8 ms·

I think ST3 really missed the boat. I used to love using Sublime Text 2 (occasionally I still do because it is fast), but I moved on when development stagnated

I think ST3 really missed the boat. I used to love using Sublime Text 2 (occasionally I still do because it is fast), but I moved on when development stagnated and Jon seemingly disappeared off of the face of the planet, stopped responding to support requests and the like. There is no disputing ST is a great editor, but it has fallen behind in the face of Atom, Webstorm and Visual Studio Code (two of which are free).

mastazi 10y ago
VS Code is great, Atom too but I wish it was less buggy. Regarding ST, I used to feel the same but lately I have seen more releases and it seems that development is now moving again. Also, I'm really struggling to find any aspect where ST "lags behind", I pretty much seem to get all the same goodies that I get in Atom and VS Code.
- bjz_ 10y ago
  VS Code seems much snappier than Atom, as someone who uses both. And the Rust extension is much better. Switching between the different key-bindings is a pain though - I wish VS Code used ST bindings, but I'm guessing they went for consistency with VS?
  - mastazi 10y ago
    > but I'm guessing they went for consistency with VS? Yes you are right, although in some cases they also support the "ST-style" shortcuts, e.g. I just realised that I can do block selection with ctrl-alt
ashworth 10y ago
Genuine question: What do Atom and Visual Studio Code offer that Sublime Text doesn't? I have tried both within the last year and wasn't able to find any significant advantages (except for VS Code's excellent TypeScript experience), but they both ran slower and used more memory. Perhaps I should have used Nuclide? (Not asking about Webstorm because I've used the IntelliJ family of IDEs and understand their advantages)
- shurcooL 10y ago
  As a ST3 user, both Atom and VSC have superior git integration built in, no plugins needed. That's really the only/main thing I miss.
  - bjz_ 10y ago
    It's a small thing, but I really love how Atom highlights the files that have changed in the tree view out of the box. Haven't figured out how to do that in Atom...
    - tomsmeding 10y ago
      In Atom or in Atom?
      - bjz_ 10y ago
        Oh woops, I meant to say 'in Sublime'! It seems my brain detached from my brain in the process.
  - bsimpson 10y ago
    Atom has git integration built-in? I couldn't find it when I tried it a few months ago (and I was shocked, considering it's sponsored by GitHub).
    - shurcooL 10y ago
      Yes. When you open a directory that is a git repository, the files in the sidebar will have different color if they're modified, new, etc. When viewing actual files, edited/new/deletes lines will also have markers in the gutter.
- CJefferson 10y ago
  A better 'bus factor'. It would greatly suprise me if either Atom of VSCode shut up tomorrow. They couldn't entirely shut up, as they are both entirely open source projects. The Sublime Text website could just close tomorrow if one person got badly hurt / lost interest, and then the executable could not work on Mac OS X 10.11.6 for some reason, and it is done. I've had too many pieces of software go that way to get another one which is so fundamentally important to me (text editor).
gedy 10y ago
Atom does not handle large files well at all compared to ST. I like Atom, but get very serious hangs with it on large files.
- spoiler 10y ago
  How large are you talking? I had similar issues early on with Atom, but I don't have them anymore (same project). Also, it would only hang for about a second when initially opening the file, later on it would work smoothly.
  - tomsmeding 10y ago
    Many-megabyte, probably; think an assembly dump of your browser, for instance.
    - imron 10y ago
      Not sure why you're being downvoted. Sure, maybe you're not going to have a need to open an assembly dump of your browser very often, but plenty of projects have multi-megabyte text/data files that need to be opened now and then. One of programs I develop uses a dictionary that when unzipped is ~8Mb. Sometimes I need to open that up in an editor and it's nice not to have to fire up a different editor to do that. In fact this is one of the first things I do when trying out a new editor - see how well it can handle files > 1Mb in size. Maybe if you're only working on small projects with small files this isn't such a concern, but there are plenty of people who have legitimate concerns if an editor can't open large files (and 1Mb isn't even large).
  - gedy 10y ago
    Big JSON files for one, with tens of thousands of rows. ST3 can load and regex replace nicely. Atom just was unresponsive.
    - spoiler 10y ago
      To be fair, I forgot I got a new PC between the first time I used Atom and when I switched over to it. However, I did try opening an 11 MB (JSON) file and it did indeed feel sluggish.
spectralblu 10y ago
I disagree. I had tried out Atom for a little bit (after the v1 general release) and more than once I lost my entire workspace. Either through a computer crash, Atom crash, or something else. Maybe I didn't configure something right, maybe I didn't. Quite frankly I don't care, I think that always properly persisting all unsaved work should be a default. Sublime always persisted all of my workspaces and open tabs perfectly. Everytime where I would lose unsaved data, Sublime would prompt me. After losing my stuff like twice in Atom, I switched back. The new features and everything are great, but I prefer not losing my random unsaved code snippets.
- ngrilly 10y ago
  I concur: Sublime Text's persistent workspace is really great.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- rplnt 10y ago
  This is what I love about sublime as well (I still use ST2). Have lots of tabs open that don't point to any file. It's just a workspace, notepad, ...
guiambros 10y ago
> ... but I moved on when development stagnated... ST3 dev releases[1]: 2016: 14 versions 2015: 25 versions 2014: 4 versions 2013: 40 versions While pace really slowed down in 2014, there was at least occasional updates every few months fixing major issues. I know people love to complain about ST's "slow development", but really don't understand where the perception comes from. For me the experience has been the opposite: I sometimes get annoyed by updates every other week. [1] https://www.sublimetext.com/3dev https://www.sublimetext.com/3dev
- SyneRyder 10y ago
  I think the perception comes from people who aren't on the Dev release channel. When I saw you list 14 releases in 2016 alone (!?), I wondered where on earth you made up that number... until I realized that's the Dev channel. On the Stable channel, the releases have been: 2016: 2 versions 2015: 2 versions (one just a patch for the other) 2014: 1 version 2013: 12 versions https://www.sublimetext.com/3 https://www.sublimetext.com/3
  - falcolas 10y ago
    Question: How frequent would you want the releases to be, considering that this is more-or-less a stable and finished project?
    - SyneRyder 10y ago
      I'm mostly okay with the occasional releases. Once a year feels a little infrequent though? One of the IDEs I use has a quarterly bugfix release schedule. To be honest, I'm less concerned about new features, and more that there will be paid upgrades so the developers keep maintaining the software. I'd probably expect a new major version every 2 or 3 years, with a discounted upgrade price... that would still only work out to $10-$20/year for Sublime Text, which is crazy cheap. I already budget about $100/year just for annual Parallels Desktop upgrades.

