6 ms·

What’s the main argument for using Atom over say Sublime Text? (argument other than price—-I’m willing to pay $ for good software)

by plg 8y ago

everdev 8y ago
To me Atom feels slower and outright chokes on large files. However, the ecosystem is nice with some good tooling for Go (go-plus) and a nice GUI to install and configure plugins. If Sublime had the plugins I like to use I'd go back. The size, slowness and constant restarting to install updates is a pain.
giancarlostoro 8y ago
I own a Sublime Text 3 license but either VS Code or Atom have a much richer plugin ecosystem. Sublime Text 3 opens in the blink of an eye so I use it to save work notes since it opens and closes so fast.
628C6l0 8y ago
For me the biggest argument in favor of atom is that because it's based on chromium it displays emojis properly, in colors. As someone who makes use of emojis extensively as variable and function names, this is very important.
- elboru 8y ago
  Wow, would you mind to share some code? I've never seen that approach
  - ChrisRackauckas 8y ago
    Ask and you shall receive: https://twitter.com/ChrisRackauckas/status/1006401461226332160 https://twitter.com/ChrisRackauckas/status/10064014612263321...
- akshat_h 8y ago
  I am quite curious of the domain where you use emojis in function name? That sounds fun, and also from what I have seen of unicode support somewhat terrifying. I work mostly in enterprise backend so variable names are typically boring, but I have never heard of emojis being used in var names.
  - __blockcipher__ 8y ago
    To me, it seems clear that they were joking. I could be wrong there, but I don't think I am. That being said, the poop emoji would be great to use instead of "temp"
    - akshat_h 8y ago
      Yeah, I think op was joking/trolling as well and I fell for it. Honestly I expected something like Scratch as an answer.
    - sigzero 8y ago
      I really hope they were joking. lol
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  I think you're being sarcastic but others seem to think you're serious. Care to clarify? I'm leaning towards you're being sarcastic. I'd flip a table if I opened up code full of emojis.
  - engi_nerd 8y ago
    You know what really boggles my mind? You are the only person so far who has had a sane reaction to this. All these other people saying "this sounds like fun" are making me cringe in revulsion.
    - akshat_h 8y ago
      I can see it being 'fun' in something like Scratch. I expected op to reply with either some edutech or some domain I hadn't heard of. It does however seem that op is trolling, and I missed it.
  - 628C6l0 8y ago
    Emojis make your code a little more like math formulas. In math formulas you use single letters. This makes the syntax easy to parse, but has the drawback that the letters are mostly meaningless and so not very suggestive. Names in programming language tend to be words. This makes it easier to remember what they are supposed to stand for but also make the syntax hard to parse and other occurrences hard to spot Emojis combine the best of both worlds. Like the letters used in math they are easy to parse and it's really easy to find other occurrences of the same var when the name is an apple . But like the more verbose names in programming languages they can carry meaning. Eg I use the dango emoji for arrays and the monitor emoji for window instances.
    - jacobolus 8y ago
      Ah yes, because nothing says “data structure consisting of a contiguous block of memory broken into uniformly sized chunks so elements can be cheaply accessed by index” like a little picture of rice dumplings on a stick. Much better than just using the accepted technical term “array”. Personally I prefer the abbreviation arrr, or sometimes yarr. Lets anyone reading the code feel like they just downed a pitcher of grog.
- jacobsenscott 8y ago
  Same. I also use this extensively https://github.com/sferik/active_emoji https://github.com/sferik/active_emoji.
- Reedx 8y ago
  Haha, this is Ken M quality.
- memco 8y ago
  Joking or not, Sublime renders emoji just fine as far as I can see. I am not using them for variables, but they are sometimes embedded in strings, and in this case it's nice that they render correctly. How does Atom improve emoji experience?
mygo 8y ago
for me, atom’s initial value proposition way back when was, (well, in addition to the customizability/programmability) the third party plug-in ecosystem. It was a pretty big deal for me at the time not to have to wait for my code editor to release an extension for that-one-thing-I-use. Atom is slow for larger files, but the vast amount of third party plugins is a great asset.
- collyw 8y ago
  It became unusably slow for me when I got downgraded to a spinning disk machine. It was fine on the SSD machine I had before that.
  - mygo 8y ago
    I’ve only used SSD’s since 2012.. and it’s not always the case but it’s noticeable on large files. For example sometimes I open a gigantic CSV file (at least tens of thousands of rows) or JSON file in Atom, and it really chokes. But at the same time other tools are probably better for handling such large data files so it’s not a deal breaker.
noirbot 8y ago
The big reason I still use Atom is that it's both more visually customizable (VS Code is somewhat locked to its core layout) and that it BY FAR has the best ESlint support. VS Code is nice, and definitely faster, but it just has rougher support for addons at this point, and is just a worse UX for more complex integrations. In general I use Sublime when I need fast editing of a one-off script, or basic work on things. I use Atom for JS development, and VS Code for the rest. If Atom was faster for starting up and handling larger projects, I'd much prefer it, but for now, I make due with VS Code. Really, one of my biggest gripes with all of them, and VS Code especially, is that the addon ecosystem has a serious discoverability problem. If I want to find a new theme, or find a new addon for a specific language or whatever, it's much easier in Atom than almost anywhere else. When one of them fixes that, I'll be happily in on it.
ggregoire 8y ago
What’s the main argument for using Sublime Text over VSCode? I used Sublime for like 5 years but VSCode is better in my opinion. With updates every month and a good support team. For free.
- bdcravens 8y ago
  Large files. (hundreds of MBs or in the GBs) For many this isn't a use case, but if you do a lot of data loading, troubleshooting CSVs is a common need.
  - jakear 8y ago
    Is subl really that much faster at big CSV's for you? I made a quick 10 million line, ~1GB CSV in Python, opened it in both sublime text and code. code opened in 20seconds, subl took over a minute.
    - bdcravens 8y ago
      Honestly, it's been a while since I tried. Perhaps I'll take another stab at it and see how VS Code has improved. Out of curiosity, how wide is the file? Some of the files I open are 250+ field invoices, so each line is easily 1k characters each.
pier25 8y ago
It's easier to configure and extend.

