4 ms·

I've been enjoying VS Code for a while after really trying to find a text-editor on Mac that fits my personal preferences (tab navigation, open new files in tab

by kup0 8y ago

I've been enjoying VS Code for a while after really trying to find a text-editor on Mac that fits my personal preferences (tab navigation, open new files in tabs in existing window, fast launch time, css syntax highlighting inside of an HTML file). I've tried so many and like very few of them. MS seems to have done some good work on performance. It's still faster than this new version of Atom for startup, especially cold starts (with it not open at all, going into FTP client > open file). Though, I revisited Sublime Text today, and I have to say, I know it's just a few seconds saved here and there, but the difference between Sublime and ANY other editor as far as launch/file ready time is a huge gap. While the measured time doesn't seem significant- the "feel" of using it does. It's hard to put into words how much better it feels to use, like the difference between using applications on a HDD vs an SSD. I'm still debating (as a hobbyist that doesn't make much money on what I use text editors for) whether the license is worth it for Sublime or if I should just stick to VS Code. $80 is reasonable for most use cases (developers, etc) but it's a bit steep for mine. It really feels like it might be worth it, even just for the speed difference.

bdcravens 8y ago
Sublime has always been king of the hill for opening giant files (like CSVs if you need to troubleshoot data imports) but unix tools and software like head and vim can take you pretty far if budget is a concern.
- 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
    (copying comment to your other reply for benefits of thread) 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.
    - jakear 8y ago
      Ah didn't realize it was the same account. I tried with two 1GB files, one with many lines but each short, another with long lines but not as many: 1.1GB, 10M lines. Code: ~10s, smooth scrolling, instant jumping. Sublime: ~50s, smooth scrolling, instant jumping. Atom: ~10s, smooth scrolling, very choppy jumping: ~5s loads per jump (also got some error messages about text too large for buffer) 1.0GB, 40k lines. Code: ~15s, scrolling somewhat choppy, quick jumping Sublime: Application not responding after ~60s, waitied another 60s, no change. Same behavior each of the two times I attempted. Atom: ~8s, smooth scroll, ~30s per jump, occasional "Editor is taking too long to load" messages. Note: Atom enforces a maximum line length of ~500 chars before it wraps regardless of word wrap setting. This means the 8s load was only showing a couple lines worth of content. I find this restriction not acceptible for the long-line test case, but including anyways for completeness) Full "report": https://pastebin.com/wUv8PSgp https://pastebin.com/wUv8PSgp
      - nojvek 8y ago
        Vscode invested in a lot of lazy loading both for modules at startup time and opening large files. Their text buffers and internal datastructures are optimized for perf and save space on RAM. It amazes me sometimes that all this is built on standard web technology and it’s mostly blink (chromium) and v8 under the hood.
      - kup0 8y ago
        I never open very large files, but this is interesting data nevertheless!
- cup-of-tea 8y ago
  It has never been that. It is not a disk based editor. Use UltraEdit is you want that.
tambourine_man 8y ago
You should check BBEdit as well. Very Mac like, wicked fast, feature rich, US$ 50 and the free version is nothing no sneeze at. You can also open FTP/sFTP files right from within it. No need for external app.
- kup0 8y ago
  I tried it (and TextWrangler) previously but I'm not sure what I didn't like about BBEdit, might need to revisit it. For me, my two biggest (admittedly nitpick) issues with TextWrangler are that the UI chrome itself has no dark mode and the tabs are on the side and cannot be moved to the top
  - tambourine_man 8y ago
    I get that, choosing a text editor is all about nitpicking. I’m a Vim user myself but I have a soft spot for BBEdit. Dark mode should come with Mojave's release.
ksec 8y ago
There are some who feel the difference but don't care about it, and there are those like me which has what I call "latency intolerance." Where we get pissed about the 10ms difference.
- kup0 8y ago
  This is exactly what I mean in terms of "faster". Which, for opening rather small (HTML, CSS, JS) web files, and lots of them, makes a significant difference in perception of speed.
jakear 8y ago
Sublime startup time is... well, sublime. It's instant. Great for quick note taking. But, startup time is a tiny tiny fraction of "normal use" time for anything besides jotting quick notes, and I'm weird and take notes with an actual notebook on my desk, so I don't have much use for Sublime.
cup-of-tea 8y ago
I doubt Sublime is faster than vim. And I doubt it's faster than opening a new file in emacs which is always running on my system. It seems that your definition of "ANY other editor" is limited to bloatware like Atom, VS Code etc.
- jeremejevs 8y ago
  It does do some things faster than vim though: https://github.com/jhallen/joes-sandbox/tree/master/editor-perf#time-used-to-load-testxml-jump-to-end-of-file-and-exit https://github.com/jhallen/joes-sandbox/tree/master/editor-p...
- kup0 8y ago
  You are mostly right, "ANY" was a poor choice of words (not to mention my unnecessary all-caps emphasis), and of course now I can't edit the post. Oops. I meant out of any of them that I consider using (I know I'm a heretic but I just can't get into fully keyboard-based editors like vim, emacs, etc). But it does include other non-bloated apps that come close in speed, but don't have the feature set the way I want like TextWrangler, CotEditor, Geany, TextMate. I think TL;DR - I am very picky about text editors, probably too picky.
  - cup-of-tea 8y ago
    Force yourself to use emacs for a week and it will change your life ;)

