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The same reason thousands of programmers use Vim or Emacs with various extensions as their development environment. It allows the same editing experience across

The same reason thousands of programmers use Vim or Emacs with various extensions as their development environment. It allows the same editing experience across multiple languages. A consistent interface, lack of need for learning many (often very different) IDEs, less proprietary annoyance, many many more options for customization, much easier to port your setup to various platforms, etc. Admittedly I don't think Atom is a very worthwhile text editor, but using an augmented text editor as an IDE is a very common practice.

hacker_9 9y ago
But that's what I mean - we already have Emacs/Vim, with their million of extensions, which are always going to be faster. Outside of that we have Visual Studio, IntelliJ, PyCharm, the list goes on. All downloadable for free.
- simlevesque 9y ago
  > going to be faster Fast is not the end goal.
  - cat199 9y ago
    it is when 'unusably slow' is the alternative..
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    At no time should my tool be the speed bottleneck. UI responsiveness is part of that. Correct code may require a certain slowness, but a slow editor will impose extra pauses that break up your workflow unnecessarily.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
  Emacs/Vim are far from being transparent. They have a very steep initial learning curve, and put off a lot of potential users as a result.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    It's been years since I last used an IDE, but in my experience, they come with huge toolbars stuffed full of menus to open wizards with tons of options. The learning curve is just as steep. Their advantage is that they provide lots of automatic features like spellcheck and autocomplete out-of-the-box, whereas you have to set these up yourself for Emacs/Vim.
    - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
      I think that's why people are talking up what they see as an alternative to the monolithic IDE: the lightweight text editor with support for extensions. I know Atom isn't particularly lightweight in terms of memory usage, but it is in terms of functionality.
      - bitwize 9y ago
        > I think that's why people are talking up what they see as an alternative to the monolithic IDE: the lightweight text editor with support for extensions. Which is what vim and emacs, relative to IntelliJ, VS, VSCode, and Atom, are.
        oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
        Lightweight text editor that doesn't drive you crazy the first time you try to quit it? ;-) As I said in another comment, I'm a daily vi user, but that's almost always when it's my only option. And that's been the case for well over a decade now. I just happen to feel more comfortable using sublime text; I always know how to do what I need to do, it's obvious, it's a pleasant experience. But I totally get some people have the same experience with vi/Emacs, and that's cool.
      - adrianN 9y ago
        Lightweight in terms of functionality, not lightweight in terms of memory. Excellent combination.
- yodsanklai 9y ago
  > we already have Emacs/Vim, with their million of extensions My experience is that Vim is hard to use when you start to add too many extensions. There are just too many shortcuts to remember, plugins may interact in unexpected ways, and things like contextual information don't look as nice as they could. It just feels very 'hacky' to try to use it as an IDE. I prefer to use more recent editors (first Sublime, but I'm sold to VSCode now) that are better suited to modern display and usages. I still use vim mode but I'm not even sure I'm really more productive with it. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't focus on just using mac os default binding.
  - tomelders 9y ago
    I've never gotten into Vim, but a friend said something that piqued my interest. Editing text is boring. Programming is fun. Vim makes text editing like programming.
    - howlgram 9y ago
      I'm learning vim and I agree, even if there's no productivity gain (duh I'm new to it) it makes my work way more fun (I do have a contrived concept of fun though).
slaymaker1907 9y ago
I find Atom to be the best editor for Markdown, though not much else. In particular, it has superb support for Pandoc as well as a good spell corrector built in.
- eivarv 9y ago
  Have you tried Typora[0]? It features inline rendering (i.e. images, formatting...) I have barely used my standard editor (Sublime) for Markdown since I discovered it. [0]: https://typora.io/ https://typora.io/
tootie 9y ago
I think that's less relevant than it used to be. JetBrains is now the de facto best IDE for Java, JavaScript, Python and PHP. It has Android Studio and even support for C#. Visual Studio also supports a wide array of languages. I'm in IntelliJ pretty much all the time, no matter the project.
- carlmr 9y ago
  I program a lot in C, F# and Python. I mostly use visual studio code (electron app similar to Atom, but better). It's great if you're using languages which don't come in one IDE, or where you need to pay for the IDE (F#).
  - aquaticor 9y ago
    Take a look at full Visual Studio, it's a much better IDE for F#, the free version beats vscode for F# dev hands down. Though I like VS code for its portability.
- kllrnohj 9y ago
  IntelliJ is expensive if you want languages not covered by the free edition (like JavaScript), though, and even if you pay for it some things are frustratingly distinct such as if you have a Java/C++ app you need two different "IDEs" (CLion + IntelliJ), and you need to then juggle between those windows. Android Studio is able to work with both even though IntelliJ Ultimate isn't (why, Jetbrains, why!?), but getting Android Studio to work on non-Android things isn't the nicest of experiences. I'd be more willing to pay for the quality if a nice, unified experience was the result, but it annoyingly isn't. To say nothing of the lack of support for things like Rust. That's what this new generation of IDEs is exciting to me - the unified language server standards. Let the compilers handle understanding the code which is what they are best at. Especially if it helps make IDEs less tied to the build system in general (no, CLion, I don't want to use CMake)
  - noir_lord 9y ago
    Intellij Ultimate costs me £14 a month, with the plugins (which makes it equivalent to Phpstorm, PyCharm, Rubymine and Webstorm) thats less than I spend on coffee in two weeks, it's insane value however you look at it. That said I still spend a chunk of time (maybe 30%) in vscode because for somethings I prefer it (it's git support with git lens is incredible) and for TypeScript it's comparable to Intellij with the advantage you can start it, do an edit and close before Intellij has finished re-indexing.
dkersten 9y ago
> The same reason thousands of programmers use Vim or Emacs Vim/emacs give a better experience though: they work in a terminal/over ssh and they are FAST and lightweight (memory use). Atom has neither of these properties.
- kornish 9y ago
  That's not false – but it ignores the point the grandparent was making, which is that minimizing switch cost is valuable to some.
  - dkersten 9y ago
    Switch-cost between what? Vim has worked pretty well for me for all programming languages I've used and on all platforms I've used. I reread grandparents comment and I'm a bit unsure what you are referring to exactly.
    - kornish 9y ago
      I'm just saying that you're hijacking the point (that using a single editor, rather than switching between IDEs, is useful) and replacing it with a competition for size and speed. Yes, vim and emacs are lighter. Does that devalue Atom's consistency? No. I say this as an avid Emacs user.
      - dkersten 9y ago
        Ah, I understand now. I guess my point was that since vim/emacs already exist and have advantages, that use case for atom seems a bit unnecessary, but of course in reality many people don't use vim/emacs due to the learning curve, so I suppose the point is irrelevant.
- komali2 9y ago
  I've been wondering if there's a way to use a more graphical editor over SSH, such as vscode or sublime. I get that I could just "learn VIM" but I already know a shitload of hotkeys for vscode/sublime (they're easily transferred), so I'd rather just use them.
on_and_off 9y ago
Except that we already have Jetbrains for this.
mastazi 9y ago
> why do I need one that is written in JS, is slower and consumes 5x more memory > The same reason thousands of programmers use Vim or Emacs Uhm nope.

