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>Atom doesn't use 80MB, it uses 800MB. This is an over exaggeration, and quite a large one. Facebook just released information on the average memory usage of "

>Atom doesn't use 80MB, it uses 800MB. This is an over exaggeration, and quite a large one. Facebook just released information on the average memory usage of "nuclide" (their Atom editor bundled with a metric ton of plugins which use quite a lot of memory) to be around 600mb. And that's not indicative of a "normal" Atom user (if there can be such a thing). I personally have currently 5 windows open in atom, with about a combined 40 tabs, and about 30 plugins installed, and my instance is using 360mb of memory right now across all processes. And those windows have been open for about a week now. And that Atom instance is running a lot of what your Eclipse instance is running. Linters, autocomplete, code analysis tools, CI server integration, a webserver for serving up my application in the editor, a debugger that links the live preview in the editor with the code in the editor, and a ton more. Switching to something which uses a few hundred less MB of RAM for a fraction of the capability would be a monumentally stupid thing to do, as Atom makes me significantly more productive than any other editor I've tried has ever before. There are a lot of problems with Electron, but memory usage isn't one of them any more. It can be, just like with any language/platform, but it's not "inherent" to the technology.

rootlocus 9y ago
Out of curiosity, how large is the project you're working on? How many source files / lines of code?
- Klathmon 9y ago
  Well each window has open a different repo right now. But the general sizes are (all ignoring 3rd party dependencies): * 1 front-end react monorepo which contains a handful of front-end projects with about 50k LOC of js files only across them all * 1 backend node.js projects with about 7k LOC * 2 npm packages that I'm working on. One that's like 300 LOC total, and another that probably hits around 1k (haven't measured, just a guess) * 1 go project that I'm hacking on in my spare time, but I just keep the window open because why not? this has about 1k loc.
bayindirh 9y ago
First of all, for the 800MB thing, there's the source: https://medium.com/@caspervonb/why-i-still-use-vim-67afd76b4db6?21 https://medium.com/@caspervonb/why-i-still-use-vim-67afd76b4... and I've also seen this behavior while editing small Python files. I also had no other plugins other than the default bundle. So my atom installation was pretty lean. It looks like you're a web developer, I'm not. I develop at the system level, and for development scenarios Atom is nowhere capable as Eclipse, and seriously that's OK. Every IDE has its niche. I used atom as a pretty text and script editor for my needs, but its auto complete capabilities left too much to be desired for me. Honestly, maybe atom was not optimized for better memory usage before. Maybe there were memory leaks. Maybe my build was buggy (I used an official deb package BTW), or maybe he tested a buggy version, but these problems were (or are) real for some other people, and they may have been solved or not; but I'm neither the only, nor the last people who talked about excessive memory usage of atom. I loved atom when it first came out. I tried to migrate to it, but it has burned me with its radioactivity. So I returned to my dark corner under Eclipse to work and recover.
- Klathmon 9y ago
  >and I've also seen this behavior while editing small Python files. I also had no other plugins other than the default bundle. So my atom installation was pretty lean. Atom has made significant strides in the last year reducing that overhead, but the 800 mb from that article was a bug, and was if i recall fixed in the very next version, reducing the total memory usage from opening that large xml file to basically nothing. Even your article shows that it started with a ~250mb memory usage, but the article didn't go into detail about what happens when you open a ton of files (the memory usage only increases a small amount with each file). The overhead is large, but it's fairly static. And judging a program by it's baseline memory usage when using it for it's most trivial tasks seems silly. It's like complaining that your OS takes a minute to boot up just to edit a text file, when VIM can start up in a hundred milliseconds! >I develop at the system level, and for development scenarios Atom is nowhere capable as Eclipse, and seriously that's OK. I completely agree! I just hate when there are perfectly valid problems and issues with a technology, but people ignore them and jump on the bandwagon of a non-problem. Just like how there was a time when Emacs was a laughing stock for being so resource intensive, things improve, bugs are fixed, programs are optimized, and hardware gets more capable. Judging programs by what they once were is an easy trap to fall into, but it's not helpful for anyone.
milankragujevic 9y ago
Atom uses 300 MB, Deezer 400 MB, Skype 500 MB and Slack 350 MB. All Electron apps. That's 1.5 GB for just 4 apps, meanwhile Sublime Text uses 45 MB.

rootlocus 9y ago

Out of curiosity, how large is the project you're working on? How many source files / lines of code?

Klathmon 9y ago
Well each window has open a different repo right now. But the general sizes are (all ignoring 3rd party dependencies): * 1 front-end react monorepo which contains a handful of front-end projects with about 50k LOC of js files only across them all * 1 backend node.js projects with about 7k LOC * 2 npm packages that I'm working on. One that's like 300 LOC total, and another that probably hits around 1k (haven't measured, just a guess) * 1 go project that I'm hacking on in my spare time, but I just keep the window open because why not? this has about 1k loc.

bayindirh 9y ago

First of all, for the 800MB thing, there's the source: https://medium.com/@caspervonb/why-i-still-use-vim-67afd76b4db6?21 https://medium.com/@caspervonb/why-i-still-use-vim-67afd76b4... and I've also seen this behavior while editing small Python files. I also had no other plugins other than the default bundle. So my atom installation was pretty lean. It looks like you're a web developer, I'm not. I develop at the system level, and for development scenarios Atom is nowhere capable as Eclipse, and seriously that's OK. Every IDE has its niche. I used atom as a pretty text and script editor for my needs, but its auto complete capabilities left too much to be desired for me. Honestly, maybe atom was not optimized for better memory usage before. Maybe there were memory leaks. Maybe my build was buggy (I used an official deb package BTW), or maybe he tested a buggy version, but these problems were (or are) real for some other people, and they may have been solved or not; but I'm neither the only, nor the last people who talked about excessive memory usage of atom. I loved atom when it first came out. I tried to migrate to it, but it has burned me with its radioactivity. So I returned to my dark corner under Eclipse to work and recover.

Klathmon 9y ago
>and I've also seen this behavior while editing small Python files. I also had no other plugins other than the default bundle. So my atom installation was pretty lean. Atom has made significant strides in the last year reducing that overhead, but the 800 mb from that article was a bug, and was if i recall fixed in the very next version, reducing the total memory usage from opening that large xml file to basically nothing. Even your article shows that it started with a ~250mb memory usage, but the article didn't go into detail about what happens when you open a ton of files (the memory usage only increases a small amount with each file). The overhead is large, but it's fairly static. And judging a program by it's baseline memory usage when using it for it's most trivial tasks seems silly. It's like complaining that your OS takes a minute to boot up just to edit a text file, when VIM can start up in a hundred milliseconds! >I develop at the system level, and for development scenarios Atom is nowhere capable as Eclipse, and seriously that's OK. I completely agree! I just hate when there are perfectly valid problems and issues with a technology, but people ignore them and jump on the bandwagon of a non-problem. Just like how there was a time when Emacs was a laughing stock for being so resource intensive, things improve, bugs are fixed, programs are optimized, and hardware gets more capable. Judging programs by what they once were is an easy trap to fall into, but it's not helpful for anyone.

milankragujevic 9y ago

Atom uses 300 MB, Deezer 400 MB, Skype 500 MB and Slack 350 MB. All Electron apps. That's 1.5 GB for just 4 apps, meanwhile Sublime Text uses 45 MB.