What’s the main argument for using Atom over say Sublime Text? (argument other than price—-I’m willing to pay $ for good software)

by plg 8y ago

What’s the main argument for using Atom over say Sublime Text? (argument other than price—-I’m willing to pay $ for good software)

everdev 8y ago

To me Atom feels slower and outright chokes on large files. However, the ecosystem is nice with some good tooling for Go (go-plus) and a nice GUI to install and configure plugins. If Sublime had the plugins I like to use I'd go back. The size, slowness and constant restarting to install updates is a pain.

giancarlostoro 8y ago

I own a Sublime Text 3 license but either VS Code or Atom have a much richer plugin ecosystem. Sublime Text 3 opens in the blink of an eye so I use it to save work notes since it opens and closes so fast.

628C6l0 8y ago

For me the biggest argument in favor of atom is that because it's based on chromium it displays emojis properly, in colors. As someone who makes use of emojis extensively as variable and function names, this is very important.

elboru 8y ago
Wow, would you mind to share some code? I've never seen that approach
- ChrisRackauckas 8y ago
  Ask and you shall receive: https://twitter.com/ChrisRackauckas/status/1006401461226332160 https://twitter.com/ChrisRackauckas/status/10064014612263321...
akshat_h 8y ago
I am quite curious of the domain where you use emojis in function name? That sounds fun, and also from what I have seen of unicode support somewhat terrifying. I work mostly in enterprise backend so variable names are typically boring, but I have never heard of emojis being used in var names.
- __blockcipher__ 8y ago
  To me, it seems clear that they were joking. I could be wrong there, but I don't think I am. That being said, the poop emoji would be great to use instead of "temp"
  - akshat_h 8y ago
    Yeah, I think op was joking/trolling as well and I fell for it. Honestly I expected something like Scratch as an answer.
  - sigzero 8y ago
    I really hope they were joking. lol
giancarlostoro 8y ago
I think you're being sarcastic but others seem to think you're serious. Care to clarify? I'm leaning towards you're being sarcastic. I'd flip a table if I opened up code full of emojis.
- engi_nerd 8y ago
  You know what really boggles my mind? You are the only person so far who has had a sane reaction to this. All these other people saying "this sounds like fun" are making me cringe in revulsion.
  - akshat_h 8y ago
    I can see it being 'fun' in something like Scratch. I expected op to reply with either some edutech or some domain I hadn't heard of. It does however seem that op is trolling, and I missed it.
- 628C6l0 8y ago
  Emojis make your code a little more like math formulas. In math formulas you use single letters. This makes the syntax easy to parse, but has the drawback that the letters are mostly meaningless and so not very suggestive. Names in programming language tend to be words. This makes it easier to remember what they are supposed to stand for but also make the syntax hard to parse and other occurrences hard to spot Emojis combine the best of both worlds. Like the letters used in math they are easy to parse and it's really easy to find other occurrences of the same var when the name is an apple . But like the more verbose names in programming languages they can carry meaning. Eg I use the dango emoji for arrays and the monitor emoji for window instances.
  - jacobolus 8y ago
