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> I shifted to VSCode from atom (before they purchased github) It just hit me that since GitHub was bought, both VSCode and Atom are owned by Microsoft. And s

> I shifted to VSCode from atom (before they purchased github) It just hit me that since GitHub was bought, both VSCode and Atom are owned by Microsoft. And somehow Windows still doesn't ship with a decent text editor out of the box...

cltsang 7y ago
Well it's getting less awful at least https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-insider/at-home/whats-new-wip-at-home-1903#notepad-updates https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-insider/at-home/wha...
save_ferris 7y ago
Installing atom or Vscode is ridiculously easy, what’s with this obsession that things need to be available out of the box? Perhaps it’s just my conditioning, but I automatically trust software that ships with a windows machine less than any binary I install myself.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  >Installing atom or Vscode is ridiculously easy, what’s with this obsession that things need to be available out of the box? What if your enterprise customer staged a VM for you with no access to the internet and a highly restricted environment? You know what happens in that case? You're editing configuration files in notepad. You'll never run into it because you're just working on your home workstation but a good set of defaults will have an impact on these kinds of use-cases.
  - Someone1234 7y ago
    Seems like you're solving political problems with technical solutions. One could similarly argue a USB stick or shared drive with infinite vetted piece of software is superior to a single additional text editor pre-installed in the OS (which only solves a single, niche, use-case).
    - ticmasta 7y ago
      >> USB stick or shared drive You have limited experience in a huge piece of the enterprise / government world if you think this would ever fly - and they all run windows
    - macspoofing 7y ago
      This may sound callous, but you're talking out of ignorance.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
Windows relies on text editors for common operations significantly less than some other OSs.
- ticmasta 7y ago
  But when you need to edit text the only thing you can be guaranteed to have is notepad, which (a) has no features and (b) does the basics of text editing terribly
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    How often does that really happen though, in terms of needing it for general system usage? I have worked in Windows all day for my entire career and it hasn't come up much. When it has, notepad is almost always sufficient to deal with the edge case. For other kinds of text editing, just download and use whatever text editor has the features you want for the task at hand. If notepad had to be all things to all people it would be bloated and not particularly good at anything anyway, so it's better that it remain a lightweight simple text editor in my opinion.
  - cptskippy 7y ago
    In their defense, that wasn't Notepad's original purpose in life, hence it's name. Microsoft unsuccessfully tried to supplant Notepad and Paint but met harsh resistance because there is a disconnect between what these Apps were originally intended for and how people actually use them day to day. Snip & Sketch comes really close to replacing Paint for 80% of my needs, but I often use Paint to quickly mockup UI, something you can't easily do in S&S yet. There's nothing from Microsoft that even approaches replacing Notepad for me. Notepad++ is my preferred editor but even it is overkill.
Someone1234 7y ago
> And somehow Windows still doesn't ship with a decent text editor out of the box... What would that look like? I mean a decent text editor is contextual. Are we talking about Wordpad upgrades for office usage, a lightweight code editor, or something else? Plus don't people constantly criticize Microsoft for bloat/adding stuff to the base OS? Now they want Microsoft to ship Windows 10 with e.g. VSCode out of the box?
- CivBase 7y ago
  > What would that look like? Line numbers, file tabs, syntax highlighting, visible whitespace, a better find/replace with support for patterns, etc. Multiple cursors would be nice too. I don't think it needs to have plugin support, a file explorer, VCS features, or any featurs that involve analyzing, building, or debugging code.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Something like Notepad++. VSCode is too heavy. It’s a real pain to edit text and configure files with Notepad in environments where you can’t install additional editors.
  - sedatk 7y ago
    Notepad++ is unnecessarily complicated for end users. It’s not only developers who use Windows.
    - Ididntdothis 7y ago
      I am sure if someone actually cared they could add more functionality to their built in editor without confusing people. They could also increase its performance so it’s possible to edit large files.
    - vbezhenar 7y ago
      Having developer tools preinstalled is awesome. When you can launch editor, write some HTML/CSS/JavaScript with proper highlighting, launch it in browser, it greatly reduces gap to start programming and it'll increase number of people who're doing that. Those days I think preinstalling python would be very useful. And that python will be much more valuable than 90% of junk shipped with OS. It's only 25 MB. Sure, it's not about professional-level IDEs but it's not required for useful work. Now typing programming code in notepad.exe is what's terrible.
dingo_bat 7y ago
Notepad.exe is a decent editor. It's minimalistic, no bs, fast and built-in. What else do you need?
jbreiding 7y ago
Really the need for a decent text editor out of the box isn't necessary if support for chocolatey repos is the first thing installed. Having a simple/sane package management either out of the box or within a single step is really the right pattern to enable ease of installing whatever your text editor/customisation of choice is.

