6 ms·

I have participated a bit in the Atom.io open source repository, but now I am back to Sublime. It's so fast and reliable compared to Atom.io.

gosukiwi 10y ago
What about VSCode? It feels less laggy than Atom, at least for me.
- jackmott 10y ago
  It is, but it is still ~40ms input latency compared to <1ms latency for good editors written in C++ or, serious efforts in Java (see Intellij Zero Latency Mode )
- pier25 10y ago
  Yes it is, but automatic indentation is awful. I switched back to Atom just because of that.
ythl 10y ago
Yeah my PC is not fast enough to run atom without lag, but it runs sublime perfectly. Maybe when I get the latest i7 I will try out Atom again.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  Is Atom the perfect example of "it's 2016 and my computer has multiple cores but stuff is still slow!"?
  - PSeitz 10y ago
    Well, JavaScript is single threaded...
- jackhack 10y ago
  It should not take an i7 processor to run a text editor. I mean no disrespect, but either something is very wrong with your computer, or something is very wrong with this software.
  - OriginalPenguin 10y ago
    For years and years it took a very powerful computer to get decent performance out of Emacs. Emacs only seems speedy now because computers have finally caught up. Either Atom will get faster, or it will add so much value it's okay being slow. And then computers will eventually catch up, just like they did with Emacs.
    - vonklaus 10y ago
      I said this elsewhere but vscode's strategy won me over atom's. Vscode was faster and more stable with much less features which they gradually added over time. Atom had all the features, more lag, and has been trying to polish them since. Texteditors must be fast and predictable. Tab support for vscode was it for me. Also, their ide must add overhead and yet still much faster than atom
  - ipedrazas 10y ago
    In this case, you can blame the software without any doubt
  - mikeokner 10y ago
    It's the original Electron[1] app. It's just a JavaScript web application running in a re-branded Chrome window, which is why it uses an absurd amount of computing power compared to a normal text editor (or most other native applications). [1] http://electron.atom.io/ http://electron.atom.io/
    - duaneb 10y ago
      Do they at least render natively, or do they rely on Blink + (I'm assuming) some crazy JS text rendering & syntax coloring to get it usable?
eric_h 10y ago
I tried to adjust to atom, but the lack of full on kill/yank support with the standard emacs keybindings (ctrl-k/ctrl-y; i should note that these keybindings are also standard almost everywhere in OS X) drove me bonkers. The fact that the kill command overwrote the standard clipboard just crippled my workflow (i routinely, intentionally keep different things in the kill-ring and the standard clipboard; i just couldn't unlearn that muscle memory).
boromi 10y ago
Wholeheartedly agree. I just tested this new version out. I really keep trying to use Atom, but it's just unacceptable currently when compared to Sublime. Very slow startups and laggy. This new version takes 5-10 seconds before I can start coding, that's far too slow. With every update I keep hoping things are faster, but only marginally so. VS code loads in less than 3 seconds and is a lot more snappy. I don't understand why they don't address this issue as the highest priority problem. It's by far the most complained about issue. If the MS guys can make VS code launch that fast I don't see anything holding back Atom (save maybe coffeescript :P (tongue in cheek)).
- keithnz 10y ago
  5-10 seconds seems slow. Atom for me launches in 3ish seconds. VSCode marginally faster than Atom to launch. Sublime around .5 of a second. None of those are deal breakers for me.
- shocks 10y ago
  Why is waiting 5-10 seconds for your editor to open such a problem?
  - fokinsean 10y ago
    Yeah I never resonated with this complaint. I guess if you are constantly opening different directories/files I could see it being annoying, but I end up opening it once in the morning when I get into the office and it is up all day.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    For the same reason waiting 1-2 minutes for your laptop to boot is. Also because people often open/close tons of small files during the day instead of opening a project and working on it for hours. Plus, the slugginess extends beyond startup time, into working with large files (were large = puny for other editors' standard) and other activities.
    - quantumhobbit 10y ago
nickjj 10y ago
Yeah I've been on Sublime for months without looking back. No reason why a few hundred line markdown file with Atom should bog down an i5 quad core with 16gb of ram to point where typing 1 key takes forever while Sublime operates on it instantly.
reactor 10y ago
Completely agree, I tried Atom and VSCode but they are nowhere near (in performance) to Sublime. The only thing is it's not open source, but I can live with that.
cageface 10y ago
Atom may not be as fast as some native editors but I've found it to more than fast enough for 99% of the code editing I do and the plugin ecosystem and overall user experience is better than any other editor I've tried. I use it mostly for Rails & React coding and have been very happy for the productivity boost. I launch it once or twice a day so waiting 5-10 seconds is a small price to pay.
- 2trill2spill 10y ago
  > Atom may not be as fast as some native editors but I've found it to more than fast enough for 99% of the code editing I do and the plugin ecosystem and overall user experience is better than any other editor I've tried. How big are the projects you are working on? When I was messing around with atom yesterday on a single small file it was great. But when I opened a project I'm working on, about 15,000 lines of C across 50 or so files, atom becomes unusably slow. 15,000 lines is pretty small compared to lot's of other projects and atom couldn't handle that. It's too bad because I like atom, I thought the plugin system was much easier than Sublime's and I liked the overall look and feel better than Sublime.
  - cageface 10y ago
    I've been working on projects around 5k-10kloc without any issues. None of the individual files are more than a few hundred lines though. Atom doesn't handle really long files well but I consider those a sign of a need to refactor anyway.
    - 2trill2spill 10y ago
      I didn't realize Atom struggled with long files. But the longest file in my project is about 1200 lines, the rest are a couple hundred lines or so. Your right about the refactoring but there's lot's of other stuff to work on as well so that probably won't be done anytime soon. Also my computer is due for an upgrade which adds to the unusability, it's a 2010 MBP with a 1TB 840 evo and 16GB ram. The CPU is definitely lacking though, it's a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo.
13years 10y ago
I've been very happy with Brackets. It seems to perform a bit better than Atom. Also, its instant search across all files is quite amazing actually. Faster and more useful than any other editor I have tried

