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Obligatory: Please stop trolling atom on performance. Have set up several dev teams on atom + eslint. Finishing up my own product now, 170K LOC react-native app

by kapv89 10y ago

Obligatory: Please stop trolling atom on performance. Have set up several dev teams on atom + eslint. Finishing up my own product now, 170K LOC react-native app, 7K LOC api code. All written on atom. One thing it hasn't done noticeably till now is lag. The only times I see a hit on perf is when I run react-native server, genymotion emulator, chrome, and android studio along with atom. But then, I see a perf hit on everything at these times.

grosbisou 10y ago
Try opening a database dump or a log file in Atom. It is slow and it will crash.
- jszymborski 10y ago
  Suggesting to screw a nail or hammer a screw will lead to similarly unsatisfactory results. Atom is for writing code, not viewing logs. We have tail and syslog and a thousand other tools for that.
  - JorgeGT 10y ago
    I thought it was a text editor. It is rather curious that it cannot open large text files.
    - ChrisClark 10y ago
      No, it's a code editor.
      - ssully 10y ago
        Not according to their website https://atom.io https://atom.io "Atom - A hackable text editor"
      - tree_of_item 10y ago
        No, it's a text editor, like it says on https://atom.io/ https://atom.io/. It doesn't do much for "code" besides draw keywords in pretty colors.
    - sooheon 10y ago
      Even emacs completely shits the bed when it comes to long lines. I love it, but there are things about every tool that requires tradeoffs. I'm willing to deal with bad performance due to decades old technological decisions, in order to gain (to me) unparalleled editing and customization.
  - Analemma_ 10y ago
    That's sort of true, but OTOH vi, Emacs and even Notepad++ can write code and view huge log files. People who are holding out on Atom because of speed maybe don't want two tools where one will do, which is perfectly reasonable.
    - Touche 10y ago
      Large files bring vim to it's knees if you forget to turn off syntax highlighting first. I've done it many times debugging bundled JavaScript before.
- guessmyname 10y ago
  Just move on man. I used to be a big hater of Atom, but then I realized that I was not contributing on its development so I stopped being a "hater" and continue with my own life using another editor that actually works for my use case. As the parent comment says, Atom works for some people and that is enough for them to continue its development, I am fairly confident that it will never have the performance that a native editor has but it is workable as long as you don't do resource intensive tasks. My computer is not powerful at all so Atom is obviously slow as hell and lags all the time, at first I thought I improved my typing skills because I was typing faster than the editor was displaying the characters, but that was obviously not the case. Most Atom users — or at least the most active users — use rMBPs with i7 CPUs and (maybe?) 16GB of RAM, I don't want to buy a computer like that just to use a code editor like this, I would do it for an IDE though; and even if I had a computer like this I would not want to give most of its resources to the code editor when there are more important things to spend the CPU / RAM on. If your intention is to open a database dump then use a different tool, a proper log viewer or something like that, I don't even understand why would you want to use a code editor — even with good performance — to inspect a DB dump in the first place.
  - rabidrat 10y ago
    Having never heard of Atom before this, I appreciate the notice that it is not a suitable replacement for a general-purpose editor like vim. Saved me who-knows-how-many hours of frustration.
  - grosbisou 10y ago
    I am not a hater. I rather like it even. Database dump and log files are just good example of potentially big text files. They should be usable in any text editor. Not looking at the issue is not a good way to build software.
  - Jean-Philipe 10y ago
    I think nobody is really an atom hater. Usually it goes more like "I really want to love Atom so much, but I'm still concerned about it's performance and stability".
- sotojuan 10y ago
  Ok, so I'll open it in Sublime/Vim/Emacs, read it, close it, then continue programming in Atom.
HalfwayToDice 10y ago
That Atom is slow and eats battery-life is a consistent complaint by many many people, so to raise it is not "trolling".
theli0nheart 10y ago
Mentioning whether a piece of software is noticeably slow for its primary use case is not "trolling" by any definitely of the word. It's a legitimate issue and deserves to be mentioned for anyone considering it as an option for their development setup.
tomc1985 10y ago
Awesome, it works great for you
swang 10y ago
i have a late 2012 macbook pro 13' w/ i7 2.9ghz, 8gb ram for work. this isn't exactly a high-end device, nor a low-end one but i would say this laptop is pretty common. atom runs slow for me. just too frustrating to use even though i would like to use it (even despite reporting bugs that essentially get left to die). sublime just runs faster.
jackmaney 10y ago
People are not "trolling" atom on performance. They are bringing up valid concerns. Atom runs fast enough on my MBP, but I could never get the packages and plug-ins to consistently play nicely with the corporate proxies and firewalls at my current employer. So, I gave it up in favor of Visual Studio Code. The updates and plug-in installations for Code simply Just Work.

