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I've been using the beta version of Nova for a few weeks now and I've almost used my trial period for the 1.0. As a TypeScript developer, if someone made me ch

I've been using the beta version of Nova for a few weeks now and I've almost used my trial period for the 1.0. As a TypeScript developer, if someone made me choose between paying $99 for the actually-free VS Code, or buy Nova, I would by VS Code without hesitation. Before it began getting long in the tooth I was a big Coda fan. On the whole I like VS Code but I do suffer the occasional runaway process so I am open-minded to a new editor from Panic. Nova is faster than VS Code, but barely. I like the default rainbow indentation, though I'm sure there's a VSC plugin for that. The contextual spell-checking is excellent and I know it's a better experience than any VSC plugin. But this thing can't even auto-format a comment block. You can't set format-specific options (so for instance no line-wrapping on only Markdown/MDX files). The default editing experience is lightweight, and that's a good thing. But the plugin story is dire. Plugins like ESLint and Prettier crash constantly, requiring an app restart. Prettier has a format-on-save behaviour that seems to format after save on some file types. Typescript cmd-click definitions are broken, cmd-click import filepaths are broken. It's not a bad effort but it speaks to how much ground they have to cover to get within the same galaxy as the VS Code experience. I genuinely think it'll be years before they can charge for this with a straight face.

