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Last I checked, Sublime is easily extensible with Python. What is this "lock in" you speak of? What "prison"? This reads like FSF.org hyperbole. Here comes the

Last I checked, Sublime is easily extensible with Python. What is this "lock in" you speak of? What "prison"? This reads like FSF.org hyperbole. Here comes the snark in reply to the snark: Someone had to come along and show that text editing didn't require the inscrutable complexity of Vim or Emacs, the kind of overwrought, overcomplicated, elitist and impractical user-hostility that absolutely dominates Open Source user interface design. I'd like to think that the proliferation of Sublime is what caused people to roll up their sleeves and start putting together things like Atom and VSCode and even this project. But I still use Sublime. Why? Because it's still faster than every competitor, it's still extensible enough to do what I need it to do, and unlike Emacs, doesn't require a PhD to comprehend, and unlike Vim, isn't an evolutionary dead end that pretends the mouse was never invented. Snark off: Many users don't consider Open Source to be a selling point. I am one of them. I choose my tools based on their usefulness, not the political status of their code, not intangible theoretical posturing about good and evil in the context of a fucking text editor. And you'll forgive me for taking issue with weak attempts to shame people for choosing tools that work for them. Perhaps this post reads a bit angry, and this is why.

preek 10y ago
Good luck my good friend with having tied your professional fortune to a small company that you are not affiliated with. This is not politics, this is simply dangerous and I do feel that way every time I see someone with a copy of Sublime. Since I'm a lecturer, I see this issue of lock-in and easy vs. simple/powerful a lot. I'm not taking this lightly, I want the best for my fellow professionals that are just too young to know better. You personally, might be older and more experienced, and I do not have a grudge with your opinion. I was simply stating mine for the reasons given without trying to step on your foot. As for simplicity, there is nothing that I have seen in any editor that is simpler than VIM modal editing or a LISP-machine to do everything. Having a shiny GUI is inherently not simple, but complex. If you are not familiar with yhe original meanings of these terms, there's a qualified speaker: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy That a tool is not easy in the beginning is ultimately irrelevant if it is simple. That is, if you've got enough time to master and profit from it. Which is what every professional software engineer has.
- CJefferson 10y ago
  VIM's modal editing isn't remotely simple. There is a huge language to learn, and most keys do not form useful patterns which are easy to remember. The problem with "you need to invest the time, trust me", I'd the same argument can be used for vim, Emacs, sublime, atom, vscode, eclipse, intellij, and any other editor. I can't invest the time in all of them to become expert. The difference with Emacs and vim is that they require a sizable time investment just to become competent, as they refuse to fit into the OSes they are running in (in the case of windows and Mac).
  - preek 10y ago
    Well, to make a long story and potential flame war short: My original post was not about VIM or Emacs. It was stating happiness about an editor (Lime) that tries to be easy to get started, yet is open source.
  - krylon 10y ago
    > VIM's modal editing isn't remotely simple. While it is highly non-intuitive at first, one can learn the basics in a day or two, from then on it's mostly transferring what you learn to muscle memory. I suppose one can do more advanced stuff in vim that is more complex to learn, but the basics are pretty easy. (Full disclosure: I used to to use vim for a couple of years but switched to emacs about ten years ago. I still use vi for quickly editing a config file on a regular basis.)
- audunw 10y ago
  > Good luck my good friend with having tied your professional fortune to a small company that you are not affiliated with. This is not politics, this is simply dangerous and I do feel that way every time I see someone with a copy of Sublime. This is just wild exaggeration. It doesn't take more than a few weeks or so to become reasonably productive with another text editor. We like to think that the many plugins and shortcuts we build up over years of using an editor adds like 100% speed increases, while at best its increments of a few fractions of a percent. And most of us developers are probably familiar with at least two editors anyway. Personally I'm intimately familiar and productive with both emacs and sublime, but still prefer sublime. If sublime were to suddenly close down shop and not release their sources, I could switch on a dime. > As for simplicity, there is nothing that I have seen in any editor that is simpler than VIM modal editing or a LISP-machine to do everything. In theory, yes. In practice, I've found it much more complex to work with emacs plugins than with Sublime plugins. My conclusion is that overly simple languages like LISP just transfer complexity from the language itself to the code that you're writing. I'm sure some people find a kind of simplicity there that they like, but people are different. VIM modal editing is also a thing that may be nice to some people, but personally I find modes to be annoying. It's this state that I always have to keep in sync between me and the editor, and I don't like it. I get the point and the benefits, and I've tried several times, but it just doesn't click for me. So I don't experience that as a simplicity. > Having a shiny GUI is inherently not simple, but complex. I wouldn't call Sublimes GUI shiny. In fact it's quite minimalistic. Even more so than Emacs' GUI if you ask me, especially once you've added all the plugins to match functionality. Again, it's something about the transfer of complexity. In theory, in its base implementation, Emacs is simpler because it makes few assumptions. But this transfers a lot of complexity to plug-in writers, because you get conventions instead, which often causes problems when plug-ins interact.
chiefalchemist 10y ago
"Many users don't consider Open Source to be a selling point. I am one of them. I choose my tools based on their usefulness, not the political status of their code, not intangible theoretical posturing about good and evil in the context of a fucking text editor." That's a very good point. Longevity and sustainable is important. Let's be honest, OSS is subject to trends. That is, as soon as the thrill is gone the audience is likely to move on and you're left with what? A fax machine? Sure, a for profit might do the same. But it seems less likely. The OSS ideal is great. The reality is, like everything else, it has a dark side.
__david__ 10y ago
> Many users don't consider Open Source to be a selling point. I am one of them. I choose my tools based on their usefulness, not the political status of their code… I prefer tools that I can repair myself. Being able to zip directly to the source of any Emacs lisp function is heavenly when learning about things or when debugging something that isn't working. Having lived in that environment for years now, it's not something that I take lightly any more. A new editor has no real chance with me unless I can poke and prod it at will.

