6 ms·

The author seems to imply that sublime does not qualify as a "serious" editor, and offers a link to quora as explanation, but the article there doesn't address

The author seems to imply that sublime does not qualify as a "serious" editor, and offers a link to quora as explanation, but the article there doesn't address what Sublime is missing at all.

codewright 14y ago
>doesn't address what Sublime is missing at all. Being a fully programmable work environment. Edit: I used ST2 for about a month. The Python was neat but it's going to fade away eventually.
- FuzzyDunlop 14y ago
  Vim and Emacs have had decades to get to that point. ST is a comparative baby. I'd love to see a modern editor that isn't designed around a terminal join those ranks.
  - codewright 14y ago
    Pretty hard to "get to that point" when your editor isn't programmable. Which goes back to my original point. Seen lots of IDEs and editors come and go. Nothing new here, just more polish than the last guy.
  - lake99 14y ago
    There is Acme for Plan9 [1] and it has inspired a few other editors. I don't use them myself because they don't have syntax highlighting. [1]: demo at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP1xVpMPn8M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP1xVpMPn8M
    - symmetricsaurus 14y ago
      That looks awesome. Having used the WMII window manager it looks quite familiar. Even then the learning curve seems steep.
- tomsthumb 14y ago
  What can't you do with ST2 if you write a plugin? Or is that just a relative pain compared to emacs & vim?
  - codewright 14y ago
    Friction + capability + turtles all the way down.
  - roryokane 14y ago
    I know that one thing you can’t do is have custom tabstops for text. The plugin https://github.com/SublimeText/ElasticTabstops https://github.com/SublimeText/ElasticTabstops is unable to completely implement elastic tabstops, and its README says that “Limitations in Sublime Text's API make it virtually impossible to use elastic tabstops with spaces.” Though neither Vim nor Emacs currently provide all the APIs necessary for elastic tabstops plugins, either. They only have the possible advantage that since they’re open source, such support is a little more likely to be added.
- mrgoldenbrown 14y ago
  Can you give a specific example of how being "fully programmable" improves your workflow?
  - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
    When I decide something needs to be added to my workflow, it is easy to add. The difference is whether your tool drives your workflow or you workflow drives your tool. The Java world is a great example of tool-driving-workflow. IDEs are massive, and you are generally constrained to a code-build process as thought out by the vendor. Generally speaking, the tools have good "average" efficiency. Anybody who has used the tool could sit in front of anybody else's and be as efficient. Emacs is obviously the other end. My workflow influences the tool in so many ways that it would be nearly impossible for somebody to sit in front of my Emacs and use it efficiently. However, I am far more efficient than within any IDE, because I have bent the tool to my will. Something like Sublime doesn't necessarily prohibit you from building a workflow and tools around it. It would just have include the command line as the programmable part. EDIT: Specifics. A simple example: I was editing a bunch of wiki pages, do a combination of creating, formatting and moving content. I built a small set of tools to handle the repetitive parts. It is the aggregation of all the small things like this that makes the tool so much more valuable.
    - mrgoldenbrown 14y ago
      I understand that customizing can improve productivity. What I haven't seen is someone name a particular task, and show how much easier it is to customize in their favorite editor vs emacs/vim/sublime/editor of the day. Sort of like a benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org or rosettacode.org but for editors.
      - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
        I'm not sure how that would work, because the very nature of the beast is exceedingly personal. As I mentioned in the example I added to my original comment, it is about small things that, cumulatively, add up to big things. I think the kinds of things that would show up on a rosettacode-type site are most likely already exposed in terms of plugins of some sort (however the editor defines "plugin"). It is the murky area between keyboard macros and plugins that the programmable editor makes its mark, and those things are highly individualized. It would be fun to have something like seewhatididinmyeditor.com, that just let you post snippets of these kinds of things in your editor's native tongue. Here's another example: I was converting some javascript to coffeescript. Coffeeescript's conventions are snake_case, and I wanted to follow those conventions, so I added this little thing: (defun my-uncamelize (s &optional sep start) "Convert CamelCase string S to lower case with word separator SEP. Default for SEP is an underscore \"_\". If third argument START is non-nil, convert words after that index in STRING." (let ((case-fold-search nil)) (while (string-match "[A-Z]" s (or start 1)) (setq s (replace-match (concat (or sep "_") (downcase (match-string 0 s))) t nil s))) (downcase s))) Now, I didn't write it; I grabbed it as a snippet somebody else had written and shared. Now, with a bound key, I had a single key-stroke that would snake-case an identifier. Again, not a big deal, but it made the workflow for converting those js files just that much easier.
adamors 14y ago
It's hip to hate Sublime because it can't do X that Emacs or Vim can. There's a lot of criticism of ST by people who never actually used it or used it for a couple of minutes. Pathetic really.
- serjeem 14y ago
  I haven't seen a lot of hate in that direction. As someone who uses ST almost primarily, my biggest complaint is that it's not open source and free, which is going to stunt it's growth and keep it from being a real competitor with Emacs or Vim.
- username111 14y ago
  I use sublime for WordPress because it doesn't use PEAR coding standards and that's what my emacs phone is setup for (also you don't have to set up multiple major modes). Everything else is done in emacs because it is the better editor. Just wish it was pretty.
JasonFruit 14y ago
I'm impressed with Sublime Text after trying it out with some dedication — it has a lot to offer, and I'd recommend it over Emacs to someone just starting out, unless they think they might want to learn Lisp. But I think the author was right in saying that Emacs is more serious right now, even though I think Sublime Text will get there.