by kapv89 10y ago

grosbisou 10y ago

Try opening a database dump or a log file in Atom. It is slow and it will crash.

jszymborski 10y ago
Suggesting to screw a nail or hammer a screw will lead to similarly unsatisfactory results. Atom is for writing code, not viewing logs. We have tail and syslog and a thousand other tools for that.
- JorgeGT 10y ago
  I thought it was a text editor. It is rather curious that it cannot open large text files.
  - ChrisClark 10y ago
    No, it's a code editor.
    - ssully 10y ago
      Not according to their website https://atom.io https://atom.io "Atom - A hackable text editor"
    - tree_of_item 10y ago
      No, it's a text editor, like it says on https://atom.io/ https://atom.io/. It doesn't do much for "code" besides draw keywords in pretty colors.
  - sooheon 10y ago
    Even emacs completely shits the bed when it comes to long lines. I love it, but there are things about every tool that requires tradeoffs. I'm willing to deal with bad performance due to decades old technological decisions, in order to gain (to me) unparalleled editing and customization.
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  That's sort of true, but OTOH vi, Emacs and even Notepad++ can write code and view huge log files. People who are holding out on Atom because of speed maybe don't want two tools where one will do, which is perfectly reasonable.
  - Touche 10y ago
    Large files bring vim to it's knees if you forget to turn off syntax highlighting first. I've done it many times debugging bundled JavaScript before.
guessmyname 10y ago
Just move on man. I used to be a big hater of Atom, but then I realized that I was not contributing on its development so I stopped being a "hater" and continue with my own life using another editor that actually works for my use case. As the parent comment says, Atom works for some people and that is enough for them to continue its development, I am fairly confident that it will never have the performance that a native editor has but it is workable as long as you don't do resource intensive tasks. My computer is not powerful at all so Atom is obviously slow as hell and lags all the time, at first I thought I improved my typing skills because I was typing faster than the editor was displaying the characters, but that was obviously not the case. Most Atom users — or at least the most active users — use rMBPs with i7 CPUs and (maybe?) 16GB of RAM, I don't want to buy a computer like that just to use a code editor like this, I would do it for an IDE though; and even if I had a computer like this I would not want to give most of its resources to the code editor when there are more important things to spend the CPU / RAM on. If your intention is to open a database dump then use a different tool, a proper log viewer or something like that, I don't even understand why would you want to use a code editor — even with good performance — to inspect a DB dump in the first place.
- rabidrat 10y ago
  Having never heard of Atom before this, I appreciate the notice that it is not a suitable replacement for a general-purpose editor like vim. Saved me who-knows-how-many hours of frustration.
- grosbisou 10y ago
  I am not a hater. I rather like it even. Database dump and log files are just good example of potentially big text files. They should be usable in any text editor. Not looking at the issue is not a good way to build software.
- Jean-Philipe 10y ago
  I think nobody is really an atom hater. Usually it goes more like "I really want to love Atom so much, but I'm still concerned about it's performance and stability".
sotojuan 10y ago
Ok, so I'll open it in Sublime/Vim/Emacs, read it, close it, then continue programming in Atom.

HalfwayToDice 10y ago

That Atom is slow and eats battery-life is a consistent complaint by many many people, so to raise it is not "trolling".

theli0nheart 10y ago

Mentioning whether a piece of software is noticeably slow for its primary use case is not "trolling" by any definitely of the word. It's a legitimate issue and deserves to be mentioned for anyone considering it as an option for their development setup.

tomc1985 10y ago

Awesome, it works great for you

swang 10y ago

i have a late 2012 macbook pro 13' w/ i7 2.9ghz, 8gb ram for work. this isn't exactly a high-end device, nor a low-end one but i would say this laptop is pretty common. atom runs slow for me. just too frustrating to use even though i would like to use it (even despite reporting bugs that essentially get left to die). sublime just runs faster.

jackmaney 10y ago

People are not "trolling" atom on performance. They are bringing up valid concerns. Atom runs fast enough on my MBP, but I could never get the packages and plug-ins to consistently play nicely with the corporate proxies and firewalls at my current employer. So, I gave it up in favor of Visual Studio Code. The updates and plug-in installations for Code simply Just Work.