5 ms·

ST2 is native enough for me and cross-platform should be on the list of every programmer's requirements for a text editor. I use Vim on OS X right now and I li

ST2 is native enough for me and cross-platform should be on the list of every programmer's requirements for a text editor. I use Vim on OS X right now and I like it but used ST2 just yesterday (odd timing). I agree with others that it is basically the TM2 we were waiting for.

eblume 14y ago
If you haven't heard of it, ST2 has something called "Vintage Mode" which adopts a fairly large subset of the Vi/m commands. It will completely change the command set of ST2 and gets close enough to Vi for most of my needs. Notably absent is the search/replace syntax of vim, but ST2's works well enough I suppose.
- jjjjjosh 14y ago
  The VintageEx extension for Sublime includes vim-style search and replace, among many other things.
  - eblume 14y ago
    Excellent - Thanks!
- robmil 14y ago
  Vintage mode is admittedly getting more complete every day, but as a regular Vim user the absences that exist are often a jolting distraction — attempting to use some command that doesn't exist jerks you out of your flow and it feels so inefficient to then have to remember the Sublime way of doing things. I find it more annoying than the lack of, say, Cmd + T in MacVim, so I've found myself spending more and more time using that — even after a concerted effort to use SublimeText for a while.
  - eblume 14y ago
    Just in case you missed it, another replier mentioned an additional package, VintageEx. I just gave it a try and all of a sudden all the things I was still missing from vim are in ST2! I recommend giving that a shot, but I do completely understand your reluctance. You're right, the absences are jarring!
  - haldean 14y ago
    This is the biggest problem with learning vim. I was an Emacs user for ages, and I could use other text editors fine. The "Emacs mode" in them usually just meant readline hotkeys: C-p and C-n for previous/next line, C-a and C-e for beginning and end of line, and C-k for delete line. These are the only real movement commands I used in Emacs, and they work in almost anything. Even nano has most of these. But now my hands are wrecked. My fingers have minds of their own. My muscles have learned a subset of vim that does not seem to be a subset of any vim plugin maintainer's usage. I'll be in Vimperator or Eclipse vi-mode or Vintage and I'll hit cf" and nothing will happen, and I'll realize I'm completely lost. I lose my chain of thought and it takes me a non-negligible amount of time to realize that I'm going to have to hold down shift and use the arrow keys like some sort of Notepad user. I become irrationally angry and wish horrible torture upon the poor soul who wrote the (altogether pretty good) vim plugin I'm using, because who are they to not include EVERY SINGLE VERB AND NOUN that my fingers have painstakingly learned over the past few years. I slam my keyboard against the table, throw the mouse through the monitor, then roundhouse-kick the tower off the desk before I set fire to my desk every time a vim plugin is incomplete. Vim has reduced me to a pathetic teary wreck every time I have to use a text editor that isn't vim. I wrote this in vim.
- ryanisinallofus 14y ago
  I turned on Vintage mode within the first hour. Pretty nice! Funny how the single thing that turns so many off of vim initially becomes the thing you can't live without when checking out other editors.
zekel 14y ago
> ST2 is native enough for me and cross-platform should be on the list of every programmer's requirements for a text editor. I used to feel this way. I worked really hard to make all my configs and editors act the same across OS X and a few unix platforms. Then one day I woke up and decided I just wanted to work with the best editor on the best platform. (Both personal, subjective opinions, of course.) And that choice has worked out great for me. When I was first looking at Sublime Text and I saw it as a disadvantage when I noticed they had Windows version. I don't mean to come across as smug, I just mean that I fundamentally feel that OS X is a lot better than Windows. (A personal opinion.) My point is that I need to be philosophically aligned with my editor's developer. And if they have chosen to support Windows, they could have spent that time pushing the OS X app forward, which doesn't align with my position. I want the best editor possible, not the best editor on every platform. The other way I look at it is to applaud their ambition and results with creating a great cross platform editor. I think cross platform software is incredibly important, but I would paradoxically prefer my editor was not. In other words, I'm glad that ST exists, but I don't it's for me.
- tterrace 14y ago
  > My point is that I need to be philosophically aligned with my editor's developer. This is taking things a bit too far, I think. If you're a one platform kind of person the most important thing should be "How well does it work on (my platform)?".
  - zekel 14y ago
    You're right, that is absolutely the most important thing. But as we've seen with TM, the way the project is run is really important too. It's a totally self-centered sentiment to say I wish my editor development to be exclusive to my platform, but it would certainly result in a better app for me to use. Luckily my preferences have nothing to do with the outcome, much like the weather.
    - antihero 14y ago
      Well, depending on preference and opinion, a Linux desktop can arguably be better than OSX for development. I applaud that they have a Linux version.
jolohaga 14y ago
Why should a cross-platform editor be important? Any job I do these days allows me to work in my preferred system. The code is just ASCII and it can be shared easily.
ketralnis 14y ago
> cross-platform should be on the list of every programmer's requirements for a text editor As a member of the set of "every programmer", I have to disagree with this. I develop on the same machine every day. I don't care if my editor is cross-platform. I just want a good editor. It being performant and feeling "nice" for my purposes is way more important to me than being able to use it on machines where I won't ever use it.

