6 ms·

Not to go all Stallmanesque here, but doesn't it bother you to use a proprietary text editor when there are so many excellent free/open-source ones around?

by slurry 14y ago

dkulchenko 14y ago
Not at all. Speaking for myself here, but while I much prefer open source to proprietary software, I find Sublime Text 2 blows any other editor I've used out of the water and I'm not going to not use it just because it's proprietary (same reason I use OS X, Photoshop (versus GIMP), etc).
- jasonm23 14y ago
  The "problem" with Emacs and Vim is their out the box state is a bit daunting, if you allow a little time to get used to and configure Emacs, it'll blow the shit out of any editor you've ever used. ... Grab ocodo/emacsd from GitHub, it's a very sublime like setup.
notJim 14y ago
This question really only makes sense to me from a Stallmanesque standpoint though (unless you don't have much money for some reason, in which case the financial considerations come into play.) Surely unless you have some ideological reason to pick a FOSS editor, you'll simply use the best one available.
- slurry 14y ago
  Yeah maybe a bit, but to me full Stallmanesque would be avoiding proprietary software even when the free alternative is non-existent or significantly less functional. That is not the situation with text editors, unless I am missing something big that Sublime Text can uniquely do.
  - deelowe 14y ago
    The killer features in sublime for me are: + Multiple cursors + Column edit + JSON configuration files + Plugin support + Textmate themes + Python code base (easy to create plugins)
    - jasonm23 14y ago
      Emacs can do all that. I wouldn't be surprised if Vim could too... The point about these two editors is that no matter what feature shows up in an editor, both of them could implement it.
      - mrgoldenbrown 14y ago
        Emacs lets you easily write plugins in python? It's been a while since I used it, but I remember an awful lot of parens any time I wanted to customize something.
        jasonm23 14y ago
        Well, the lisp factor is obviously an issue, for people who aren't interested in learning another language, but that's knowledge friction. It's not particularly difficult to learn Lisp, it needs a nice syntax highlighter to dim away all the parens, but really, it's a very simple language. I'm sure you could write some bad-ass shit if you gave it a little attention. There are python -> emacslisp bindings available, but I can't speak to that, regarding completeness / stability etc. Frankly I wouldn't suggest anyone waste their time doing that. But really with such a HUGE resource of functions / libraries, (and some of the cooler features of Lisp, I mean have you seen the loop macro!?) ... it's a bit of a waste to pass it up over its "(( big ears ))"
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  I'm certainly not Stallmanesque and I've got money -- in fact, I'm a registered owner of Sublime Text 2, but there is at least one real-world practical way in which ST2 being OSS would be preferable for me. I increasingly do my coding on ARM-based Linux devices as opposed to x86-based ones and ST2 has no ARM build, and repeated requests asking for one are, as far as I've seen, summarily ignored by the author. If ST2 were OSS I could build it for ARM/Linux myself, everything it relies on is already available on those platforms. But it isn't, so I've had to quit using it and recommending it to others.
  - jahewson 14y ago
    Doesn't it bother you to use a propitiatory CPU architecture such as ARM? </sarcasm>
pekk 14y ago
It wouldn't but if you invest a lot of time in configuration, it would suck to have to pay and depend on a third party to access it.
laureny 14y ago
> Not to go all Stallmanesque here, but doesn't it bother you to use a proprietary text editor when there are so many excellent free/open-source ones around? Use the best tool for the job. Screw extreme philosophies.
- qu4z-2 14y ago
  Who decides which philosophies are extreme?
  - apendleton 14y ago
    For products that I'm choosing to purchase/use, I do.
  - pretoriusB 14y ago
    People decide which philosophies are extreme. As individuals (for themselves) and as groups (for their society, group, company, neighbourhood, etc). Are you of the "anything goes" thinking? I for one, find that attitude TOO extreme. I don't wish to accept (or even tolerate) "anything" just because someone else finds it OK.
  - twerquie 14y ago
    Philosophies only become extreme when you apply them extremely.
    - qu4z-2 14y ago
      I agree with you. I don't feel like preferring a FOSS solution in a situation where there are plenty of good choices is that extreme. That's why I asked. If anything, I feel like "Use the best tool for the job and ignore all other factors" is an "extreme" stance. (although Stallman's obviously is as well)
- pekk 14y ago
  If the best tool for the job is associated with an 'extreme philosophy' then what?
pretoriusB 14y ago
No free/open-source editor fits the particular bills I want as good as Sublime Text. (And I'm saying it as a long time Vim user, from the Sun O.S/fvwm days of lore as well as a heavy Eclipse user in the early to mid '00s). When those free/open-source editors come into the 21th century with regards to native integration/UI I might reconsider.
- irahul 14y ago
  > When those free/open-source editors come into the 21th century with regards to native integration/UI I might reconsider. Though both vim and emacs have gui interfaces, most of the users use them inside a terminal. You can wait till 22nd century, but as long as your definition of 21st century isn't the same as developers definition, not much is going to happen. BTW what century are terminals? If I have to take a bet, I would say come back in 22nd century, and terminals would still be around and kicking. If it was that black and white(ooh, gui is here; let's switch), the switch would have happened. Personally, vim is part of my work environment(terminator running tmux/screen; vim on 0; repl on 1; dbconsole on 2; running tests on 3; ...) and I don't see how a gui editor is supposed to replace that.
  - pretoriusB 14y ago
    >Though both vim and emacs have gui interfaces, most of the users use them inside a terminal. The overwhelming majority of developers edits in a GUI editor though, be it in Visual Studio, XCode, IntelliJ, Eclipse or Vim / Emacs / TextMate / ST2 etc. >You can wait till 22nd century, but as long as your definition of 21st century isn't the same as developers definition, not much is going to happen. I don't have to wait. Plenty of other developers live in your "22th century" and offer nice and functional native editors already. >BTW what century are terminals? Mid-20th century. I don't mind the terminal (I use one everyday and have done so since the day's Sun OS was SUN's offering), but it's also another technology stuck in the past. Not because of the textual nature etc. Because most of the components are crappy old time things, from terminal emulators to userland unix commands, etc. Bad support for millions of colors, bad support for Unicode, no support for a structured type (e.g JSON), ad-hoc implementations for lots of things given in the desktop. Where's a proper autocompletion in the shell that behaves like in a native app? Where's spell checking with wiggle lines? Only ZSH and Fish tried a few things to take us further, but still very short of what a desktop could be. I mean tmux/screen borking the scroll buffer? Is this 2013?
SquareWheel 14y ago
It did, until I tried it. Can't go back to Notepad++ after that.
brass9 14y ago
Ninja IDE for Python is trying to match up to ST2 (and it feels more IDE-like than ST). Until it succeeds, SublimeText remains a very attractive option.