The author seems to imply that sublime does not qualify as a "serious" editor, and offers a link to quora as explanation, but the article there doesn't address what Sublime is missing at all.

codewright 14y ago

>doesn't address what Sublime is missing at all. Being a fully programmable work environment. Edit: I used ST2 for about a month. The Python was neat but it's going to fade away eventually.

FuzzyDunlop 14y ago
Vim and Emacs have had decades to get to that point. ST is a comparative baby. I'd love to see a modern editor that isn't designed around a terminal join those ranks.
- codewright 14y ago
  Pretty hard to "get to that point" when your editor isn't programmable. Which goes back to my original point. Seen lots of IDEs and editors come and go. Nothing new here, just more polish than the last guy.
- lake99 14y ago
  There is Acme for Plan9 [1] and it has inspired a few other editors. I don't use them myself because they don't have syntax highlighting. [1]: demo at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP1xVpMPn8M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP1xVpMPn8M
  - symmetricsaurus 14y ago
    That looks awesome. Having used the WMII window manager it looks quite familiar. Even then the learning curve seems steep.
tomsthumb 14y ago
What can't you do with ST2 if you write a plugin? Or is that just a relative pain compared to emacs & vim?
- codewright 14y ago
  Friction + capability + turtles all the way down.
- roryokane 14y ago
  I know that one thing you can’t do is have custom tabstops for text. The plugin https://github.com/SublimeText/ElasticTabstops https://github.com/SublimeText/ElasticTabstops is unable to completely implement elastic tabstops, and its README says that “Limitations in Sublime Text's API make it virtually impossible to use elastic tabstops with spaces.” Though neither Vim nor Emacs currently provide all the APIs necessary for elastic tabstops plugins, either. They only have the possible advantage that since they’re open source, such support is a little more likely to be added.
mrgoldenbrown 14y ago
Can you give a specific example of how being "fully programmable" improves your workflow?
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  When I decide something needs to be added to my workflow, it is easy to add. The difference is whether your tool drives your workflow or you workflow drives your tool. The Java world is a great example of tool-driving-workflow. IDEs are massive, and you are generally constrained to a code-build process as thought out by the vendor. Generally speaking, the tools have good "average" efficiency. Anybody who has used the tool could sit in front of anybody else's and be as efficient. Emacs is obviously the other end. My workflow influences the tool in so many ways that it would be nearly impossible for somebody to sit in front of my Emacs and use it efficiently. However, I am far more efficient than within any IDE, because I have bent the tool to my will. Something like Sublime doesn't necessarily prohibit you from building a workflow and tools around it. It would just have include the command line as the programmable part. EDIT: Specifics. A simple example: I was editing a bunch of wiki pages, do a combination of creating, formatting and moving content. I built a small set of tools to handle the repetitive parts. It is the aggregation of all the small things like this that makes the tool so much more valuable.
  - mrgoldenbrown 14y ago
    I understand that customizing can improve productivity. What I haven't seen is someone name a particular task, and show how much easier it is to customize in their favorite editor vs emacs/vim/sublime/editor of the day. Sort of like a benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org or rosettacode.org but for editors.
    - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
      I'm not sure how that would work, because the very nature of the beast is exceedingly personal. As I mentioned in the example I added to my original comment, it is about small things that, cumulatively, add up to big things. I think the kinds of things that would show up on a rosettacode-type site are most likely already exposed in terms of plugins of some sort (however the editor defines "plugin"). It is the murky area between keyboard macros and plugins that the programmable editor makes its mark, and those things are highly individualized. It would be fun to have something like seewhatididinmyeditor.com, that just let you post snippets of these kinds of things in your editor's native tongue. Here's another example: I was converting some javascript to coffeescript. Coffeeescript's conventions are snake_case, and I wanted to follow those conventions, so I added this little thing: (defun my-uncamelize (s &optional sep start) "Convert CamelCase string S to lower case with word separator SEP. Default for SEP is an underscore \"_\". If third argument START is non-nil, convert words after that index in STRING." (let ((case-fold-search nil)) (while (string-match "[A-Z]" s (or start 1)) (setq s (replace-match (concat (or sep "_") (downcase (match-string 0 s))) t nil s))) (downcase s))) Now, I didn't write it; I grabbed it as a snippet somebody else had written and shared. Now, with a bound key, I had a single key-stroke that would snake-case an identifier. Again, not a big deal, but it made the workflow for converting those js files just that much easier.

adamors 14y ago

It's hip to hate Sublime because it can't do X that Emacs or Vim can. There's a lot of criticism of ST by people who never actually used it or used it for a couple of minutes. Pathetic really.

serjeem 14y ago
I haven't seen a lot of hate in that direction. As someone who uses ST almost primarily, my biggest complaint is that it's not open source and free, which is going to stunt it's growth and keep it from being a real competitor with Emacs or Vim.
username111 14y ago
I use sublime for WordPress because it doesn't use PEAR coding standards and that's what my emacs phone is setup for (also you don't have to set up multiple major modes). Everything else is done in emacs because it is the better editor. Just wish it was pretty.

JasonFruit 14y ago

I'm impressed with Sublime Text after trying it out with some dedication — it has a lot to offer, and I'd recommend it over Emacs to someone just starting out, unless they think they might want to learn Lisp. But I think the author was right in saying that Emacs is more serious right now, even though I think Sublime Text will get there.