preek 10y ago

Good luck my good friend with having tied your professional fortune to a small company that you are not affiliated with. This is not politics, this is simply dangerous and I do feel that way every time I see someone with a copy of Sublime. Since I'm a lecturer, I see this issue of lock-in and easy vs. simple/powerful a lot. I'm not taking this lightly, I want the best for my fellow professionals that are just too young to know better. You personally, might be older and more experienced, and I do not have a grudge with your opinion. I was simply stating mine for the reasons given without trying to step on your foot. As for simplicity, there is nothing that I have seen in any editor that is simpler than VIM modal editing or a LISP-machine to do everything. Having a shiny GUI is inherently not simple, but complex. If you are not familiar with yhe original meanings of these terms, there's a qualified speaker: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy That a tool is not easy in the beginning is ultimately irrelevant if it is simple. That is, if you've got enough time to master and profit from it. Which is what every professional software engineer has.

CJefferson 10y ago
VIM's modal editing isn't remotely simple. There is a huge language to learn, and most keys do not form useful patterns which are easy to remember. The problem with "you need to invest the time, trust me", I'd the same argument can be used for vim, Emacs, sublime, atom, vscode, eclipse, intellij, and any other editor. I can't invest the time in all of them to become expert. The difference with Emacs and vim is that they require a sizable time investment just to become competent, as they refuse to fit into the OSes they are running in (in the case of windows and Mac).
- preek 10y ago
  Well, to make a long story and potential flame war short: My original post was not about VIM or Emacs. It was stating happiness about an editor (Lime) that tries to be easy to get started, yet is open source.
- krylon 10y ago
  > VIM's modal editing isn't remotely simple. While it is highly non-intuitive at first, one can learn the basics in a day or two, from then on it's mostly transferring what you learn to muscle memory. I suppose one can do more advanced stuff in vim that is more complex to learn, but the basics are pretty easy. (Full disclosure: I used to to use vim for a couple of years but switched to emacs about ten years ago. I still use vi for quickly editing a config file on a regular basis.)
audunw 10y ago
> Good luck my good friend with having tied your professional fortune to a small company that you are not affiliated with. This is not politics, this is simply dangerous and I do feel that way every time I see someone with a copy of Sublime. This is just wild exaggeration. It doesn't take more than a few weeks or so to become reasonably productive with another text editor. We like to think that the many plugins and shortcuts we build up over years of using an editor adds like 100% speed increases, while at best its increments of a few fractions of a percent. And most of us developers are probably familiar with at least two editors anyway. Personally I'm intimately familiar and productive with both emacs and sublime, but still prefer sublime. If sublime were to suddenly close down shop and not release their sources, I could switch on a dime. > As for simplicity, there is nothing that I have seen in any editor that is simpler than VIM modal editing or a LISP-machine to do everything. In theory, yes. In practice, I've found it much more complex to work with emacs plugins than with Sublime plugins. My conclusion is that overly simple languages like LISP just transfer complexity from the language itself to the code that you're writing. I'm sure some people find a kind of simplicity there that they like, but people are different. VIM modal editing is also a thing that may be nice to some people, but personally I find modes to be annoying. It's this state that I always have to keep in sync between me and the editor, and I don't like it. I get the point and the benefits, and I've tried several times, but it just doesn't click for me. So I don't experience that as a simplicity. > Having a shiny GUI is inherently not simple, but complex. I wouldn't call Sublimes GUI shiny. In fact it's quite minimalistic. Even more so than Emacs' GUI if you ask me, especially once you've added all the plugins to match functionality. Again, it's something about the transfer of complexity. In theory, in its base implementation, Emacs is simpler because it makes few assumptions. But this transfers a lot of complexity to plug-in writers, because you get conventions instead, which often causes problems when plug-ins interact.

chiefalchemist 10y ago

"Many users don't consider Open Source to be a selling point. I am one of them. I choose my tools based on their usefulness, not the political status of their code, not intangible theoretical posturing about good and evil in the context of a fucking text editor." That's a very good point. Longevity and sustainable is important. Let's be honest, OSS is subject to trends. That is, as soon as the thrill is gone the audience is likely to move on and you're left with what? A fax machine? Sure, a for profit might do the same. But it seems less likely. The OSS ideal is great. The reality is, like everything else, it has a dark side.

__david__ 10y ago

> Many users don't consider Open Source to be a selling point. I am one of them. I choose my tools based on their usefulness, not the political status of their code… I prefer tools that I can repair myself. Being able to zip directly to the source of any Emacs lisp function is heavenly when learning about things or when debugging something that isn't working. Having lived in that environment for years now, it's not something that I take lightly any more. A new editor has no real chance with me unless I can poke and prod it at will.