Not to go all Stallmanesque here, but doesn't it bother you to use a proprietary text editor when there are so many excellent free/open-source ones around?

by slurry 14y ago

Not to go all Stallmanesque here, but doesn't it bother you to use a proprietary text editor when there are so many excellent free/open-source ones around?

dkulchenko 14y ago

Not at all. Speaking for myself here, but while I much prefer open source to proprietary software, I find Sublime Text 2 blows any other editor I've used out of the water and I'm not going to not use it just because it's proprietary (same reason I use OS X, Photoshop (versus GIMP), etc).

jasonm23 14y ago
The "problem" with Emacs and Vim is their out the box state is a bit daunting, if you allow a little time to get used to and configure Emacs, it'll blow the shit out of any editor you've ever used. ... Grab ocodo/emacsd from GitHub, it's a very sublime like setup.

notJim 14y ago

This question really only makes sense to me from a Stallmanesque standpoint though (unless you don't have much money for some reason, in which case the financial considerations come into play.) Surely unless you have some ideological reason to pick a FOSS editor, you'll simply use the best one available.

slurry 14y ago
Yeah maybe a bit, but to me full Stallmanesque would be avoiding proprietary software even when the free alternative is non-existent or significantly less functional. That is not the situation with text editors, unless I am missing something big that Sublime Text can uniquely do.
- deelowe 14y ago
  The killer features in sublime for me are: + Multiple cursors + Column edit + JSON configuration files + Plugin support + Textmate themes + Python code base (easy to create plugins)
  - jasonm23 14y ago
    Emacs can do all that. I wouldn't be surprised if Vim could too... The point about these two editors is that no matter what feature shows up in an editor, both of them could implement it.
    - mrgoldenbrown 14y ago
      Emacs lets you easily write plugins in python? It's been a while since I used it, but I remember an awful lot of parens any time I wanted to customize something.
      - jasonm23 14y ago
        Well, the lisp factor is obviously an issue, for people who aren't interested in learning another language, but that's knowledge friction. It's not particularly difficult to learn Lisp, it needs a nice syntax highlighter to dim away all the parens, but really, it's a very simple language. I'm sure you could write some bad-ass shit if you gave it a little attention. There are python -> emacslisp bindings available, but I can't speak to that, regarding completeness / stability etc. Frankly I wouldn't suggest anyone waste their time doing that. But really with such a HUGE resource of functions / libraries, (and some of the cooler features of Lisp, I mean have you seen the loop macro!?) ... it's a bit of a waste to pass it up over its "(( big ears ))"
georgemcbay 14y ago
I'm certainly not Stallmanesque and I've got money -- in fact, I'm a registered owner of Sublime Text 2, but there is at least one real-world practical way in which ST2 being OSS would be preferable for me. I increasingly do my coding on ARM-based Linux devices as opposed to x86-based ones and ST2 has no ARM build, and repeated requests asking for one are, as far as I've seen, summarily ignored by the author. If ST2 were OSS I could build it for ARM/Linux myself, everything it relies on is already available on those platforms. But it isn't, so I've had to quit using it and recommending it to others.
- jahewson 14y ago
  Doesn't it bother you to use a propitiatory CPU architecture such as ARM? </sarcasm>

