4 ms·

I initially loved Zed. But as their focus has shifted to building Collaboration & AI features, and still haven’t yet nailed just being a good/great base editor

I initially loved Zed. But as their focus has shifted to building Collaboration & AI features, and still haven’t yet nailed just being a good/great base editor, its become less useful to me. I still have a lot of hope for Zed. But for the time being, I’ve switched back to my old editor & IDE … and I’ll try Zed again at a much later date.

sph 2y ago
To paraphrase an old quote, "every new text editor grows until it is bloated with collaboration and AI features." Thank god we still have vim and Emacs.
- User23 2y ago
  Emacs[1] has been bloated with collaboration (gnus, etc) and AI features (doctor, lisp in general) for decades! [1] Eight Megabytes and Constantly Swapping
  - ninkendo 2y ago
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed -rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970 /usr/ucb/vi -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990 /usr/bin/emacs
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - Natfan 2y ago
      I'm not getting the same results for ed? $ whereis -b ed | cut -d' ' -f 2 | xargs ls -l -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 55504 Feb 22 2020 /usr/bin/ed
      - codetrotter 2y ago
        But your emacs is still 5.89824 * 10^37 bytes in size like parent commenter, right?
      - ninkendo 2y ago
        Clearly it grew a lot in size since 1929. It doesn’t waste nearly that much space on my timex sinclair. (To explain and thus ruin the joke, https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html)
        ninkendo 2y ago
        Alternative reply: while :; do echo ?; done Is only 24 bytes.
      - sph 2y ago
        I spent a few minutes trying to work out your pipeline. I think this is easier ls -l $(which ed)
  - atkailash 2y ago
    [dead]
- linsomniac 2y ago
  Except, as I understand it, the collaboration features were one of the primary things they wanted to do with Zed. So this isn't a case of bloat. The first blog post on the site is "How CRDTs make multiplayer text editing part of Zed's DNA".
  - dragonelite 2y ago
    I always wondered are people really doing this collaboration stuff. I tried it at the start of the lock downs era. But i quickly found it annoying, but maybe its because the implementation was just bad back then.
- ramenbytes 2y ago
  > Thank god we still have vim and Emacs. Emacs has had AI since before it was cool again. M-x doctor
- lobsterthief 2y ago
  Except Sublime Text ;)
- anta40 2y ago
  I'm still happy with vim/nvim as daily work tools (also currently exploring kakoune and helix... because why not). Think of vim/nvim setup as a one time process: a bit complicated, but once done then you are ready to go. Of course, I use text editors for... code editing. No need to turn it into an IDE or mail client or whatever.
cube2222 2y ago
Since many here are complaining about this, I’ll jump in here to say the contrary. I love the AI integration in Zed, it’s really smooth, pleasant to use, and well-integrated. I have a good experience pairing it with Sonnet 3.5. The REPL feature is great as well and I totally see myself using that. I agree on the collaboration bit though. I understand it’s one of the original premises and goals of Zed, however in order for it to really work well, I think you’d need to get everybody in your company to use Zed… which is honestly a “pretty tough” sell. I could imagine it making more sense if they had IntelliJ and VSCode plugins integrated with it, so the adoption could be more incremental. That said, I agree that I definitely miss e.g. debugging support.
ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
Zed also hastily went to v1. Simple things are missing such as labels to identify where a conpletion It's coming from when there are multiple completions with the same name. Also typescript types which are updated by an external process do not reflect unlike vscode. They are now trying to do collaboration with ai to return money to investors but again nobody wants this. That's why most editing tools should be open source and done by people passionate about it. The only company that managed to do paid editoes well is Jetbrains because their IDEs are actually much much better than the competition and much better than Zed.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  Isn’t Zed open source now?
Aeolun 2y ago
I don’t follow. The collaboration features have been part of Zed from day one. The recent addition of chat feels more like something the team wanted to use itself, so they never have to leave the editor any more, not a core focus of development. Really my own issue with Zed is the crummy TS language server integration. Everything else is fantastic. I would like some form of built in diffing, but for simple conflicts this is fine.
- marcus_holmes 2y ago
  Seconded. I'm loving the Zed experience, but having Javascript features provided by the TS language server gives a really bad experience; if I fat-finger a bracket then I get a bunch of TS errors about missing TS stuff littering the code, even though I'm not writing TS. It's not a deal-breaker, but it is really annoying - I have to find the problem myself with no assistance from the language server. In fact, with hindrance from the language server because it's littering the code with completely spurious warnings of irrelevant "errors" that aren't. I haven't tried coding in TS on Zed, so I can't comment on how the actual TS experience is.
hsn915 2y ago
Same. I decided to just go back to Sublime Text.
crossroadsguy 2y ago
I think the trick of text editors/note apps has become such that every few years you have to look for something else. Especially the note apps - either it dies, or bloats up, or these days more often goes subscription route ALONG WITH other negatives.
- dima55 2y ago
  Or, you know, just use emacs.
  - NikkiA 2y ago
    And then rewrite your init.el every couple of years.
usrbinbash 2y ago
This. I don't need voice chat features in a terminal based text editor.
petre 2y ago
Doesn't highlight Perl so I'll pass until it does. Looks snappy otherwise. Back to VSCodium, I guess. Collaboration, AI, chat, couldn't care less. Hopefully they can be disabled. I used Atom for a few years before they discontinued it. Yes, it was quite sluggish but otherwise it was usable, it had multiline editing and other sublime-isms, so I didn't have learn how to use an entirely new editor. If Zed can replace Sublime, Atom or VSCode for me that's great, otherwise I'll pass. I'm only using the basic code editor features, no git, no collaboration, no integrated terminal, no nonsense. Multiple cursors, PCRE matching and dark theme (preferably molokay) are a must.
nirui 2y ago
There are many great editors out there, some free some not. If a newcomer wants to break into the market, they need to add something new to the table. Understandably, in this day and age, it might be AI. Plus, they need to find a way to make money, offering collaboration and AI related feature might enable that. I tried Zed for one day, without collaboration or AI enabled. It has some un-rounded edges, for example, the scroll bar in some window frame don't even work, but I can still get some job done with it. I use VS Code daily, Zed reminded me how a faster and snappy interface should make me feel. I hope Zed succeed.

