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How are these guys funding a startup for the Nth text editor? If they have the guts to try this full time I suppose there's really no excuse for me not having

How are these guys funding a startup for the Nth text editor? If they have the guts to try this full time I suppose there's really no excuse for me not having a go at my own thing.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
refulgentis 2y ago
[dead]
simonerlic 2y ago
To be fair, this isn't just a random group of people - they're the people who made Atom, Electron, and Tree-sitter.
- alberth 2y ago
  Additionally, it’s also not yet another “text editor”. It’s very clear the differentiation of Zed will come in the form of the collaboration functionality it will have.
  - fori1to10 2y ago
    And speed. Startup time is instantaneous, in comparison to VS code say.
    - wmf 2y ago
      The same team that "erased" native editors is now selling us the solution to the problem they created.
      - eikenberry 2y ago
        Erased? On the contrary it seems, to me at least, like new editor development has really grown over the last few years. Editors like Kakoune, Helix, Micro are coming along nicely. I'm looking to switch, at least partially, to Helix soon myself.
    - hobs 2y ago
      How much are you going to pay for the 5 seconds per day you open up your editor? Most people dont even close it in the first place.
      - bobbylarrybobby 2y ago
        Presumably speed is an overall important factor for the creators — not just startup speed — and I'd imagine it translates into speed elsewhere, such as input latency and UI responsiveness.
      - metabagel 2y ago
        I haven't tried this software, but I imagine it's more about having the UI keep up, so you can stay in the flow state.
        hansonkd 2y ago
        Is raw code output so large that your editor can't "keep up" really something to optimize for? For me personally I write as little code as possible. you don't get bonus points for number of lines you write.
        lillecarl 2y ago
        Yes, while at the same time having a responsive UI is important for editing, and we're not hanging less stuff in our editors than yesterday. Both emacs and neovim and vscode are essentially IDEs today.
        satvikpendem 2y ago
        Yes it is, especially when you work with lots of large files in big codebases. I can open files in Vim that would crash VSCode, which is essentially why I still use Vim for certain parts of development.
    - Starlevel004 2y ago
      Straight up not true. Running my local copy it takes 5 seconds for the window to appear.
      - maxbrunsfeld 2y ago
        If this happens with Zed 0.129 or later, could you open an issue? We had a problem at one point where there was a delay in macOS verifying our app’s code signature because we weren’t attaching the code signature correctly.
      - keyle 2y ago
        5 seconds sounds extremely long for a macOS native application. Could be macOS security (XProtect), storage latency?, tons of compressed memory?...
- mamidon 2y ago
  Oh undoubtedly they'll make a nice editor; I just think it's a tough thing to monetize when there's so many 'good enough' free editors around.
  - agrippanux 2y ago
    Their plan is to make really elegant team-based shared coding features baked right into the editor - think a mashup of VSCode + Slack, and then charge for that, likely as a monthly subscription. It's not a bad idea if it can increase team velocity but the requirement would be enough people on the team live within it to justify the cost. I drove Zed for about a month, its very performant and a joy to use, but the lack of a remote development feature is massively prohibitive and I went back to VSCode as a result.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - nicce 2y ago
      There are way too many other features missing as well to do anything serious to be fair. All the things you would like proper IDE to do to increase your productivity. Let's see in couple years. The biggest problem is to get those initial features decent so that you can extract the value from crowdsourcing the missing things like VSCode does.
      - sdesol 2y ago
        > crowdsourcing the missing things like VSCode does. Based on what I am seeing right now [1], they might well have enough inertia to seriously compete against VSCode. I've analyzed a lot of open source projects and their community engagement on GitHub is quite impressive. Their contributor and new contributor stats is still going up, even though the initial hype was 2 months ago, which is really impressive. If they can get proper support for Linux and Windows and nail core features, I can see people wanting to contribute in the future and business leaders paying for it, if they can demonstrate improved productivity and collaboration. Full disclosure: This is my tool [1] https://devboard.gitsense.com/zed-industries?board=gitsense.insights&nb=all&r=zed-industries%2Fzed https://devboard.gitsense.com/zed-industries?board=gitsense....
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Not all of us have those editors in high regard.
mamidon 2y ago
In the FAQ they indicate they raised funds from investors.
- IshKebab 2y ago
  They meant how are they going to fund it long-term.
IshKebab 2y ago
They say: > Rather than selling you a proprietary editor, we'd much prefer to sell you services that seamlessly integrate with your editor to make you and your team more productive. Zed Channels is one example of such a service. It's free for anyone today, but we intend to begin charging for private use after a beta period of experimentation. Providing server-side compute to power AI features is another monetization scheme we're seeing getting traction. But I'm with you. I can't see paying-for-shared-editing working. There are too many people using other random editors. AI? Yeah maybe. I've paid for Copilot. But now they have to fund an AI research team as well. I really really hope they succeed but I'd probably still bet against them.
- autoexecbat 2y ago
  Interviewer: What editor do you use? Interviewee: Vim Interviewer: Sorry, we use Zed here
  - andruby 2y ago
    How would that be a problem? Either the candidate adapts and uses Zed in vim-mode, or the business allows the candidate to use vim. I certainly wouldn't make that a blocker.
    - autoexecbat 2y ago
      I meant it in jest

