6 ms·

I simply cannot understand why Atom and VSCode are so popular. I get that they are extensible, but so is Sublime. Is that seriously worth a >10x slow down to y

I simply cannot understand why Atom and VSCode are so popular. I get that they are extensible, but so is Sublime. Is that seriously worth a >10x slow down to you?

tills13 10y ago
Have you tried either? Or are you just saying that based on what you read in the post?
tinza123 10y ago
The benchmark talks about "load time" and "jump to the end" in practice you only need to do that once, and the editor is only rendering the current visible portion of the code. So the relative slow down is more than acceptable. Plus the experience is just so much richer. Sure some editor is quick to do things, but with richer APIs / functionality, developer's time saved is way more important than the several milliseconds of machine time saved.
equasar 10y ago
Unless you are using a pretty crippled computer to work on, then yes, you may not need VSCode/Atom. Otherwise I don't see an issue here. everything is about choice. These benchmarks on a modern i3/i5 processors and with 8GB of ram, which is almost the standard now, wont give those slow numbers published. also, I'm pretty sure VSCode at least have gained way more performance that you wouldn't notice these "lags".
- aphextron 10y ago
  >These benchmarks on a modern i3/i5 processors and with 8GB of ram, which is almost the standard now, wont give those slow numbers published. I don't think that's true at all. My personal experience using both VSCode and Atom on my i7-6700k/16GB work machine has mirrored these results. Files over 30-40k lines simply crash the program.
  - equasar 10y ago
    Maybe sending those crash reports might help you to get them fixed, pretty sure next release (early April) would get fixed. Or if you use insiders build, could get fixed sooner.
  - juandazapata 10y ago
    Me too. Tried Atom for 1 week and crashed about 4 times. I went back to vim (I once saw vim crash with a segfault in 10 years of usage).
- juandazapata 10y ago
  Add a Slack application with 5 organizations, a Chrome browser with 10 tabs opened, and you'll find yourself in a pretty curious situation.
  - bobwaycott 10y ago
    I run Slack all day, signed into and switching among 4 accounts. Plus Apple's Messages. Plus chrome and safari, each with at least 6 windows open and dozens of tabs among them. And I then have at least 2 instances of VSCode open, each with dozens of tabs. I never experience the slightest perceptible speed or performance problem. This is on a late 2015 MBP with 16GB RAM. On my prior machine, with the same daily behavior, I still never experienced performance problems in VSCode. I used to use ST2 & ST3. Bought both. I just don't find a compelling case for it given the huge and active extension community for VSCode. Slack, however, frequently has performance problems. I also don't open files regularly that exceed 4-digit line counts.
symlinkk 10y ago
because they're free and open source and more extensible. I'm a Sublime user myself but I'm not blind to the appeal of other editors.
allover 10y ago
> Is that seriously worth a >10x slow down to you? Speaking to VS Code here, I am yet to feel that '10x slow down', one bit, so yes it's absolutely worth it. (I don't hand-edit 5.62 MB XML files often).
- bpicolo 10y ago
  Have you used other editors much? I use Sublime Text as my daily driver, and often pull in VS code for some specific features. It feels so incredibly sluggish by comparison.
  - allover 10y ago
    Yep, I used Sublime for a while, and I'm a Vim user as primary editor for the last 6 years. Planning on switching to VS Code full-time as soon as I can figure out how to add a couple of simple bindings to (custom) things I have setup in Vim. It's snappy as hell for me, on a mid-range Mac Mini. Really impressed with the Vim mode, which includes things like tab support which other projects (like SpaceMacs) don't. Granted startup time takes about 10 seconds, but then my iTerm startup time is pretty similar on this machine, so that doesn't bother me. Once my editor is open I'm going to leave it open all day (and ditch my Vim habits of perpetual ctrl-z/fg).
    - bpicolo 10y ago
      The best thing for me has been that VS code has a sane php debugger (PHP has a truly awful debugging experience in general, though that's in line with the rest of the language ;) ). Sublime's PHP debugging addons are not good. I think my biggest VS Code complaint right now is it seems to hide tabs away once I have like 3-5 open. Is there a way to get it to shrink tabs (like browsers/sublime) to have them all open and visible?
lghh 10y ago
They are open source, much easier to extend than Sublime, and, most importantly, are regularly updated. Sublime goes through droughts where its creator is AWOL and when I used it I regularly wondered if each update was the last.
- satysin 10y ago
  Indeed. Sublime is amazing but just look at the last update which came out in September 2016 and mentioned getting things in order for a v3 final release soon. That was 6 months ago now.
  - wbond 10y ago