sph 2y ago

To paraphrase an old quote, "every new text editor grows until it is bloated with collaboration and AI features." Thank god we still have vim and Emacs.

User23 2y ago
Emacs[1] has been bloated with collaboration (gnus, etc) and AI features (doctor, lisp in general) for decades! [1] Eight Megabytes and Constantly Swapping
- ninkendo 2y ago
  -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed -rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970 /usr/ucb/vi -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990 /usr/bin/emacs
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Natfan 2y ago
    I'm not getting the same results for ed? $ whereis -b ed | cut -d' ' -f 2 | xargs ls -l -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 55504 Feb 22 2020 /usr/bin/ed
    - codetrotter 2y ago
      But your emacs is still 5.89824 * 10^37 bytes in size like parent commenter, right?
    - ninkendo 2y ago
      Clearly it grew a lot in size since 1929. It doesn’t waste nearly that much space on my timex sinclair. (To explain and thus ruin the joke, https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html)
      - ninkendo 2y ago
        Alternative reply: while :; do echo ?; done Is only 24 bytes.
    - sph 2y ago
      I spent a few minutes trying to work out your pipeline. I think this is easier ls -l $(which ed)
- atkailash 2y ago
  [dead]
linsomniac 2y ago
Except, as I understand it, the collaboration features were one of the primary things they wanted to do with Zed. So this isn't a case of bloat. The first blog post on the site is "How CRDTs make multiplayer text editing part of Zed's DNA".
- dragonelite 2y ago
  I always wondered are people really doing this collaboration stuff. I tried it at the start of the lock downs era. But i quickly found it annoying, but maybe its because the implementation was just bad back then.
ramenbytes 2y ago
> Thank god we still have vim and Emacs. Emacs has had AI since before it was cool again. M-x doctor
lobsterthief 2y ago
Except Sublime Text ;)
anta40 2y ago
I'm still happy with vim/nvim as daily work tools (also currently exploring kakoune and helix... because why not). Think of vim/nvim setup as a one time process: a bit complicated, but once done then you are ready to go. Of course, I use text editors for... code editing. No need to turn it into an IDE or mail client or whatever.