hacker_9 9y ago

But that's what I mean - we already have Emacs/Vim, with their million of extensions, which are always going to be faster. Outside of that we have Visual Studio, IntelliJ, PyCharm, the list goes on. All downloadable for free.

simlevesque 9y ago
> going to be faster Fast is not the end goal.
- cat199 9y ago
  it is when 'unusably slow' is the alternative..
- khedoros1 9y ago
  At no time should my tool be the speed bottleneck. UI responsiveness is part of that. Correct code may require a certain slowness, but a slow editor will impose extra pauses that break up your workflow unnecessarily.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
Emacs/Vim are far from being transparent. They have a very steep initial learning curve, and put off a lot of potential users as a result.
- yorwba 9y ago
  It's been years since I last used an IDE, but in my experience, they come with huge toolbars stuffed full of menus to open wizards with tons of options. The learning curve is just as steep. Their advantage is that they provide lots of automatic features like spellcheck and autocomplete out-of-the-box, whereas you have to set these up yourself for Emacs/Vim.
  - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
    I think that's why people are talking up what they see as an alternative to the monolithic IDE: the lightweight text editor with support for extensions. I know Atom isn't particularly lightweight in terms of memory usage, but it is in terms of functionality.
    - bitwize 9y ago
      > I think that's why people are talking up what they see as an alternative to the monolithic IDE: the lightweight text editor with support for extensions. Which is what vim and emacs, relative to IntelliJ, VS, VSCode, and Atom, are.
      - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
        Lightweight text editor that doesn't drive you crazy the first time you try to quit it? ;-) As I said in another comment, I'm a daily vi user, but that's almost always when it's my only option. And that's been the case for well over a decade now. I just happen to feel more comfortable using sublime text; I always know how to do what I need to do, it's obvious, it's a pleasant experience. But I totally get some people have the same experience with vi/Emacs, and that's cool.
    - adrianN 9y ago
      Lightweight in terms of functionality, not lightweight in terms of memory. Excellent combination.
yodsanklai 9y ago
> we already have Emacs/Vim, with their million of extensions My experience is that Vim is hard to use when you start to add too many extensions. There are just too many shortcuts to remember, plugins may interact in unexpected ways, and things like contextual information don't look as nice as they could. It just feels very 'hacky' to try to use it as an IDE. I prefer to use more recent editors (first Sublime, but I'm sold to VSCode now) that are better suited to modern display and usages. I still use vim mode but I'm not even sure I'm really more productive with it. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't focus on just using mac os default binding.
- tomelders 9y ago
  I've never gotten into Vim, but a friend said something that piqued my interest. Editing text is boring. Programming is fun. Vim makes text editing like programming.
  - howlgram 9y ago
    I'm learning vim and I agree, even if there's no productivity gain (duh I'm new to it) it makes my work way more fun (I do have a contrived concept of fun though).