cltsang 7y ago

Well it's getting less awful at least https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-insider/at-home/whats-new-wip-at-home-1903#notepad-updates https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-insider/at-home/wha...

save_ferris 7y ago

Installing atom or Vscode is ridiculously easy, what’s with this obsession that things need to be available out of the box? Perhaps it’s just my conditioning, but I automatically trust software that ships with a windows machine less than any binary I install myself.

macspoofing 7y ago
>Installing atom or Vscode is ridiculously easy, what’s with this obsession that things need to be available out of the box? What if your enterprise customer staged a VM for you with no access to the internet and a highly restricted environment? You know what happens in that case? You're editing configuration files in notepad. You'll never run into it because you're just working on your home workstation but a good set of defaults will have an impact on these kinds of use-cases.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  Seems like you're solving political problems with technical solutions. One could similarly argue a USB stick or shared drive with infinite vetted piece of software is superior to a single additional text editor pre-installed in the OS (which only solves a single, niche, use-case).
  - ticmasta 7y ago
    >> USB stick or shared drive You have limited experience in a huge piece of the enterprise / government world if you think this would ever fly - and they all run windows
  - macspoofing 7y ago
    This may sound callous, but you're talking out of ignorance.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

Windows relies on text editors for common operations significantly less than some other OSs.

ticmasta 7y ago
But when you need to edit text the only thing you can be guaranteed to have is notepad, which (a) has no features and (b) does the basics of text editing terribly
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  How often does that really happen though, in terms of needing it for general system usage? I have worked in Windows all day for my entire career and it hasn't come up much. When it has, notepad is almost always sufficient to deal with the edge case. For other kinds of text editing, just download and use whatever text editor has the features you want for the task at hand. If notepad had to be all things to all people it would be bloated and not particularly good at anything anyway, so it's better that it remain a lightweight simple text editor in my opinion.
- cptskippy 7y ago
  In their defense, that wasn't Notepad's original purpose in life, hence it's name. Microsoft unsuccessfully tried to supplant Notepad and Paint but met harsh resistance because there is a disconnect between what these Apps were originally intended for and how people actually use them day to day. Snip & Sketch comes really close to replacing Paint for 80% of my needs, but I often use Paint to quickly mockup UI, something you can't easily do in S&S yet. There's nothing from Microsoft that even approaches replacing Notepad for me. Notepad++ is my preferred editor but even it is overkill.

Someone1234 7y ago

> And somehow Windows still doesn't ship with a decent text editor out of the box... What would that look like? I mean a decent text editor is contextual. Are we talking about Wordpad upgrades for office usage, a lightweight code editor, or something else? Plus don't people constantly criticize Microsoft for bloat/adding stuff to the base OS? Now they want Microsoft to ship Windows 10 with e.g. VSCode out of the box?

CivBase 7y ago
> What would that look like? Line numbers, file tabs, syntax highlighting, visible whitespace, a better find/replace with support for patterns, etc. Multiple cursors would be nice too. I don't think it needs to have plugin support, a file explorer, VCS features, or any featurs that involve analyzing, building, or debugging code.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
Something like Notepad++. VSCode is too heavy. It’s a real pain to edit text and configure files with Notepad in environments where you can’t install additional editors.
- sedatk 7y ago
  Notepad++ is unnecessarily complicated for end users. It’s not only developers who use Windows.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    I am sure if someone actually cared they could add more functionality to their built in editor without confusing people. They could also increase its performance so it’s possible to edit large files.
  - vbezhenar 7y ago
    Having developer tools preinstalled is awesome. When you can launch editor, write some HTML/CSS/JavaScript with proper highlighting, launch it in browser, it greatly reduces gap to start programming and it'll increase number of people who're doing that. Those days I think preinstalling python would be very useful. And that python will be much more valuable than 90% of junk shipped with OS. It's only 25 MB. Sure, it's not about professional-level IDEs but it's not required for useful work. Now typing programming code in notepad.exe is what's terrible.

dingo_bat 7y ago

Notepad.exe is a decent editor. It's minimalistic, no bs, fast and built-in. What else do you need?

jbreiding 7y ago

Really the need for a decent text editor out of the box isn't necessary if support for chocolatey repos is the first thing installed. Having a simple/sane package management either out of the box or within a single step is really the right pattern to enable ease of installing whatever your text editor/customisation of choice is.