mastazi 10y ago

VS Code is great, Atom too but I wish it was less buggy. Regarding ST, I used to feel the same but lately I have seen more releases and it seems that development is now moving again. Also, I'm really struggling to find any aspect where ST "lags behind", I pretty much seem to get all the same goodies that I get in Atom and VS Code.

bjz_ 10y ago
VS Code seems much snappier than Atom, as someone who uses both. And the Rust extension is much better. Switching between the different key-bindings is a pain though - I wish VS Code used ST bindings, but I'm guessing they went for consistency with VS?
- mastazi 10y ago
  > but I'm guessing they went for consistency with VS? Yes you are right, although in some cases they also support the "ST-style" shortcuts, e.g. I just realised that I can do block selection with ctrl-alt

ashworth 10y ago

Genuine question: What do Atom and Visual Studio Code offer that Sublime Text doesn't? I have tried both within the last year and wasn't able to find any significant advantages (except for VS Code's excellent TypeScript experience), but they both ran slower and used more memory. Perhaps I should have used Nuclide? (Not asking about Webstorm because I've used the IntelliJ family of IDEs and understand their advantages)

shurcooL 10y ago
As a ST3 user, both Atom and VSC have superior git integration built in, no plugins needed. That's really the only/main thing I miss.
- bjz_ 10y ago
  It's a small thing, but I really love how Atom highlights the files that have changed in the tree view out of the box. Haven't figured out how to do that in Atom...
  - tomsmeding 10y ago
    In Atom or in Atom?
    - bjz_ 10y ago
      Oh woops, I meant to say 'in Sublime'! It seems my brain detached from my brain in the process.
- bsimpson 10y ago
  Atom has git integration built-in? I couldn't find it when I tried it a few months ago (and I was shocked, considering it's sponsored by GitHub).
  - shurcooL 10y ago
    Yes. When you open a directory that is a git repository, the files in the sidebar will have different color if they're modified, new, etc. When viewing actual files, edited/new/deletes lines will also have markers in the gutter.
CJefferson 10y ago
A better 'bus factor'. It would greatly suprise me if either Atom of VSCode shut up tomorrow. They couldn't entirely shut up, as they are both entirely open source projects. The Sublime Text website could just close tomorrow if one person got badly hurt / lost interest, and then the executable could not work on Mac OS X 10.11.6 for some reason, and it is done. I've had too many pieces of software go that way to get another one which is so fundamentally important to me (text editor).

