5 ms·

Why doesn’t someone make a better native editor? (That’s not sublime)

zuzun 9y ago
People that have these skills realize that similar to Greenspun's Law: > Any sufficiently complicated program with an extensible cross-platform GUI contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden implementation of half of a webrowser.
z3t4 9y ago
You could reframe the question to: Why doesn't someone make a platform depended editor.
matthew349hall 9y ago
Because Sublime is so good already.
jeffjose 9y ago
Have you tried vscode?
- girvo 9y ago
  It's not native; uses Monaco as it's editing component and is built with TypeScript :)
- okanesen 9y ago
  Vscode is not native and uses the same underlying architecture (Electron) as Atom.
keyle 9y ago
Not free, but have you tried IntelliJ?
craftyguy 9y ago
There's always Vim, which is super extensible with plugins, and there are native binaries for all major operating systems.
guessmyname 9y ago
> Why doesn’t someone make a better native editor? I can make it. In fact, there are many native text editors out there. The problem is not creating the editor itself but the community around it. If your editor doesn't supports the most common/basic plugins like linters, debuggers, painters, formatters, code intelligence, etc then it becomes another one in the pile. Atom became the popular piece of software that is today because of the JavaScript community. Hundreds of high school, college and university students with several hours of free time during the week, writing code in a language that overflows on the Internet, to extend the functionality of a program baked by one of the most popular companies among software developers [GitHub]. This is the type of community that you need to build around your editor in order to make it popular. Take a look at TextMate [1] which used to be one of the most popular code editor with a graphical interface for Mac years ago. It was open-sourced [2] after its developer put it in maintenance mode. And while it is still being maintained today, not many people are well versed in C++ and Objective-C to contribute to the project at the same speed as a JavaScript programmer would do with Atom. [1] https://macromates.com https://macromates.com [2] https://github.com/textmate/textmate https://github.com/textmate/textmate
- rossy 9y ago
  I don't think that's it. I could definitely manage without having a community around my editor. The only packages I have installed in Sublime Text are syntaxes and colour schemes. Sublime actually supports TextMate syntax for those (.tmLanguage and .tmTheme,) which was a good way to bootstrap a useful editor before it got a community of its own. If you want linters or code intelligence, there's an emerging editor-agnostic solution for that as well. The guys behind the Language Server protocol[1] realized that making an editor plugin for each language in each editor was inefficient and it slows the adoption of new languages and new editors. [1]: https://langserver.org/ https://langserver.org/
- nurettin 9y ago
  >> Hundreds of high school, college and university students with several hours of free time during the week, writing code in a language that overflows on the Internet Citation definitely needed.
earenndil 9y ago
Vim? Emacs? Anything from jetbrains (although technically that's an IDE)?
- WalterGR 9y ago
  How much of Jetbrains' IDEs are not written in Java?
  - hota_mazi 9y ago
    Probably just a few percents, which are likely written in Kotlin.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Java is more "native" than anything with Electron. Starting by the fact that not only there are commercial native compilers, Java 9 also started the road to have AOT compilation support with the long term plan to replace the C++ parts with Java (aka System Java, Project Metropolis). Also there are hooks in Swing and JavaFX to interact with the host GUI, or if using something like SWT a pure native wrapper to host GUI controls.
    - WalterGR 9y ago
      That may well be true. Are we calling Java "native" now? This is my first time hearing it.
      - pjmlp 9y ago
        Java has always been native to those that knew where to buy native code AOT compilers. Unless you mean D, Go, Haskell, OCaml aren't native.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Why doesn’t someone make a better native editor? There are plenty of people who keep trying to do that, but a lot of people have moved away from it because “native” means one of: (1) excluded important platform for developers, or (2) multiplies maintenance effort and new feature development difficulty by requiring the project to maintain large amounts of platform-specific code for several different platforms (which ends up turning into a platform abstraction layer.) It's a lot more efficient, in developer time, to choose an existing, well-supported engine that already abstracts the native platform, and focus on developing and maintaining the unique features of your editor instead.