How are these guys funding a startup for the Nth text editor? If they have the guts to try this full time I suppose there's really no excuse for me not having a go at my own thing.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

refulgentis 2y ago

[dead]

simonerlic 2y ago

To be fair, this isn't just a random group of people - they're the people who made Atom, Electron, and Tree-sitter.

alberth 2y ago
Additionally, it’s also not yet another “text editor”. It’s very clear the differentiation of Zed will come in the form of the collaboration functionality it will have.
- fori1to10 2y ago
  And speed. Startup time is instantaneous, in comparison to VS code say.
  - wmf 2y ago
    The same team that "erased" native editors is now selling us the solution to the problem they created.
    - eikenberry 2y ago
      Erased? On the contrary it seems, to me at least, like new editor development has really grown over the last few years. Editors like Kakoune, Helix, Micro are coming along nicely. I'm looking to switch, at least partially, to Helix soon myself.
  - hobs 2y ago
    How much are you going to pay for the 5 seconds per day you open up your editor? Most people dont even close it in the first place.
    - bobbylarrybobby 2y ago
      Presumably speed is an overall important factor for the creators — not just startup speed — and I'd imagine it translates into speed elsewhere, such as input latency and UI responsiveness.
    - metabagel 2y ago
      I haven't tried this software, but I imagine it's more about having the UI keep up, so you can stay in the flow state.
      - hansonkd 2y ago
        Is raw code output so large that your editor can't "keep up" really something to optimize for? For me personally I write as little code as possible. you don't get bonus points for number of lines you write.
        lillecarl 2y ago
        Yes, while at the same time having a responsive UI is important for editing, and we're not hanging less stuff in our editors than yesterday. Both emacs and neovim and vscode are essentially IDEs today.
        satvikpendem 2y ago
        Yes it is, especially when you work with lots of large files in big codebases. I can open files in Vim that would crash VSCode, which is essentially why I still use Vim for certain parts of development.
  - Starlevel004 2y ago
    Straight up not true. Running my local copy it takes 5 seconds for the window to appear.
    - maxbrunsfeld 2y ago
      If this happens with Zed 0.129 or later, could you open an issue? We had a problem at one point where there was a delay in macOS verifying our app’s code signature because we weren’t attaching the code signature correctly.
    - keyle 2y ago
      5 seconds sounds extremely long for a macOS native application. Could be macOS security (XProtect), storage latency?, tons of compressed memory?...
mamidon 2y ago
Oh undoubtedly they'll make a nice editor; I just think it's a tough thing to monetize when there's so many 'good enough' free editors around.
- agrippanux 2y ago
  Their plan is to make really elegant team-based shared coding features baked right into the editor - think a mashup of VSCode + Slack, and then charge for that, likely as a monthly subscription. It's not a bad idea if it can increase team velocity but the requirement would be enough people on the team live within it to justify the cost. I drove Zed for about a month, its very performant and a joy to use, but the lack of a remote development feature is massively prohibitive and I went back to VSCode as a result.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - nicce 2y ago
    There are way too many other features missing as well to do anything serious to be fair. All the things you would like proper IDE to do to increase your productivity. Let's see in couple years. The biggest problem is to get those initial features decent so that you can extract the value from crowdsourcing the missing things like VSCode does.
    - sdesol 2y ago
      > crowdsourcing the missing things like VSCode does. Based on what I am seeing right now [1], they might well have enough inertia to seriously compete against VSCode. I've analyzed a lot of open source projects and their community engagement on GitHub is quite impressive. Their contributor and new contributor stats is still going up, even though the initial hype was 2 months ago, which is really impressive. If they can get proper support for Linux and Windows and nail core features, I can see people wanting to contribute in the future and business leaders paying for it, if they can demonstrate improved productivity and collaboration. Full disclosure: This is my tool [1] https://devboard.gitsense.com/zed-industries?board=gitsense.insights&nb=all&r=zed-industries%2Fzed https://devboard.gitsense.com/zed-industries?board=gitsense....
pjmlp 2y ago
Not all of us have those editors in high regard.

mamidon 2y ago

In the FAQ they indicate they raised funds from investors.

IshKebab 2y ago
They meant how are they going to fund it long-term.

IshKebab 2y ago

They say: > Rather than selling you a proprietary editor, we'd much prefer to sell you services that seamlessly integrate with your editor to make you and your team more productive. Zed Channels is one example of such a service. It's free for anyone today, but we intend to begin charging for private use after a beta period of experimentation. Providing server-side compute to power AI features is another monetization scheme we're seeing getting traction. But I'm with you. I can't see paying-for-shared-editing working. There are too many people using other random editors. AI? Yeah maybe. I've paid for Copilot. But now they have to fund an AI research team as well. I really really hope they succeed but I'd probably still bet against them.

autoexecbat 2y ago
Interviewer: What editor do you use? Interviewee: Vim Interviewer: Sorry, we use Zed here
- andruby 2y ago
  How would that be a problem? Either the candidate adapts and uses Zed in vim-mode, or the business allows the candidate to use vim. I certainly wouldn't make that a blocker.
  - autoexecbat 2y ago
    I meant it in jest