hoistbypetard 6y ago
If I were them, I think I would try really hard to build a low-effort conversion process for VSCode extensions. If they can do that in such a way that the top XXX VSCode extensions could be used with a good experience in Nova and fix the couple of non-plugin gripes you mention, I think they've probably bested the VSCode experience for enough people to make it profitable. I am not sure if I am pessimistic enough to call that "years" once they've got that migration path planned. If they're not planning something like it, though, then I think I agree with you.
- jamil7 6y ago
  I was impressed with the way that oni2 did this, any vscode extension is a valid oni2 extension. I ended up sticking with neovim for the time being but I feel something similar could work for nova’s benefit.
- rictic 6y ago
  Microsoft has opened the protocol with which most extensions are written: https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/ https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/ It's a really high quality protocol, and supporting it gets you 95% of the way to supporting dozens of languages (only remaining work is coordinating launching the language server and connecting it to the editor, usually <100 lines of code).
  - orf 6y ago
    LSP isn’t “most plugins” though. There are tens of thousands of useful plugins, and only a tiny subset of those add support for new languages.
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
      True... But weighted by importance and effort, LSP-powered plugins are likely above-average, probably by a healthy margin.
      - orf 6y ago
        Highly disagree. Having support for “python” is good, but useless without support for the ecosystem (poetry, pipenv, requirements.txt, virtualenvs, pytest, a REPL, Django-specific stuff, etc). Languages are important, but I wouldn’t say they are ahead by a large degree.
  - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
    Nova supports LSP, actually. As orf notes in the other reply to you, that only covers, well, plugins that involve language servers. :)
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      How does it? I wanted to try it for Python but I don't see how I can just configure it to talk to a language server.
jakelazaroff 6y ago
> The default editing experience is lightweight, and that's a good thing. But the plugin story is dire. Plugins like ESLint and Prettier crash constantly, requiring an app restart. Prettier has a format-on-save behaviour that seems to format after save on some file types. Typescript cmd-click definitions are broken, cmd-click import filepaths are broken. This is all fair. I've been using the beta on and off, and so far it hasn't compelled me to switch from VS Code yet. But this is a 1.0, and Panic has a pretty great stellar track record — I can see them closing the gap pretty quickly.
- SirHound 6y ago
  I hope so and I do root for them. But I remember Coda development felt sluggish compared to the pace we see in VS Code. And this 1.0 is something they feel is good enough to sell for $100, which IMO is wild.
  - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
    Yeah, I kind of wonder if it might have been savvier for them to do something like "$29 for new users until the end of September and $49 until 1.1 ships." I appreciate that'd be a scary proposition revenue-wise, but I suspect the difference between "surprise hit" and "also ran" is going to depend almost entirely on how quickly they can get their extension ecosystem up to speed.
eloisius 6y ago
I like Panic’s products a lot, particularly Transmit, but for something I use day in and day out to write code, munge datasets to solve production incidents, build and run code, etc., I can’t imagine improving upon a terminal with vim and standard Unix utils. I’m not a total console-chauvinist, I use a GUI email client. But every time I’ve tried any IDE or graphical editor like this, no matter how customizable it is, it still falls short in comparison. At best they only begin to approach what I can do with Unix, but require tedious mouse aiming and typically introduce much greater feedback latency.
- cosmotic 6y ago
  Have you tired IDEA (or siblings)? They focus on keyboard shortcuts and offer much more than vi can offer (full, integrated static analysis across with numerous languages and numerous context-sensitive tools like SSH, SCP, DB connectivity, etc). I use IDEA and feel absolutely crippled and useless in vi. It's largely because I never use vi and don't care to learn it. I'm very impressed with the IDEA tooling. There's a vi plugin for it if you want to get a head start.
  - brundolf 6y ago
    IDEA has the lead on raw features (and integration, since all the core plugins are made in-house), but at least on macOS the editor performs like trash. There are hundreds of milliseconds' latency for nearly every interaction, and that's despite spinning up the fans and impacting the rest of the system. I'm not a latency-buff; I happily used Atom until VSCode came along. But IDEA is unbearable in my experience (again, I've only used it on macOS so YMMV).
    - panta 6y ago
      There are known issues with scaled resolutions on macOS and JetBrains IDEs. If that is the case for you, using a tool like resolutionator to scale instead of the native macOS scaler, should solve the performance issues.
      - 6y ago
brundolf 6y ago
That's a shame. I love the vibe of this project and the VSCode monoculture gives me a vague sense of unease, but sadly it's really hard to compete with a tech giant that's putting all their effort into a free product.
ghego1 6y ago
> I'm sure there's a VSC plugin for that This part of your comments nails 100% why, for me (web developer, 90% in typescript these days), it's nearly impossible to justify paying for an IDE. Visual Studio code has almost everything that I need, and what it's not baked in, is easily done with a plug-in, which in the worst case I can write myself. But that's really a worst case scenario, since to this date it has never materialized as all my needs are covered by existing, and excellent, plugins.
- mattdeboard 6y ago
  I used Emacs for 10 years. When I started writing JS almost exclusively at my current job, I switched finally to VSCode (albeit with emacs keybindings). The plugin/extension experience between emacs and vscode is, of course, almost an apples to oranges comparison. But VSCode is much better in that regard in my opinion. I want yak-free IDE. After ten years my Emacs config is a herd of beautifully shaved yaks. VSCode is yak-free, for me, right now.
  - gegtik 6y ago
    Someone please port org mode to vscode
    - ketzo 6y ago
      There's actually a couple of decent ports already!
  - bartread 6y ago
    The problem I've had with VSCode - and also Sublime, as it happens - is that on a moderately large JS project it's something of a CPU hog. Both editors seem to do a lot of indexing, and this is even with loads of ignore folders configured. The irony is that this has driven me to try emacs. I am being driven nearly to distraction by the fact that every single operation seems to almost glory in using a different key combination than any other editor I've ever used. Even TAB can't be used for indentation because emacs is "opinionated" (or, as I prefer to call it, "a twat") about it in most modes, but you can get what you want with M-i. The thing it absolutely seems to nail is performance. I'm getting zero CPU thrashing on the same project, and auto-complete-mode, whilst not quite as good as VSCode's autocomplete, is much better than Sublime's. For one thing it seems to work well across files, even when using ES5 with no typing hints. The payoff in a cooler laptop and longer battery life is worth the sometimes seething frustration in the meantime. (Of course, at the moment I'm squandering most of that extra battery life looking up keyboard shortcuts, but that will pass.)
ckrailo 6y ago
> I like the default rainbow indentation, though I'm sure there's a VSC plugin for that. I've enjoyed it for years now! https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=oderwat.indent-rainbow https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=oderwat....
tobr 6y ago
> I genuinely think it'll be years before they can charge for this with a straight face. Well, I payed for it a few days ago, and I don’t remember seeing any crooked faces. I very much enjoy it so far. Considering the scope of the project and the high quality of the design in every nook and cranny of the app, I think it’s a bit of a miracle that something like it even exists. Not even Apple makes Mac apps of this caliber anymore. I agree that the competition they’re up against is fierce, but criticizing a 1.0 for a few hiccups and a small ecosystem seems misguided. They are offering something no one else is.
- SirHound 6y ago
  If it’s just a few hiccups why not leave it in the oven for another month before charging?
  - leadingthenet 6y ago
    To encourage continued development, for one?
jaquers 6y ago
For me the lack of auto-complete that _I_ prompt (ctrl+space / otherwise known as intellisense) is a deal breaker, and TypeScript story is completely broken. Cmd+Click (goto definition) doesn't work across files (though I do like they've implemented 3D touch as an alternative to Cmd+Click). Update: looks like if you context click on a path > Typescript > Goto definition works; Weird that it is not unified with the editor's concept of goto def though. Agree with parent that it's a valiant effort, just way too immature w/ no compelling features over VSCode at this point. Edit: Native editor is compelling for battery, but not at the expense of developer experience - and even then, it's been quite a while since VSCode has felt slow to me.
agloeregrets 6y ago
I also had the beta for a few months and work exclusively on TS development for work. Nova is a great editor but the hard thing is taking a step back and realizing that Microsoft has clearly designed VS Code to be the Typescript Dev tool in the same way that XCode is the Swift/SwiftUI development tool. The leaps and bounds in features JUST for TS is incredibly hard to replicate mostly because it’s almost Microsoft’s exclusive goal with VSCode development. I imagine if one doesn’t work in TS that Nova is far more competitive, it is not a bad IDE at all when judged on what IDEs prior to VSCode meant.