People that have these skills realize that similar to Greenspun's Law: > Any sufficiently complicated program with an extensible cross-platform GUI contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden implementation of half of a webrowser.

z3t4 9y ago

You could reframe the question to: Why doesn't someone make a platform depended editor.

matthew349hall 9y ago

Because Sublime is so good already.

jeffjose 9y ago

Have you tried vscode?

girvo 9y ago
It's not native; uses Monaco as it's editing component and is built with TypeScript :)
okanesen 9y ago
Vscode is not native and uses the same underlying architecture (Electron) as Atom.

keyle 9y ago

Not free, but have you tried IntelliJ?

craftyguy 9y ago

There's always Vim, which is super extensible with plugins, and there are native binaries for all major operating systems.

guessmyname 9y ago

> Why doesn’t someone make a better native editor? I can make it. In fact, there are many native text editors out there. The problem is not creating the editor itself but the community around it. If your editor doesn't supports the most common/basic plugins like linters, debuggers, painters, formatters, code intelligence, etc then it becomes another one in the pile. Atom became the popular piece of software that is today because of the JavaScript community. Hundreds of high school, college and university students with several hours of free time during the week, writing code in a language that overflows on the Internet, to extend the functionality of a program baked by one of the most popular companies among software developers [GitHub]. This is the type of community that you need to build around your editor in order to make it popular. Take a look at TextMate [1] which used to be one of the most popular code editor with a graphical interface for Mac years ago. It was open-sourced [2] after its developer put it in maintenance mode. And while it is still being maintained today, not many people are well versed in C++ and Objective-C to contribute to the project at the same speed as a JavaScript programmer would do with Atom. [1] https://macromates.com https://macromates.com [2] https://github.com/textmate/textmate https://github.com/textmate/textmate

rossy 9y ago
I don't think that's it. I could definitely manage without having a community around my editor. The only packages I have installed in Sublime Text are syntaxes and colour schemes. Sublime actually supports TextMate syntax for those (.tmLanguage and .tmTheme,) which was a good way to bootstrap a useful editor before it got a community of its own. If you want linters or code intelligence, there's an emerging editor-agnostic solution for that as well. The guys behind the Language Server protocol[1] realized that making an editor plugin for each language in each editor was inefficient and it slows the adoption of new languages and new editors. [1]: https://langserver.org/ https://langserver.org/
nurettin 9y ago
>> Hundreds of high school, college and university students with several hours of free time during the week, writing code in a language that overflows on the Internet Citation definitely needed.

earenndil 9y ago

Vim? Emacs? Anything from jetbrains (although technically that's an IDE)?

WalterGR 9y ago
How much of Jetbrains' IDEs are not written in Java?
- hota_mazi 9y ago
  Probably just a few percents, which are likely written in Kotlin.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Java is more "native" than anything with Electron. Starting by the fact that not only there are commercial native compilers, Java 9 also started the road to have AOT compilation support with the long term plan to replace the C++ parts with Java (aka System Java, Project Metropolis). Also there are hooks in Swing and JavaFX to interact with the host GUI, or if using something like SWT a pure native wrapper to host GUI controls.
  - WalterGR 9y ago
    That may well be true. Are we calling Java "native" now? This is my first time hearing it.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      Java has always been native to those that knew where to buy native code AOT compilers. Unless you mean D, Go, Haskell, OCaml aren't native.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Why doesn’t someone make a better native editor? There are plenty of people who keep trying to do that, but a lot of people have moved away from it because “native” means one of: (1) excluded important platform for developers, or (2) multiplies maintenance effort and new feature development difficulty by requiring the project to maintain large amounts of platform-specific code for several different platforms (which ends up turning into a platform abstraction layer.) It's a lot more efficient, in developer time, to choose an existing, well-supported engine that already abstracts the native platform, and focus on developing and maintaining the unique features of your editor instead.