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This is ridiculous. I just should not complain that some program is useless and terribly resource hungry? What will be next? "Stop complaining that the browser

This is ridiculous. I just should not complain that some program is useless and terribly resource hungry? What will be next? "Stop complaining that the browser uses 10GB of ram to show a page, as it is bigger than standard page"? This is just ridiculous. For showing the html I just use multiple browsers. My page must look good in multiple browsers, not in my editor. For the whole environment I just consoles with full logging, and running different parts. For database I have another specialized editor - much better than any IDE. I have opened a couple javascript files in Atom. About 30, all quite short, about 50-100kB each. The total memory used by Atom was over 900MB. Should I be just a brainless monkey, and be happy that it's fine? Well, my machine has lots of ram, but I need it to some other things as well. For me Atom is just useless, I don't even get half of the functionality I get from Idea and it uses twice as memory just for beginning. I think most of the comments to mine would be: just use the editor normally, no one is opening 20 files at the same time, just learn how to code, and have one small file opened. So instead of learning some good tools, you just prefer sticking hardly to one regardless the pain. OK, good luck with that. I just need a fast editor with lots of functionality and great speed. Atom doesn't give me that.

smokeyj 9y ago
Why complain and not just use another program? There's many options. But if you like using Atom and also like complaining - then you're like a helpless baby crying for attention. Submit a PR and be done with it! Viva la open source revolución!
- ge96 9y ago
  VS Code, I switched from Atom I have peasant-grade computing Edit: can't remember off hand the reason I switched, idle ram usage or latency possibly
- thesmallestcat 9y ago
  Why would I put in all that hard work when I could shame the maintainers on HN into fixing my issues?
Klathmon 9y ago
You don't need to like Atom, but to claim it's a "bad editor" for everyone is silly. You can use multiple browsers to preview, I prefer to have it in the editor which makes it easier to switch between (same argument for code tabs vs windows). I still test and work in multiple browsers to ensure compatibility, but being able to get the rough parts laid out in the editor itself and fix/develop on things that are the same in all browsers is a great productivity boon (especially when i'm working on my laptop with limited screen real estate). And again, I could run everything in a separate console window, logging to files, etc... But having that in the browser is a boon to my productivity. Having notifications in the browser window that a test that was running in the background failed and being able to click a button and open right to the test file + source file that failed along with annotations about coverage data in the sidebar saves me quite a lot of time and effort. If Atom is useless for you, don't use it! But don't act like it's garbage for everyone. I don't need a car that goes 200MPH but that doesn't mean every F1 car is entirely useless, just that it's designed for a different purpose. I currently have 3 different atom windows open, each with 1-4 panes with probably 5-20 tabs open in each and it's using a whopping 1.8GB (super rough counting, didn't want to actually add it all up). That's a lot, but it's not enough to outweigh the benefits for me. I'm not "sticking hardly to one regardless the pain", i'm sticking to the one which makes me the most productive and is the "nicest" for me to use (if i'm frusturated by constantly finding windows, i'm not going to be a better developer) It might be too slow/bloated/whatever for you, and that's okay, but for me it's more than fine.
- geodel 9y ago
  > I don't need a car that goes 200MPH but that doesn't mean every F1 car is entirely useless, just that it's designed for a different purpose. Those cars use huge resources for extreme performance. I don't think Atom provides extreme performance even after using extreme resources.
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    It depends on what you consider "performance". An F1 car is going to be the worst tow truck in existence. It's "towing performance" is basically a 0/100. Atom's "extreme performance" for me is in my productivity. the 2GB of ram that my atom windows are currently using is a very very small price to pay for better productivity. Even if Atom were so resource hungry that I needed to buy a new laptop every other year for $5000 (which I don't), if it makes me more than 2% more productive, it's paid for itself.
vbezhenar 9y ago
A lot of people have similar complaints about Idea. So your complaint is only different because Atom happens to eat a bit more memory. Do you know that Emacs means "Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping"? See, it's wasn't different 30 years ago. One can easily build a workstation with 128 GB memory if he's making money with it, it's not very expensive, so 1 GB of RAM would be less than 1%. I don't see much issues, honestly. Of course it's nice when programs are fast and not hungry. Reality is that developers happily trade performance for power of abstractions.
- icebraining 9y ago
  One can easily build a workstation with 128 GB memory if he's making money with it That's a very narrow perception of the profession. There are developers making money all over the world, and hardware prices don't scale down according to national salary levels. Even in Western Europe, that's more than a month's salary for a medium-level developer in some countries.
  - melling 9y ago
    How much RAM does the average developer have? I’ve got 16GB in both my 7 year old iMac and 4 year old MacBook Pro. I’ll probably get a new computer next year with 32GB of RAM. I don’t think an editor using 1G-2G matters to me. I don’t currently use Atom but if they innovate faster and eventually build a better editor, many devs will choose it.
    - wolco 9y ago
      The average is 8g still running windows 7.
      - melling 9y ago
        Wow, it’s time to reread this: https://blog.codinghorror.com/hardware-is-cheap-programmers-are-expensive/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/hardware-is-cheap-programmers-...
johnchristopher 9y ago
> Should I be just a brainless monkey, and be happy that it's fine? Well, my machine has lots of ram, but I need it to some other things as well. To do what ? Open another terminal ? /s