slaymaker1907 9y ago

I find Atom to be the best editor for Markdown, though not much else. In particular, it has superb support for Pandoc as well as a good spell corrector built in.

eivarv 9y ago
Have you tried Typora[0]? It features inline rendering (i.e. images, formatting...) I have barely used my standard editor (Sublime) for Markdown since I discovered it. [0]: https://typora.io/ https://typora.io/

tootie 9y ago

I think that's less relevant than it used to be. JetBrains is now the de facto best IDE for Java, JavaScript, Python and PHP. It has Android Studio and even support for C#. Visual Studio also supports a wide array of languages. I'm in IntelliJ pretty much all the time, no matter the project.

carlmr 9y ago
I program a lot in C, F# and Python. I mostly use visual studio code (electron app similar to Atom, but better). It's great if you're using languages which don't come in one IDE, or where you need to pay for the IDE (F#).
- aquaticor 9y ago
  Take a look at full Visual Studio, it's a much better IDE for F#, the free version beats vscode for F# dev hands down. Though I like VS code for its portability.
kllrnohj 9y ago
IntelliJ is expensive if you want languages not covered by the free edition (like JavaScript), though, and even if you pay for it some things are frustratingly distinct such as if you have a Java/C++ app you need two different "IDEs" (CLion + IntelliJ), and you need to then juggle between those windows. Android Studio is able to work with both even though IntelliJ Ultimate isn't (why, Jetbrains, why!?), but getting Android Studio to work on non-Android things isn't the nicest of experiences. I'd be more willing to pay for the quality if a nice, unified experience was the result, but it annoyingly isn't. To say nothing of the lack of support for things like Rust. That's what this new generation of IDEs is exciting to me - the unified language server standards. Let the compilers handle understanding the code which is what they are best at. Especially if it helps make IDEs less tied to the build system in general (no, CLion, I don't want to use CMake)
- noir_lord 9y ago
  Intellij Ultimate costs me £14 a month, with the plugins (which makes it equivalent to Phpstorm, PyCharm, Rubymine and Webstorm) thats less than I spend on coffee in two weeks, it's insane value however you look at it. That said I still spend a chunk of time (maybe 30%) in vscode because for somethings I prefer it (it's git support with git lens is incredible) and for TypeScript it's comparable to Intellij with the advantage you can start it, do an edit and close before Intellij has finished re-indexing.

dkersten 9y ago

> The same reason thousands of programmers use Vim or Emacs Vim/emacs give a better experience though: they work in a terminal/over ssh and they are FAST and lightweight (memory use). Atom has neither of these properties.

kornish 9y ago
That's not false – but it ignores the point the grandparent was making, which is that minimizing switch cost is valuable to some.
- dkersten 9y ago
  Switch-cost between what? Vim has worked pretty well for me for all programming languages I've used and on all platforms I've used. I reread grandparents comment and I'm a bit unsure what you are referring to exactly.
  - kornish 9y ago
    I'm just saying that you're hijacking the point (that using a single editor, rather than switching between IDEs, is useful) and replacing it with a competition for size and speed. Yes, vim and emacs are lighter. Does that devalue Atom's consistency? No. I say this as an avid Emacs user.
    - dkersten 9y ago
      Ah, I understand now. I guess my point was that since vim/emacs already exist and have advantages, that use case for atom seems a bit unnecessary, but of course in reality many people don't use vim/emacs due to the learning curve, so I suppose the point is irrelevant.
komali2 9y ago
I've been wondering if there's a way to use a more graphical editor over SSH, such as vscode or sublime. I get that I could just "learn VIM" but I already know a shitload of hotkeys for vscode/sublime (they're easily transferred), so I'd rather just use them.

on_and_off 9y ago

Except that we already have Jetbrains for this.

mastazi 9y ago

> why do I need one that is written in JS, is slower and consumes 5x more memory > The same reason thousands of programmers use Vim or Emacs Uhm nope.