    Don't worry, we've been hard at work, just doing some things that make more sense in a longer cycle. The rumors surrounding Sublime's demise have been wrong in the past, and the trend continues.
    - e_proxus 10y ago
      It might be true for you, but it doesn't look like it from the outside. It's fine if the editor would cost $10, but you're asking users to pay up $70 for a product that looks dead, and it's not even a perpetual license. It's just for the "current" version, whatever that is at the moment (I'm using Sublime Text 3 but it's still in "beta" since years). I think Sublime Text would benefit from you and Jon being more active in communicating what's going on and what's on the road map. Perhaps someone else could help you, but the information still has to leave the silo of the core team.
      - wbond 10y ago
        I’m pretty active on the forum, IRC, Discord and the packages repo on GitHub.
        e_proxus 10y ago
        Yeah, I know. :-) I wasn't trying to diminish your efforts, which I really appreciate. I just think there is a need for more formal venues, such as a regularly updated roadmap.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Is that seriously worth a >10x slow down to you? Mostly working with reasonably sized files, there's almost never a perceptible delay in anything except initial startup. A 10× speedup in the editor (which isn't the limiting factor) would have basically no value, so it's not worth compromising anything to get it. That said, there are things I prefer, e.g., full IDEs or more specialized editors for, but almost never is it because Code or Atom is too slow.
sqeaky 10y ago
I would accept the slowdown simply because sublime is not open source. On most my machines non-open source software for which I cannot readily access the source gets run by a different user at a minumum, often entirely isolated in a VM.
CJefferson 10y ago
My problem with sublime is the low bus factor -- as far as i can tell it is one guy and closed source, what if he gets bored? With atom and vscode i have lots of Devs, a big company behind it, and the source. I'm sure they will continue to exist.
- wbond 10y ago
  I started working with Jon in Jan 2016, and we did over 20 releases in 2016. You can check out my activity on the forum and the packages repo on GitHub to see some of the public activity. I also tend to hang out on IRC and the Discord server. Sublime Text has now existed as publicly available for nine years now. In general I think the track record for continued development and improvements is fairly evident if you look.
  - CJefferson 10y ago
    Sorry, i didn't know the whole details. But, if Jon decided he wanted to "take his ball away" tomorrow, could you or anyone else make a new release? Don't get me wrong, sublime is a great piece of software. I wish it had, like QT used to, the source in escrow, to be released under GPL or BSD if a nominated independent person decides the software is ever "abandoned". I've been burnt once too often by abandoned software.
    - i336_ 10y ago
      > QT used to, the source in escrow, to be released under GPL or BSD if a nominated independent person decides the software is ever "abandoned". Wow, interesting. I was aware of Qt's early history of being fully closed, but I didn't know it was in escrow like that. Link from wikipedia: https://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqt_announcement.php https://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqt_announceme... Here's an example of another non-OSS program with source under escrow: https://fman.io/blog/transparency/#open-source-promise https://fman.io/blog/transparency/#open-source-promise
dean177 10y ago
Atom is free, sublime is $70. That counts for a lot. The number of extensions for atom is vast (and there are some really good ones), and installing them is much simpler. I use sublime & atom both at home (OS X) and at work (Windows) and atom is much closer in terms of performance on my home machine. I think the faster SSD & lack of anti-virus crud count for a lot in terms of how fast atom can open files which for me is the most noticeable performance difference.
- vivekd 10y ago
  To add to this, if you are hobbyist that writes small programs that don't have huge numbers of lines of code, then then slowness isn't really a dealbreaker for you. I use Atom myself for python/django programs. My sister who is in school right now uses IDLE for all her neuro-linguistics based programming. I mean, if your needs aren't that big and your focus isn't the code, you don't really need a fancy editor like sublime.
- cageface 10y ago
  $70 for a tool you use multiple hours per day is nothing. If you're just a hobbyist or a student I guess I could understand the hesitation but for a professional tool that is dirt cheap.
- Shorel 10y ago
  > and installing them is much simpler In sublime for installing a package I do this: Ctrl+shift+P, type 'inpa' Enter (selects install package), type first letters of name of package (emmet for example), hit enter. I don't even need to use the mouse. I fail to see how the Atom method is 'much' simpler.
krylon 10y ago
I have given VSCode a try, and if I had not so much time customizing emacs, I would probably switch. Most of the time, the difference in performance is insignificant.