gedy 10y ago

Atom does not handle large files well at all compared to ST. I like Atom, but get very serious hangs with it on large files.

spoiler 10y ago
How large are you talking? I had similar issues early on with Atom, but I don't have them anymore (same project). Also, it would only hang for about a second when initially opening the file, later on it would work smoothly.
- tomsmeding 10y ago
  Many-megabyte, probably; think an assembly dump of your browser, for instance.
  - imron 10y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted. Sure, maybe you're not going to have a need to open an assembly dump of your browser very often, but plenty of projects have multi-megabyte text/data files that need to be opened now and then. One of programs I develop uses a dictionary that when unzipped is ~8Mb. Sometimes I need to open that up in an editor and it's nice not to have to fire up a different editor to do that. In fact this is one of the first things I do when trying out a new editor - see how well it can handle files > 1Mb in size. Maybe if you're only working on small projects with small files this isn't such a concern, but there are plenty of people who have legitimate concerns if an editor can't open large files (and 1Mb isn't even large).
- gedy 10y ago
  Big JSON files for one, with tens of thousands of rows. ST3 can load and regex replace nicely. Atom just was unresponsive.
  - spoiler 10y ago
    To be fair, I forgot I got a new PC between the first time I used Atom and when I switched over to it. However, I did try opening an 11 MB (JSON) file and it did indeed feel sluggish.

spectralblu 10y ago

I disagree. I had tried out Atom for a little bit (after the v1 general release) and more than once I lost my entire workspace. Either through a computer crash, Atom crash, or something else. Maybe I didn't configure something right, maybe I didn't. Quite frankly I don't care, I think that always properly persisting all unsaved work should be a default. Sublime always persisted all of my workspaces and open tabs perfectly. Everytime where I would lose unsaved data, Sublime would prompt me. After losing my stuff like twice in Atom, I switched back. The new features and everything are great, but I prefer not losing my random unsaved code snippets.

ngrilly 10y ago
I concur: Sublime Text's persistent workspace is really great.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
rplnt 10y ago
This is what I love about sublime as well (I still use ST2). Have lots of tabs open that don't point to any file. It's just a workspace, notepad, ...

guiambros 10y ago

> ... but I moved on when development stagnated... ST3 dev releases[1]: 2016: 14 versions 2015: 25 versions 2014: 4 versions 2013: 40 versions While pace really slowed down in 2014, there was at least occasional updates every few months fixing major issues. I know people love to complain about ST's "slow development", but really don't understand where the perception comes from. For me the experience has been the opposite: I sometimes get annoyed by updates every other week. [1] https://www.sublimetext.com/3dev https://www.sublimetext.com/3dev

SyneRyder 10y ago
I think the perception comes from people who aren't on the Dev release channel. When I saw you list 14 releases in 2016 alone (!?), I wondered where on earth you made up that number... until I realized that's the Dev channel. On the Stable channel, the releases have been: 2016: 2 versions 2015: 2 versions (one just a patch for the other) 2014: 1 version 2013: 12 versions https://www.sublimetext.com/3 https://www.sublimetext.com/3
- falcolas 10y ago
  Question: How frequent would you want the releases to be, considering that this is more-or-less a stable and finished project?
  - SyneRyder 10y ago
    I'm mostly okay with the occasional releases. Once a year feels a little infrequent though? One of the IDEs I use has a quarterly bugfix release schedule. To be honest, I'm less concerned about new features, and more that there will be paid upgrades so the developers keep maintaining the software. I'd probably expect a new major version every 2 or 3 years, with a discounted upgrade price... that would still only work out to $10-$20/year for Sublime Text, which is crazy cheap. I already budget about $100/year just for annual Parallels Desktop upgrades.