eblume 14y ago

If you haven't heard of it, ST2 has something called "Vintage Mode" which adopts a fairly large subset of the Vi/m commands. It will completely change the command set of ST2 and gets close enough to Vi for most of my needs. Notably absent is the search/replace syntax of vim, but ST2's works well enough I suppose.

jjjjjosh 14y ago
The VintageEx extension for Sublime includes vim-style search and replace, among many other things.
- eblume 14y ago
  Excellent - Thanks!
robmil 14y ago
Vintage mode is admittedly getting more complete every day, but as a regular Vim user the absences that exist are often a jolting distraction — attempting to use some command that doesn't exist jerks you out of your flow and it feels so inefficient to then have to remember the Sublime way of doing things. I find it more annoying than the lack of, say, Cmd + T in MacVim, so I've found myself spending more and more time using that — even after a concerted effort to use SublimeText for a while.
- eblume 14y ago
  Just in case you missed it, another replier mentioned an additional package, VintageEx. I just gave it a try and all of a sudden all the things I was still missing from vim are in ST2! I recommend giving that a shot, but I do completely understand your reluctance. You're right, the absences are jarring!
- haldean 14y ago
  This is the biggest problem with learning vim. I was an Emacs user for ages, and I could use other text editors fine. The "Emacs mode" in them usually just meant readline hotkeys: C-p and C-n for previous/next line, C-a and C-e for beginning and end of line, and C-k for delete line. These are the only real movement commands I used in Emacs, and they work in almost anything. Even nano has most of these. But now my hands are wrecked. My fingers have minds of their own. My muscles have learned a subset of vim that does not seem to be a subset of any vim plugin maintainer's usage. I'll be in Vimperator or Eclipse vi-mode or Vintage and I'll hit cf" and nothing will happen, and I'll realize I'm completely lost. I lose my chain of thought and it takes me a non-negligible amount of time to realize that I'm going to have to hold down shift and use the arrow keys like some sort of Notepad user. I become irrationally angry and wish horrible torture upon the poor soul who wrote the (altogether pretty good) vim plugin I'm using, because who are they to not include EVERY SINGLE VERB AND NOUN that my fingers have painstakingly learned over the past few years. I slam my keyboard against the table, throw the mouse through the monitor, then roundhouse-kick the tower off the desk before I set fire to my desk every time a vim plugin is incomplete. Vim has reduced me to a pathetic teary wreck every time I have to use a text editor that isn't vim. I wrote this in vim.
ryanisinallofus 14y ago
I turned on Vintage mode within the first hour. Pretty nice! Funny how the single thing that turns so many off of vim initially becomes the thing you can't live without when checking out other editors.

zekel 14y ago

> ST2 is native enough for me and cross-platform should be on the list of every programmer's requirements for a text editor. I used to feel this way. I worked really hard to make all my configs and editors act the same across OS X and a few unix platforms. Then one day I woke up and decided I just wanted to work with the best editor on the best platform. (Both personal, subjective opinions, of course.) And that choice has worked out great for me. When I was first looking at Sublime Text and I saw it as a disadvantage when I noticed they had Windows version. I don't mean to come across as smug, I just mean that I fundamentally feel that OS X is a lot better than Windows. (A personal opinion.) My point is that I need to be philosophically aligned with my editor's developer. And if they have chosen to support Windows, they could have spent that time pushing the OS X app forward, which doesn't align with my position. I want the best editor possible, not the best editor on every platform. The other way I look at it is to applaud their ambition and results with creating a great cross platform editor. I think cross platform software is incredibly important, but I would paradoxically prefer my editor was not. In other words, I'm glad that ST exists, but I don't it's for me.

tterrace 14y ago
> My point is that I need to be philosophically aligned with my editor's developer. This is taking things a bit too far, I think. If you're a one platform kind of person the most important thing should be "How well does it work on (my platform)?".
- zekel 14y ago
  You're right, that is absolutely the most important thing. But as we've seen with TM, the way the project is run is really important too. It's a totally self-centered sentiment to say I wish my editor development to be exclusive to my platform, but it would certainly result in a better app for me to use. Luckily my preferences have nothing to do with the outcome, much like the weather.
  - antihero 14y ago
    Well, depending on preference and opinion, a Linux desktop can arguably be better than OSX for development. I applaud that they have a Linux version.

jolohaga 14y ago

Why should a cross-platform editor be important? Any job I do these days allows me to work in my preferred system. The code is just ASCII and it can be shared easily.

ketralnis 14y ago

> cross-platform should be on the list of every programmer's requirements for a text editor As a member of the set of "every programmer", I have to disagree with this. I develop on the same machine every day. I don't care if my editor is cross-platform. I just want a good editor. It being performant and feeling "nice" for my purposes is way more important to me than being able to use it on machines where I won't ever use it.