I simply cannot understand why Atom and VSCode are so popular. I get that they are extensible, but so is Sublime. Is that seriously worth a >10x slow down to you?

tills13 10y ago

Have you tried either? Or are you just saying that based on what you read in the post?

tinza123 10y ago

The benchmark talks about "load time" and "jump to the end" in practice you only need to do that once, and the editor is only rendering the current visible portion of the code. So the relative slow down is more than acceptable. Plus the experience is just so much richer. Sure some editor is quick to do things, but with richer APIs / functionality, developer's time saved is way more important than the several milliseconds of machine time saved.

equasar 10y ago

Unless you are using a pretty crippled computer to work on, then yes, you may not need VSCode/Atom. Otherwise I don't see an issue here. everything is about choice. These benchmarks on a modern i3/i5 processors and with 8GB of ram, which is almost the standard now, wont give those slow numbers published. also, I'm pretty sure VSCode at least have gained way more performance that you wouldn't notice these "lags".

aphextron 10y ago
>These benchmarks on a modern i3/i5 processors and with 8GB of ram, which is almost the standard now, wont give those slow numbers published. I don't think that's true at all. My personal experience using both VSCode and Atom on my i7-6700k/16GB work machine has mirrored these results. Files over 30-40k lines simply crash the program.
- equasar 10y ago
  Maybe sending those crash reports might help you to get them fixed, pretty sure next release (early April) would get fixed. Or if you use insiders build, could get fixed sooner.
- juandazapata 10y ago
  Me too. Tried Atom for 1 week and crashed about 4 times. I went back to vim (I once saw vim crash with a segfault in 10 years of usage).
juandazapata 10y ago
Add a Slack application with 5 organizations, a Chrome browser with 10 tabs opened, and you'll find yourself in a pretty curious situation.
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  I run Slack all day, signed into and switching among 4 accounts. Plus Apple's Messages. Plus chrome and safari, each with at least 6 windows open and dozens of tabs among them. And I then have at least 2 instances of VSCode open, each with dozens of tabs. I never experience the slightest perceptible speed or performance problem. This is on a late 2015 MBP with 16GB RAM. On my prior machine, with the same daily behavior, I still never experienced performance problems in VSCode. I used to use ST2 & ST3. Bought both. I just don't find a compelling case for it given the huge and active extension community for VSCode. Slack, however, frequently has performance problems. I also don't open files regularly that exceed 4-digit line counts.

symlinkk 10y ago

because they're free and open source and more extensible. I'm a Sublime user myself but I'm not blind to the appeal of other editors.

allover 10y ago

> Is that seriously worth a >10x slow down to you? Speaking to VS Code here, I am yet to feel that '10x slow down', one bit, so yes it's absolutely worth it. (I don't hand-edit 5.62 MB XML files often).

bpicolo 10y ago
Have you used other editors much? I use Sublime Text as my daily driver, and often pull in VS code for some specific features. It feels so incredibly sluggish by comparison.
- allover 10y ago
  Yep, I used Sublime for a while, and I'm a Vim user as primary editor for the last 6 years. Planning on switching to VS Code full-time as soon as I can figure out how to add a couple of simple bindings to (custom) things I have setup in Vim. It's snappy as hell for me, on a mid-range Mac Mini. Really impressed with the Vim mode, which includes things like tab support which other projects (like SpaceMacs) don't. Granted startup time takes about 10 seconds, but then my iTerm startup time is pretty similar on this machine, so that doesn't bother me. Once my editor is open I'm going to leave it open all day (and ditch my Vim habits of perpetual ctrl-z/fg).
  - bpicolo 10y ago
    The best thing for me has been that VS code has a sane php debugger (PHP has a truly awful debugging experience in general, though that's in line with the rest of the language ;) ). Sublime's PHP debugging addons are not good. I think my biggest VS Code complaint right now is it seems to hide tabs away once I have like 3-5 open. Is there a way to get it to shrink tabs (like browsers/sublime) to have them all open and visible?

lghh 10y ago

They are open source, much easier to extend than Sublime, and, most importantly, are regularly updated. Sublime goes through droughts where its creator is AWOL and when I used it I regularly wondered if each update was the last.