    Ah yes, because nothing says “data structure consisting of a contiguous block of memory broken into uniformly sized chunks so elements can be cheaply accessed by index” like a little picture of rice dumplings on a stick. Much better than just using the accepted technical term “array”. Personally I prefer the abbreviation arrr, or sometimes yarr. Lets anyone reading the code feel like they just downed a pitcher of grog.
jacobsenscott 8y ago
Same. I also use this extensively https://github.com/sferik/active_emoji https://github.com/sferik/active_emoji.
Reedx 8y ago
Haha, this is Ken M quality.
memco 8y ago
Joking or not, Sublime renders emoji just fine as far as I can see. I am not using them for variables, but they are sometimes embedded in strings, and in this case it's nice that they render correctly. How does Atom improve emoji experience?

mygo 8y ago

for me, atom’s initial value proposition way back when was, (well, in addition to the customizability/programmability) the third party plug-in ecosystem. It was a pretty big deal for me at the time not to have to wait for my code editor to release an extension for that-one-thing-I-use. Atom is slow for larger files, but the vast amount of third party plugins is a great asset.

collyw 8y ago
It became unusably slow for me when I got downgraded to a spinning disk machine. It was fine on the SSD machine I had before that.
- mygo 8y ago
  I’ve only used SSD’s since 2012.. and it’s not always the case but it’s noticeable on large files. For example sometimes I open a gigantic CSV file (at least tens of thousands of rows) or JSON file in Atom, and it really chokes. But at the same time other tools are probably better for handling such large data files so it’s not a deal breaker.

noirbot 8y ago

The big reason I still use Atom is that it's both more visually customizable (VS Code is somewhat locked to its core layout) and that it BY FAR has the best ESlint support. VS Code is nice, and definitely faster, but it just has rougher support for addons at this point, and is just a worse UX for more complex integrations. In general I use Sublime when I need fast editing of a one-off script, or basic work on things. I use Atom for JS development, and VS Code for the rest. If Atom was faster for starting up and handling larger projects, I'd much prefer it, but for now, I make due with VS Code. Really, one of my biggest gripes with all of them, and VS Code especially, is that the addon ecosystem has a serious discoverability problem. If I want to find a new theme, or find a new addon for a specific language or whatever, it's much easier in Atom than almost anywhere else. When one of them fixes that, I'll be happily in on it.

ggregoire 8y ago

What’s the main argument for using Sublime Text over VSCode? I used Sublime for like 5 years but VSCode is better in my opinion. With updates every month and a good support team. For free.

bdcravens 8y ago
Large files. (hundreds of MBs or in the GBs) For many this isn't a use case, but if you do a lot of data loading, troubleshooting CSVs is a common need.
- jakear 8y ago
  Is subl really that much faster at big CSV's for you? I made a quick 10 million line, ~1GB CSV in Python, opened it in both sublime text and code. code opened in 20seconds, subl took over a minute.
  - bdcravens 8y ago
    Honestly, it's been a while since I tried. Perhaps I'll take another stab at it and see how VS Code has improved. Out of curiosity, how wide is the file? Some of the files I open are 250+ field invoices, so each line is easily 1k characters each.

pier25 8y ago

It's easier to configure and extend.