by kup0 8y ago

bdcravens 8y ago

Sublime has always been king of the hill for opening giant files (like CSVs if you need to troubleshoot data imports) but unix tools and software like head and vim can take you pretty far if budget is a concern.

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
  (copying comment to your other reply for benefits of thread) 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.
  - jakear 8y ago
    Ah didn't realize it was the same account. I tried with two 1GB files, one with many lines but each short, another with long lines but not as many: 1.1GB, 10M lines. Code: ~10s, smooth scrolling, instant jumping. Sublime: ~50s, smooth scrolling, instant jumping. Atom: ~10s, smooth scrolling, very choppy jumping: ~5s loads per jump (also got some error messages about text too large for buffer) 1.0GB, 40k lines. Code: ~15s, scrolling somewhat choppy, quick jumping Sublime: Application not responding after ~60s, waitied another 60s, no change. Same behavior each of the two times I attempted. Atom: ~8s, smooth scroll, ~30s per jump, occasional "Editor is taking too long to load" messages. Note: Atom enforces a maximum line length of ~500 chars before it wraps regardless of word wrap setting. This means the 8s load was only showing a couple lines worth of content. I find this restriction not acceptible for the long-line test case, but including anyways for completeness) Full "report": https://pastebin.com/wUv8PSgp https://pastebin.com/wUv8PSgp
    - nojvek 8y ago
      Vscode invested in a lot of lazy loading both for modules at startup time and opening large files. Their text buffers and internal datastructures are optimized for perf and save space on RAM. It amazes me sometimes that all this is built on standard web technology and it’s mostly blink (chromium) and v8 under the hood.
    - kup0 8y ago
      I never open very large files, but this is interesting data nevertheless!
cup-of-tea 8y ago
It has never been that. It is not a disk based editor. Use UltraEdit is you want that.

tambourine_man 8y ago

You should check BBEdit as well. Very Mac like, wicked fast, feature rich, US$ 50 and the free version is nothing no sneeze at. You can also open FTP/sFTP files right from within it. No need for external app.

kup0 8y ago
I tried it (and TextWrangler) previously but I'm not sure what I didn't like about BBEdit, might need to revisit it. For me, my two biggest (admittedly nitpick) issues with TextWrangler are that the UI chrome itself has no dark mode and the tabs are on the side and cannot be moved to the top
- tambourine_man 8y ago
  I get that, choosing a text editor is all about nitpicking. I’m a Vim user myself but I have a soft spot for BBEdit. Dark mode should come with Mojave's release.

ksec 8y ago

There are some who feel the difference but don't care about it, and there are those like me which has what I call "latency intolerance." Where we get pissed about the 10ms difference.

kup0 8y ago
This is exactly what I mean in terms of "faster". Which, for opening rather small (HTML, CSS, JS) web files, and lots of them, makes a significant difference in perception of speed.

jakear 8y ago

Sublime startup time is... well, sublime. It's instant. Great for quick note taking. But, startup time is a tiny tiny fraction of "normal use" time for anything besides jotting quick notes, and I'm weird and take notes with an actual notebook on my desk, so I don't have much use for Sublime.

cup-of-tea 8y ago

I doubt Sublime is faster than vim. And I doubt it's faster than opening a new file in emacs which is always running on my system. It seems that your definition of "ANY other editor" is limited to bloatware like Atom, VS Code etc.

jeremejevs 8y ago
It does do some things faster than vim though: https://github.com/jhallen/joes-sandbox/tree/master/editor-perf#time-used-to-load-testxml-jump-to-end-of-file-and-exit https://github.com/jhallen/joes-sandbox/tree/master/editor-p...
kup0 8y ago
You are mostly right, "ANY" was a poor choice of words (not to mention my unnecessary all-caps emphasis), and of course now I can't edit the post. Oops. I meant out of any of them that I consider using (I know I'm a heretic but I just can't get into fully keyboard-based editors like vim, emacs, etc). But it does include other non-bloated apps that come close in speed, but don't have the feature set the way I want like TextWrangler, CotEditor, Geany, TextMate. I think TL;DR - I am very picky about text editors, probably too picky.
- cup-of-tea 8y ago
  Force yourself to use emacs for a week and it will change your life ;)