hoistbypetard 6y ago

If I were them, I think I would try really hard to build a low-effort conversion process for VSCode extensions. If they can do that in such a way that the top XXX VSCode extensions could be used with a good experience in Nova and fix the couple of non-plugin gripes you mention, I think they've probably bested the VSCode experience for enough people to make it profitable. I am not sure if I am pessimistic enough to call that "years" once they've got that migration path planned. If they're not planning something like it, though, then I think I agree with you.

jamil7 6y ago
I was impressed with the way that oni2 did this, any vscode extension is a valid oni2 extension. I ended up sticking with neovim for the time being but I feel something similar could work for nova’s benefit.
rictic 6y ago
Microsoft has opened the protocol with which most extensions are written: https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/ https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/ It's a really high quality protocol, and supporting it gets you 95% of the way to supporting dozens of languages (only remaining work is coordinating launching the language server and connecting it to the editor, usually <100 lines of code).
- orf 6y ago
  LSP isn’t “most plugins” though. There are tens of thousands of useful plugins, and only a tiny subset of those add support for new languages.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
    True... But weighted by importance and effort, LSP-powered plugins are likely above-average, probably by a healthy margin.
    - orf 6y ago
      Highly disagree. Having support for “python” is good, but useless without support for the ecosystem (poetry, pipenv, requirements.txt, virtualenvs, pytest, a REPL, Django-specific stuff, etc). Languages are important, but I wouldn’t say they are ahead by a large degree.
- chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  Nova supports LSP, actually. As orf notes in the other reply to you, that only covers, well, plugins that involve language servers. :)
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    How does it? I wanted to try it for Python but I don't see how I can just configure it to talk to a language server.

jakelazaroff 6y ago

> The default editing experience is lightweight, and that's a good thing. But the plugin story is dire. Plugins like ESLint and Prettier crash constantly, requiring an app restart. Prettier has a format-on-save behaviour that seems to format after save on some file types. Typescript cmd-click definitions are broken, cmd-click import filepaths are broken. This is all fair. I've been using the beta on and off, and so far it hasn't compelled me to switch from VS Code yet. But this is a 1.0, and Panic has a pretty great stellar track record — I can see them closing the gap pretty quickly.

SirHound 6y ago
I hope so and I do root for them. But I remember Coda development felt sluggish compared to the pace we see in VS Code. And this 1.0 is something they feel is good enough to sell for $100, which IMO is wild.
- chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  Yeah, I kind of wonder if it might have been savvier for them to do something like "$29 for new users until the end of September and $49 until 1.1 ships." I appreciate that'd be a scary proposition revenue-wise, but I suspect the difference between "surprise hit" and "also ran" is going to depend almost entirely on how quickly they can get their extension ecosystem up to speed.

eloisius 6y ago

I like Panic’s products a lot, particularly Transmit, but for something I use day in and day out to write code, munge datasets to solve production incidents, build and run code, etc., I can’t imagine improving upon a terminal with vim and standard Unix utils. I’m not a total console-chauvinist, I use a GUI email client. But every time I’ve tried any IDE or graphical editor like this, no matter how customizable it is, it still falls short in comparison. At best they only begin to approach what I can do with Unix, but require tedious mouse aiming and typically introduce much greater feedback latency.

cosmotic 6y ago
Have you tired IDEA (or siblings)? They focus on keyboard shortcuts and offer much more than vi can offer (full, integrated static analysis across with numerous languages and numerous context-sensitive tools like SSH, SCP, DB connectivity, etc). I use IDEA and feel absolutely crippled and useless in vi. It's largely because I never use vi and don't care to learn it. I'm very impressed with the IDEA tooling. There's a vi plugin for it if you want to get a head start.
- brundolf 6y ago
  IDEA has the lead on raw features (and integration, since all the core plugins are made in-house), but at least on macOS the editor performs like trash. There are hundreds of milliseconds' latency for nearly every interaction, and that's despite spinning up the fans and impacting the rest of the system. I'm not a latency-buff; I happily used Atom until VSCode came along. But IDEA is unbearable in my experience (again, I've only used it on macOS so YMMV).
  - panta 6y ago
    There are known issues with scaled resolutions on macOS and JetBrains IDEs. If that is the case for you, using a tool like resolutionator to scale instead of the native macOS scaler, should solve the performance issues.
    - 6y ago

brundolf 6y ago

That's a shame. I love the vibe of this project and the VSCode monoculture gives me a vague sense of unease, but sadly it's really hard to compete with a tech giant that's putting all their effort into a free product.