gosukiwi 10y ago

What about VSCode? It feels less laggy than Atom, at least for me.

jackmott 10y ago
It is, but it is still ~40ms input latency compared to <1ms latency for good editors written in C++ or, serious efforts in Java (see Intellij Zero Latency Mode )
pier25 10y ago
Yes it is, but automatic indentation is awful. I switched back to Atom just because of that.

ythl 10y ago

Yeah my PC is not fast enough to run atom without lag, but it runs sublime perfectly. Maybe when I get the latest i7 I will try out Atom again.

sotojuan 10y ago
Is Atom the perfect example of "it's 2016 and my computer has multiple cores but stuff is still slow!"?
- PSeitz 10y ago
  Well, JavaScript is single threaded...
jackhack 10y ago
It should not take an i7 processor to run a text editor. I mean no disrespect, but either something is very wrong with your computer, or something is very wrong with this software.
- OriginalPenguin 10y ago
  For years and years it took a very powerful computer to get decent performance out of Emacs. Emacs only seems speedy now because computers have finally caught up. Either Atom will get faster, or it will add so much value it's okay being slow. And then computers will eventually catch up, just like they did with Emacs.
  - vonklaus 10y ago
    I said this elsewhere but vscode's strategy won me over atom's. Vscode was faster and more stable with much less features which they gradually added over time. Atom had all the features, more lag, and has been trying to polish them since. Texteditors must be fast and predictable. Tab support for vscode was it for me. Also, their ide must add overhead and yet still much faster than atom
- ipedrazas 10y ago
  In this case, you can blame the software without any doubt
- mikeokner 10y ago
  It's the original Electron[1] app. It's just a JavaScript web application running in a re-branded Chrome window, which is why it uses an absurd amount of computing power compared to a normal text editor (or most other native applications). [1] http://electron.atom.io/ http://electron.atom.io/
  - duaneb 10y ago
    Do they at least render natively, or do they rely on Blink + (I'm assuming) some crazy JS text rendering & syntax coloring to get it usable?