smokeyj 9y ago

Why complain and not just use another program? There's many options. But if you like using Atom and also like complaining - then you're like a helpless baby crying for attention. Submit a PR and be done with it! Viva la open source revolución!

ge96 9y ago
VS Code, I switched from Atom I have peasant-grade computing Edit: can't remember off hand the reason I switched, idle ram usage or latency possibly
thesmallestcat 9y ago
Why would I put in all that hard work when I could shame the maintainers on HN into fixing my issues?

Klathmon 9y ago

You don't need to like Atom, but to claim it's a "bad editor" for everyone is silly. You can use multiple browsers to preview, I prefer to have it in the editor which makes it easier to switch between (same argument for code tabs vs windows). I still test and work in multiple browsers to ensure compatibility, but being able to get the rough parts laid out in the editor itself and fix/develop on things that are the same in all browsers is a great productivity boon (especially when i'm working on my laptop with limited screen real estate). And again, I could run everything in a separate console window, logging to files, etc... But having that in the browser is a boon to my productivity. Having notifications in the browser window that a test that was running in the background failed and being able to click a button and open right to the test file + source file that failed along with annotations about coverage data in the sidebar saves me quite a lot of time and effort. If Atom is useless for you, don't use it! But don't act like it's garbage for everyone. I don't need a car that goes 200MPH but that doesn't mean every F1 car is entirely useless, just that it's designed for a different purpose. I currently have 3 different atom windows open, each with 1-4 panes with probably 5-20 tabs open in each and it's using a whopping 1.8GB (super rough counting, didn't want to actually add it all up). That's a lot, but it's not enough to outweigh the benefits for me. I'm not "sticking hardly to one regardless the pain", i'm sticking to the one which makes me the most productive and is the "nicest" for me to use (if i'm frusturated by constantly finding windows, i'm not going to be a better developer) It might be too slow/bloated/whatever for you, and that's okay, but for me it's more than fine.

geodel 9y ago
> I don't need a car that goes 200MPH but that doesn't mean every F1 car is entirely useless, just that it's designed for a different purpose. Those cars use huge resources for extreme performance. I don't think Atom provides extreme performance even after using extreme resources.
- Klathmon 9y ago
  It depends on what you consider "performance". An F1 car is going to be the worst tow truck in existence. It's "towing performance" is basically a 0/100. Atom's "extreme performance" for me is in my productivity. the 2GB of ram that my atom windows are currently using is a very very small price to pay for better productivity. Even if Atom were so resource hungry that I needed to buy a new laptop every other year for $5000 (which I don't), if it makes me more than 2% more productive, it's paid for itself.

vbezhenar 9y ago

A lot of people have similar complaints about Idea. So your complaint is only different because Atom happens to eat a bit more memory. Do you know that Emacs means "Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping"? See, it's wasn't different 30 years ago. One can easily build a workstation with 128 GB memory if he's making money with it, it's not very expensive, so 1 GB of RAM would be less than 1%. I don't see much issues, honestly. Of course it's nice when programs are fast and not hungry. Reality is that developers happily trade performance for power of abstractions.

icebraining 9y ago
One can easily build a workstation with 128 GB memory if he's making money with it That's a very narrow perception of the profession. There are developers making money all over the world, and hardware prices don't scale down according to national salary levels. Even in Western Europe, that's more than a month's salary for a medium-level developer in some countries.
- melling 9y ago
  How much RAM does the average developer have? I’ve got 16GB in both my 7 year old iMac and 4 year old MacBook Pro. I’ll probably get a new computer next year with 32GB of RAM. I don’t think an editor using 1G-2G matters to me. I don’t currently use Atom but if they innovate faster and eventually build a better editor, many devs will choose it.
  - wolco 9y ago
    The average is 8g still running windows 7.
    - melling 9y ago
      Wow, it’s time to reread this: https://blog.codinghorror.com/hardware-is-cheap-programmers-are-expensive/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/hardware-is-cheap-programmers-...

johnchristopher 9y ago

> Should I be just a brainless monkey, and be happy that it's fine? Well, my machine has lots of ram, but I need it to some other things as well. To do what ? Open another terminal ? /s