cube2222 2y ago

Since many here are complaining about this, I’ll jump in here to say the contrary. I love the AI integration in Zed, it’s really smooth, pleasant to use, and well-integrated. I have a good experience pairing it with Sonnet 3.5. The REPL feature is great as well and I totally see myself using that. I agree on the collaboration bit though. I understand it’s one of the original premises and goals of Zed, however in order for it to really work well, I think you’d need to get everybody in your company to use Zed… which is honestly a “pretty tough” sell. I could imagine it making more sense if they had IntelliJ and VSCode plugins integrated with it, so the adoption could be more incremental. That said, I agree that I definitely miss e.g. debugging support.

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

Zed also hastily went to v1. Simple things are missing such as labels to identify where a conpletion It's coming from when there are multiple completions with the same name. Also typescript types which are updated by an external process do not reflect unlike vscode. They are now trying to do collaboration with ai to return money to investors but again nobody wants this. That's why most editing tools should be open source and done by people passionate about it. The only company that managed to do paid editoes well is Jetbrains because their IDEs are actually much much better than the competition and much better than Zed.

Aeolun 2y ago
Isn’t Zed open source now?

Aeolun 2y ago

I don’t follow. The collaboration features have been part of Zed from day one. The recent addition of chat feels more like something the team wanted to use itself, so they never have to leave the editor any more, not a core focus of development. Really my own issue with Zed is the crummy TS language server integration. Everything else is fantastic. I would like some form of built in diffing, but for simple conflicts this is fine.

marcus_holmes 2y ago
Seconded. I'm loving the Zed experience, but having Javascript features provided by the TS language server gives a really bad experience; if I fat-finger a bracket then I get a bunch of TS errors about missing TS stuff littering the code, even though I'm not writing TS. It's not a deal-breaker, but it is really annoying - I have to find the problem myself with no assistance from the language server. In fact, with hindrance from the language server because it's littering the code with completely spurious warnings of irrelevant "errors" that aren't. I haven't tried coding in TS on Zed, so I can't comment on how the actual TS experience is.

hsn915 2y ago

Same. I decided to just go back to Sublime Text.

crossroadsguy 2y ago

I think the trick of text editors/note apps has become such that every few years you have to look for something else. Especially the note apps - either it dies, or bloats up, or these days more often goes subscription route ALONG WITH other negatives.

dima55 2y ago
Or, you know, just use emacs.
- NikkiA 2y ago
  And then rewrite your init.el every couple of years.

usrbinbash 2y ago

This. I don't need voice chat features in a terminal based text editor.

petre 2y ago

Doesn't highlight Perl so I'll pass until it does. Looks snappy otherwise. Back to VSCodium, I guess. Collaboration, AI, chat, couldn't care less. Hopefully they can be disabled. I used Atom for a few years before they discontinued it. Yes, it was quite sluggish but otherwise it was usable, it had multiline editing and other sublime-isms, so I didn't have learn how to use an entirely new editor. If Zed can replace Sublime, Atom or VSCode for me that's great, otherwise I'll pass. I'm only using the basic code editor features, no git, no collaboration, no integrated terminal, no nonsense. Multiple cursors, PCRE matching and dark theme (preferably molokay) are a must.

nirui 2y ago

There are many great editors out there, some free some not. If a newcomer wants to break into the market, they need to add something new to the table. Understandably, in this day and age, it might be AI. Plus, they need to find a way to make money, offering collaboration and AI related feature might enable that. I tried Zed for one day, without collaboration or AI enabled. It has some un-rounded edges, for example, the scroll bar in some window frame don't even work, but I can still get some job done with it. I use VS Code daily, Zed reminded me how a faster and snappy interface should make me feel. I hope Zed succeed.