4 ms·

Atom is open source though. One company can not decide to kill it. https://github.com/atom/atom https://github.com/atom/atom

by Iv 8y ago

emilsedgh 8y ago
In my experience, open source projects that are primarily backed by companies fail to create a real community of developers. Therefore when the company dies, development stalls. RethinkDB was something that I though would still go strong without the backing. I never used it and was never involved, so I'd love to hear what happened when the company died. (One exemption is Xfree86 though, which was forked successfully by to community to Xorg if I recall correctly)
- undseg 8y ago
  That's true, and I want to add that usually it's the company's fault for not guiding the project into the hands of the community (be it intentionally or because of incompetence). Rust is a great example of a "company's project" that reached (or is reaching) a nice spot in autonomy.
- Iv 8y ago
  I agree but I think Github and Atom are special cases. A light IDE is not rocket science and this project is known (and loved) by many open source developers.
- egeozcan 8y ago
  It's not going very well for RethinkDB, sadly: https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/6659 https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/6659
2_listerine_pls 8y ago
Someone has to maintain it.
bengotow 8y ago
Sure they can't "kill" it, but a huge fraction of the work on Atom comes from full-time people employed by GitHub. They can handicap it to the point that VSCode becomes the better editor.
- luckydata 8y ago
  I think it already is tbh.
- ryanplant-au 8y ago
  I think the popular opinion (and my own) is that VS Code has been the better editor for a long time now. Performance, features, and reliability have all been drastically better, its one weak spot might be the slightly more limited interface for extensions.
- tbrock 8y ago
  Atom is really just a testbed for electron, where the real technology lies. If you can make an editor that programmers love using electron you can make pretty much anything else (excluding games).
  - giancarlostoro 8y ago
    Why not games? https://electronjs.org/apps?category=games https://electronjs.org/apps?category=games HTML5 and Canvas do work on Electron after all. :) I feel there was some post on HN about a game released under Electron to which the reaction was "I didn't know it was made with Electron!" not a month ago. Edit: Also Atom wasn't a testbed for Electron. Electron WAS MADE for Atom afaik. They only opened up Electron after Atom was out for a while, it'd be the other way around if what you're saying is the case. I think Microsoft is already heavily invested in Electron. If anything they will provide even more resources towards Electron itself.
- kourzanov 8y ago
  sad. Atom has much better usable UI. I get constantly lost in VSCode menu and (strange enough) it is very difficult to startup a browser in it.

Atom is open source though. One company can not decide to kill it. https://github.com/atom/atom https://github.com/atom/atom

by Iv 8y ago

Atom is open source though. One company can not decide to kill it. https://github.com/atom/atom https://github.com/atom/atom

emilsedgh 8y ago

In my experience, open source projects that are primarily backed by companies fail to create a real community of developers. Therefore when the company dies, development stalls. RethinkDB was something that I though would still go strong without the backing. I never used it and was never involved, so I'd love to hear what happened when the company died. (One exemption is Xfree86 though, which was forked successfully by to community to Xorg if I recall correctly)

undseg 8y ago
That's true, and I want to add that usually it's the company's fault for not guiding the project into the hands of the community (be it intentionally or because of incompetence). Rust is a great example of a "company's project" that reached (or is reaching) a nice spot in autonomy.
Iv 8y ago
I agree but I think Github and Atom are special cases. A light IDE is not rocket science and this project is known (and loved) by many open source developers.
egeozcan 8y ago
It's not going very well for RethinkDB, sadly: https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/6659 https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/6659

2_listerine_pls 8y ago

Someone has to maintain it.

bengotow 8y ago

Sure they can't "kill" it, but a huge fraction of the work on Atom comes from full-time people employed by GitHub. They can handicap it to the point that VSCode becomes the better editor.

luckydata 8y ago
I think it already is tbh.
ryanplant-au 8y ago
I think the popular opinion (and my own) is that VS Code has been the better editor for a long time now. Performance, features, and reliability have all been drastically better, its one weak spot might be the slightly more limited interface for extensions.
tbrock 8y ago
Atom is really just a testbed for electron, where the real technology lies. If you can make an editor that programmers love using electron you can make pretty much anything else (excluding games).
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  Why not games? https://electronjs.org/apps?category=games https://electronjs.org/apps?category=games HTML5 and Canvas do work on Electron after all. :) I feel there was some post on HN about a game released under Electron to which the reaction was "I didn't know it was made with Electron!" not a month ago. Edit: Also Atom wasn't a testbed for Electron. Electron WAS MADE for Atom afaik. They only opened up Electron after Atom was out for a while, it'd be the other way around if what you're saying is the case. I think Microsoft is already heavily invested in Electron. If anything they will provide even more resources towards Electron itself.
kourzanov 8y ago
sad. Atom has much better usable UI. I get constantly lost in VSCode menu and (strange enough) it is very difficult to startup a browser in it.