eric_h 10y ago

I tried to adjust to atom, but the lack of full on kill/yank support with the standard emacs keybindings (ctrl-k/ctrl-y; i should note that these keybindings are also standard almost everywhere in OS X) drove me bonkers. The fact that the kill command overwrote the standard clipboard just crippled my workflow (i routinely, intentionally keep different things in the kill-ring and the standard clipboard; i just couldn't unlearn that muscle memory).

boromi 10y ago

Wholeheartedly agree. I just tested this new version out. I really keep trying to use Atom, but it's just unacceptable currently when compared to Sublime. Very slow startups and laggy. This new version takes 5-10 seconds before I can start coding, that's far too slow. With every update I keep hoping things are faster, but only marginally so. VS code loads in less than 3 seconds and is a lot more snappy. I don't understand why they don't address this issue as the highest priority problem. It's by far the most complained about issue. If the MS guys can make VS code launch that fast I don't see anything holding back Atom (save maybe coffeescript :P (tongue in cheek)).

keithnz 10y ago
5-10 seconds seems slow. Atom for me launches in 3ish seconds. VSCode marginally faster than Atom to launch. Sublime around .5 of a second. None of those are deal breakers for me.
shocks 10y ago
Why is waiting 5-10 seconds for your editor to open such a problem?
- fokinsean 10y ago
  Yeah I never resonated with this complaint. I guess if you are constantly opening different directories/files I could see it being annoying, but I end up opening it once in the morning when I get into the office and it is up all day.
- coldtea 10y ago
  For the same reason waiting 1-2 minutes for your laptop to boot is. Also because people often open/close tons of small files during the day instead of opening a project and working on it for hours. Plus, the slugginess extends beyond startup time, into working with large files (were large = puny for other editors' standard) and other activities.
  - quantumhobbit 10y ago

nickjj 10y ago

Yeah I've been on Sublime for months without looking back. No reason why a few hundred line markdown file with Atom should bog down an i5 quad core with 16gb of ram to point where typing 1 key takes forever while Sublime operates on it instantly.

reactor 10y ago

Completely agree, I tried Atom and VSCode but they are nowhere near (in performance) to Sublime. The only thing is it's not open source, but I can live with that.

cageface 10y ago

Atom may not be as fast as some native editors but I've found it to more than fast enough for 99% of the code editing I do and the plugin ecosystem and overall user experience is better than any other editor I've tried. I use it mostly for Rails & React coding and have been very happy for the productivity boost. I launch it once or twice a day so waiting 5-10 seconds is a small price to pay.

2trill2spill 10y ago
> Atom may not be as fast as some native editors but I've found it to more than fast enough for 99% of the code editing I do and the plugin ecosystem and overall user experience is better than any other editor I've tried. How big are the projects you are working on? When I was messing around with atom yesterday on a single small file it was great. But when I opened a project I'm working on, about 15,000 lines of C across 50 or so files, atom becomes unusably slow. 15,000 lines is pretty small compared to lot's of other projects and atom couldn't handle that. It's too bad because I like atom, I thought the plugin system was much easier than Sublime's and I liked the overall look and feel better than Sublime.
- cageface 10y ago
  I've been working on projects around 5k-10kloc without any issues. None of the individual files are more than a few hundred lines though. Atom doesn't handle really long files well but I consider those a sign of a need to refactor anyway.
  - 2trill2spill 10y ago
    I didn't realize Atom struggled with long files. But the longest file in my project is about 1200 lines, the rest are a couple hundred lines or so. Your right about the refactoring but there's lot's of other stuff to work on as well so that probably won't be done anytime soon. Also my computer is due for an upgrade which adds to the unusability, it's a 2010 MBP with a 1TB 840 evo and 16GB ram. The CPU is definitely lacking though, it's a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo.

13years 10y ago

I've been very happy with Brackets. It seems to perform a bit better than Atom. Also, its instant search across all files is quite amazing actually. Faster and more useful than any other editor I have tried