ST3 (ie what's currently available) on a ST2 license. That gets rid of all the nag screens. I bought ST2 too in 2012 after a few weeks using it. It was certainly an expense but given how much it was speeding some things up, I considered it very good value. I've used it for at least 6,000 hours since then, probably closer to twice that. I'm not going to fight an upgrade when it eventually gets here.
cheshire137 10y ago
So I paid for Sublime 2 as well, but I use 3. Don't know if it was a temporary thing, but my 2 license carried over. Try emailing support if you can't get yours to work. They were helpful with mine.
leejoramo 10y ago
An ST2 License is good for ST3. From the FAQ: Upgrade Policy A license is valid for Sublime Text 3, and includes all point updates, as well as access to prior versions (e.g., Sublime Text 2). Future major versions, such as Sublime Text 4, will be a paid upgrade. https://www.sublimetext.com/sales_faq https://www.sublimetext.com/sales_faq

marcosscriven 10y ago

Regarding the comparisons with Atom, can I take the opportunity to ask if anyone from ST could expand on their answer here[0] as how they go about making a custom OpenGL interface? Do they use GLEW? Skia? How do they ensure anti-aliasing is done right? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822114

jskinner 10y ago
Sublime Text 1 used OpenGL (1.1 only, hence no GLEW) and Direct3D, while 2 and 3 are mostly software only. While Sublime Text 2 and 3 do use Skia, only a tiny fraction of its functionality is actually used, just for rasterizing lines and blitting images. Font rendering is done by using the underlying platform APIs to do the glyph rasterisation.
- marcosscriven 10y ago
  Wow, thanks for responding! Very impressive work.
  - billforsternz 10y ago
    It seems Jon comments on hacker news about once a year. So you win the hacker news lottery!

thincan11 10y ago

Is sublime working on something big?

eddiecalzone 10y ago
No.

Fizzadar 10y ago

:( Python docstrings are no longer coloured as strings, but comments...

anentropic 10y ago
I fixed that myself in ST2 in the syntax definition files

bsbechtel 10y ago

I recently updated from Sublime Text 2 to ST3. One thing I loved about version 2 was that it was insanely fast. Version 3 is significantly slower. Can anyone point me to any resources that might help me determine why the slowdown?

kmfrk 10y ago
I had to disable all my linters, because I also ran into severe input lag. It fixed the worst input lag, but I still have no idea what exactly the culprit was. Really wish packages could be subjected to some kind of performance benchmark to shame the worst offenders to fixing their isht.

Overtonwindow 10y ago

I'm not a programmer, please forgive me, but I love using sublime as of writing tool for legislation and public policy in my work. The color coding system popular in programming, has been invaluable in drafting legislation.

dreen 10y ago
Out of curiosity, which syntax highlighter are you using? as in for which language? (it says which one in lower right corner)
- mromanuk 10y ago
  super interesting! I'm thinking out loud: could be possible that there is niche waiting to be untaped with new tech–tools for lawyers (and others professions)? Edit: I mean, no high–tech, but tools with a higher level of complexity where the UI isn't a dumbed down version, and where the software exposes some functionality to a better skilled user. I'm thinking the "millennial" professional, should be more comfortable with software and pushing the limit a little bit.
  - scrumper 10y ago
    I desperately want git-style DVCS for complex contract drafting with multiple contributors. It needs to handle a Word docx file natively, so it'll me do blame on a line, merge changes, all that good stuff, as well as retain proper version control so I have one file on my drive instead of a hundred variants of v1_changes_final.updated.doc.
    - baldfat 10y ago
      There is no reason why plain text wouldn't work. You have something like Pandoc (with a markdown type text) convert the text to your format (Word docx for example or a PDF).
      - neohaven 10y ago

wrcwill 10y ago

Anyone know why this update changed highlighting for me? Tomorrow Night Scheme, strings in double quotes are now gray instead of green?..

dsego 10y ago
Chalk it up to syntax highlighting improvements, I guess.

baldfat 10y ago

RANT: "Ubuntu 64 bit - also available as a tarball for other Linux distributions." Linux requires THREE files (.deb, .rpm and a .tar) I personally use OpenSUSE and can easily compile the software BUT you are not "supporting" Linux when you only support Ubuntu.

falcolas 10y ago
So, they have two out of three then. Does there appear to be any reason you couldn't use the .deb for Ubuntu on Debian? Perhaps someone would be willing to take the tarball and make a RPM file for him to host (or set up the tooling to make it dead simple for the author).
- baldfat 10y ago
  So not supporting Redhat the #1 Linux commercial product is fine? The vast majority of commercial Linux is RPM based. The issue is they should just have it automatically build RPM with the DEB if you have a DEB it isn't diffecult to so a RPM.
djsumdog 10y ago
Packaging is hard. I personally use fpm and have found it solves a lot of issues. Does the rpm they provide not work on opensuse? Typically they bundle everything so it's not dependent on your system node. If not, there may be an opensuse build service that has a maintained sublime. I use Gentoo and they're portage overlays for Sublime, but I don't really care anymore as atom has gotten to the point where I prefer using it. It has all the features I had out of Sublime, plus it's free and open source.
- baldfat 10y ago
  There is NO RPM and is the reason for the rant.

wnevets 10y ago

the 3.0 dev channel has been fairly active, 13 updates this year.

vyacheslavl 10y ago

ST now supports async/await keywords in python! yay!

bsclifton 10y ago

If the author of Sublime is reading this thread, please know that I love your work! I happily paid the $70 and use this as my primary editor (except when using vim when working over SSH). I'd also like to see more activity on the Twitter account or just more engagement with the community. You've got a killer product :)

bsimpson 10y ago

In case anyone was wondering, the new JavaScript syntax highlighter appears to understand ES6, but chokes on JSX. If you're writing React, the Babel package is still a good idea.

bpicolo 10y ago
Makes sense. JSX isn't javascript. :P

bobsoap 10y ago

PSA: If you haven't updated yet, I'd wait. The new version apparently broke syntax highlighting for many languages. Check out their support forum[1] - it's causing ripples. [1] https://forum.sublimetext.com/c/technical-support https://forum.sublimetext.com/c/technical-support