satysin 10y ago
Indeed. Sublime is amazing but just look at the last update which came out in September 2016 and mentioned getting things in order for a v3 final release soon. That was 6 months ago now.
- wbond 10y ago
  Don't worry, we've been hard at work, just doing some things that make more sense in a longer cycle. The rumors surrounding Sublime's demise have been wrong in the past, and the trend continues.
  - e_proxus 10y ago
    It might be true for you, but it doesn't look like it from the outside. It's fine if the editor would cost $10, but you're asking users to pay up $70 for a product that looks dead, and it's not even a perpetual license. It's just for the "current" version, whatever that is at the moment (I'm using Sublime Text 3 but it's still in "beta" since years). I think Sublime Text would benefit from you and Jon being more active in communicating what's going on and what's on the road map. Perhaps someone else could help you, but the information still has to leave the silo of the core team.
    - wbond 10y ago
      I’m pretty active on the forum, IRC, Discord and the packages repo on GitHub.
      - e_proxus 10y ago
        Yeah, I know. :-) I wasn't trying to diminish your efforts, which I really appreciate. I just think there is a need for more formal venues, such as a regularly updated roadmap.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> Is that seriously worth a >10x slow down to you? Mostly working with reasonably sized files, there's almost never a perceptible delay in anything except initial startup. A 10× speedup in the editor (which isn't the limiting factor) would have basically no value, so it's not worth compromising anything to get it. That said, there are things I prefer, e.g., full IDEs or more specialized editors for, but almost never is it because Code or Atom is too slow.

sqeaky 10y ago

I would accept the slowdown simply because sublime is not open source. On most my machines non-open source software for which I cannot readily access the source gets run by a different user at a minumum, often entirely isolated in a VM.

CJefferson 10y ago

My problem with sublime is the low bus factor -- as far as i can tell it is one guy and closed source, what if he gets bored? With atom and vscode i have lots of Devs, a big company behind it, and the source. I'm sure they will continue to exist.

wbond 10y ago
I started working with Jon in Jan 2016, and we did over 20 releases in 2016. You can check out my activity on the forum and the packages repo on GitHub to see some of the public activity. I also tend to hang out on IRC and the Discord server. Sublime Text has now existed as publicly available for nine years now. In general I think the track record for continued development and improvements is fairly evident if you look.
- CJefferson 10y ago
  Sorry, i didn't know the whole details. But, if Jon decided he wanted to "take his ball away" tomorrow, could you or anyone else make a new release? Don't get me wrong, sublime is a great piece of software. I wish it had, like QT used to, the source in escrow, to be released under GPL or BSD if a nominated independent person decides the software is ever "abandoned". I've been burnt once too often by abandoned software.
  - i336_ 10y ago
    > QT used to, the source in escrow, to be released under GPL or BSD if a nominated independent person decides the software is ever "abandoned". Wow, interesting. I was aware of Qt's early history of being fully closed, but I didn't know it was in escrow like that. Link from wikipedia: https://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqt_announcement.php https://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqt_announceme... Here's an example of another non-OSS program with source under escrow: https://fman.io/blog/transparency/#open-source-promise https://fman.io/blog/transparency/#open-source-promise

dean177 10y ago

Atom is free, sublime is $70. That counts for a lot. The number of extensions for atom is vast (and there are some really good ones), and installing them is much simpler. I use sublime & atom both at home (OS X) and at work (Windows) and atom is much closer in terms of performance on my home machine. I think the faster SSD & lack of anti-virus crud count for a lot in terms of how fast atom can open files which for me is the most noticeable performance difference.

vivekd 10y ago
To add to this, if you are hobbyist that writes small programs that don't have huge numbers of lines of code, then then slowness isn't really a dealbreaker for you. I use Atom myself for python/django programs. My sister who is in school right now uses IDLE for all her neuro-linguistics based programming. I mean, if your needs aren't that big and your focus isn't the code, you don't really need a fancy editor like sublime.
cageface 10y ago
$70 for a tool you use multiple hours per day is nothing. If you're just a hobbyist or a student I guess I could understand the hesitation but for a professional tool that is dirt cheap.
Shorel 10y ago
> and installing them is much simpler In sublime for installing a package I do this: Ctrl+shift+P, type 'inpa' Enter (selects install package), type first letters of name of package (emmet for example), hit enter. I don't even need to use the mouse. I fail to see how the Atom method is 'much' simpler.

krylon 10y ago

I have given VSCode a try, and if I had not so much time customizing emacs, I would probably switch. Most of the time, the difference in performance is insignificant.