ghego1 6y ago

> I'm sure there's a VSC plugin for that This part of your comments nails 100% why, for me (web developer, 90% in typescript these days), it's nearly impossible to justify paying for an IDE. Visual Studio code has almost everything that I need, and what it's not baked in, is easily done with a plug-in, which in the worst case I can write myself. But that's really a worst case scenario, since to this date it has never materialized as all my needs are covered by existing, and excellent, plugins.

mattdeboard 6y ago
I used Emacs for 10 years. When I started writing JS almost exclusively at my current job, I switched finally to VSCode (albeit with emacs keybindings). The plugin/extension experience between emacs and vscode is, of course, almost an apples to oranges comparison. But VSCode is much better in that regard in my opinion. I want yak-free IDE. After ten years my Emacs config is a herd of beautifully shaved yaks. VSCode is yak-free, for me, right now.
- gegtik 6y ago
  Someone please port org mode to vscode
  - ketzo 6y ago
    There's actually a couple of decent ports already!
- bartread 6y ago
  The problem I've had with VSCode - and also Sublime, as it happens - is that on a moderately large JS project it's something of a CPU hog. Both editors seem to do a lot of indexing, and this is even with loads of ignore folders configured. The irony is that this has driven me to try emacs. I am being driven nearly to distraction by the fact that every single operation seems to almost glory in using a different key combination than any other editor I've ever used. Even TAB can't be used for indentation because emacs is "opinionated" (or, as I prefer to call it, "a twat") about it in most modes, but you can get what you want with M-i. The thing it absolutely seems to nail is performance. I'm getting zero CPU thrashing on the same project, and auto-complete-mode, whilst not quite as good as VSCode's autocomplete, is much better than Sublime's. For one thing it seems to work well across files, even when using ES5 with no typing hints. The payoff in a cooler laptop and longer battery life is worth the sometimes seething frustration in the meantime. (Of course, at the moment I'm squandering most of that extra battery life looking up keyboard shortcuts, but that will pass.)

ckrailo 6y ago

> I like the default rainbow indentation, though I'm sure there's a VSC plugin for that. I've enjoyed it for years now! https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=oderwat.indent-rainbow https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=oderwat....

tobr 6y ago

> I genuinely think it'll be years before they can charge for this with a straight face. Well, I payed for it a few days ago, and I don’t remember seeing any crooked faces. I very much enjoy it so far. Considering the scope of the project and the high quality of the design in every nook and cranny of the app, I think it’s a bit of a miracle that something like it even exists. Not even Apple makes Mac apps of this caliber anymore. I agree that the competition they’re up against is fierce, but criticizing a 1.0 for a few hiccups and a small ecosystem seems misguided. They are offering something no one else is.

SirHound 6y ago
If it’s just a few hiccups why not leave it in the oven for another month before charging?
- leadingthenet 6y ago
  To encourage continued development, for one?

jaquers 6y ago

For me the lack of auto-complete that _I_ prompt (ctrl+space / otherwise known as intellisense) is a deal breaker, and TypeScript story is completely broken. Cmd+Click (goto definition) doesn't work across files (though I do like they've implemented 3D touch as an alternative to Cmd+Click). Update: looks like if you context click on a path > Typescript > Goto definition works; Weird that it is not unified with the editor's concept of goto def though. Agree with parent that it's a valiant effort, just way too immature w/ no compelling features over VSCode at this point. Edit: Native editor is compelling for battery, but not at the expense of developer experience - and even then, it's been quite a while since VSCode has felt slow to me.

agloeregrets 6y ago

I also had the beta for a few months and work exclusively on TS development for work. Nova is a great editor but the hard thing is taking a step back and realizing that Microsoft has clearly designed VS Code to be the Typescript Dev tool in the same way that XCode is the Swift/SwiftUI development tool. The leaps and bounds in features JUST for TS is incredibly hard to replicate mostly because it’s almost Microsoft’s exclusive goal with VSCode development. I imagine if one doesn’t work in TS that Nova is far more competitive, it is not a bad IDE at all when judged on what IDEs prior to VSCode meant.