pekk 14y ago

It wouldn't but if you invest a lot of time in configuration, it would suck to have to pay and depend on a third party to access it.

laureny 14y ago

> Not to go all Stallmanesque here, but doesn't it bother you to use a proprietary text editor when there are so many excellent free/open-source ones around? Use the best tool for the job. Screw extreme philosophies.

qu4z-2 14y ago
Who decides which philosophies are extreme?
- apendleton 14y ago
  For products that I'm choosing to purchase/use, I do.
- pretoriusB 14y ago
  People decide which philosophies are extreme. As individuals (for themselves) and as groups (for their society, group, company, neighbourhood, etc). Are you of the "anything goes" thinking? I for one, find that attitude TOO extreme. I don't wish to accept (or even tolerate) "anything" just because someone else finds it OK.
- twerquie 14y ago
  Philosophies only become extreme when you apply them extremely.
  - qu4z-2 14y ago
    I agree with you. I don't feel like preferring a FOSS solution in a situation where there are plenty of good choices is that extreme. That's why I asked. If anything, I feel like "Use the best tool for the job and ignore all other factors" is an "extreme" stance. (although Stallman's obviously is as well)
pekk 14y ago
If the best tool for the job is associated with an 'extreme philosophy' then what?

pretoriusB 14y ago

No free/open-source editor fits the particular bills I want as good as Sublime Text. (And I'm saying it as a long time Vim user, from the Sun O.S/fvwm days of lore as well as a heavy Eclipse user in the early to mid '00s). When those free/open-source editors come into the 21th century with regards to native integration/UI I might reconsider.

irahul 14y ago
> When those free/open-source editors come into the 21th century with regards to native integration/UI I might reconsider. Though both vim and emacs have gui interfaces, most of the users use them inside a terminal. You can wait till 22nd century, but as long as your definition of 21st century isn't the same as developers definition, not much is going to happen. BTW what century are terminals? If I have to take a bet, I would say come back in 22nd century, and terminals would still be around and kicking. If it was that black and white(ooh, gui is here; let's switch), the switch would have happened. Personally, vim is part of my work environment(terminator running tmux/screen; vim on 0; repl on 1; dbconsole on 2; running tests on 3; ...) and I don't see how a gui editor is supposed to replace that.
- pretoriusB 14y ago
  >Though both vim and emacs have gui interfaces, most of the users use them inside a terminal. The overwhelming majority of developers edits in a GUI editor though, be it in Visual Studio, XCode, IntelliJ, Eclipse or Vim / Emacs / TextMate / ST2 etc. >You can wait till 22nd century, but as long as your definition of 21st century isn't the same as developers definition, not much is going to happen. I don't have to wait. Plenty of other developers live in your "22th century" and offer nice and functional native editors already. >BTW what century are terminals? Mid-20th century. I don't mind the terminal (I use one everyday and have done so since the day's Sun OS was SUN's offering), but it's also another technology stuck in the past. Not because of the textual nature etc. Because most of the components are crappy old time things, from terminal emulators to userland unix commands, etc. Bad support for millions of colors, bad support for Unicode, no support for a structured type (e.g JSON), ad-hoc implementations for lots of things given in the desktop. Where's a proper autocompletion in the shell that behaves like in a native app? Where's spell checking with wiggle lines? Only ZSH and Fish tried a few things to take us further, but still very short of what a desktop could be. I mean tmux/screen borking the scroll buffer? Is this 2013?

SquareWheel 14y ago

It did, until I tried it. Can't go back to Notepad++ after that.

brass9 14y ago

Ninja IDE for Python is trying to match up to ST2 (and it feels more IDE-like than ST). Until it succeeds, SublimeText remains a very attractive option.