5 ms·

Are people using Atom as their main editor now? i.e. have successfully made the switch from sublime? Just wondering how it holds up under daily use.

by matt2000 12y ago

jrosenbluth 12y ago
I'm primarily a haskell developer and most haskell source files are relatively small so I don't have too many issues with speed or lag. I just love atom, the look and feel, package installations, extensibility ...
- vdaniuk 12y ago
  Yep, I can't define it precisely but something about Atom has this comfortable feel. What Haskell package would you recommend, btw?
sergiotapia 12y ago
I use it for Go exclusively because of go-plus but I would never use it for anything else. Those extra 20ms when scrolling, typing, etc are very distracting to me.
- rhodysurf 12y ago
  Is there any benefit to go-plus over GoSublime? https://github.com/DisposaBoy/GoSublime https://github.com/DisposaBoy/GoSublime
  - geeio 12y ago
    I find it to work much more reliably than GoSublime. Frustration with GoSublime is the reason I switched.
  - sergiotapia 12y ago
    I think they both sort of have feature-parity. I prefer go-plus massively though because it's features run on save without any configuration on my end. Go fmt, linters, etc all run on save and that's great for me.
    - nopar8 12y ago
      I can certainly see the value, I've fallen in love with build on save. I thought I would mention a solution here for people that wish to stay with their current browser but like the sound of automatic build. I've been using a fork of fresh[1]. I haven't found a single issue yet. I simply cd to my project and run it. [1] https://github.com/lateefj/fresh https://github.com/lateefj/fresh
- aikah 12y ago
  Liteide works well for me. auto completion,a few re-factoring capabilities , class view, outline , auto imports , build/clean/install relative to each package/folder , and it's blazing fast. Not sure about Atom, it felt slow when I tested it, just like other web tech based IDEs.
xhrpost 12y ago
I use it regularly but there still seems to be a lot of stability/GUI issues, especially when using a lot of packages. I feel a lot is missing natively but I'm comparing to Notepad++ which has a lot of utility functions by default. I still haven't reached parity with NPP but I'm fairly close for my most used functionality.
davidwparker 12y ago
I've been using it for the last 1.5 years or about a month after it came out full-time. I used to use Emacs for most of my development, and while I lost speed moving to Atom, I gained a little bit of sanity, and I like the UI of Atom more. I also use LightTable for a few things (namely WebGL), but don't do it as much as I like. I like LightTable's UI more than Atom, but Atom does most of what I like. My main dev work in Atom is JS / Ruby / HTML. I also use it for Git sometimes (diff, adding, committing, pulling, etc), though I use the command line more often for Git. I don't find speed to be a problem, and I can get around pretty quickly. I don't see a reason why I'd still use Sublime TBH.
seanwilson 12y ago
I've been using Atom for a few months now for projects in various languages. I like the UI and haven't had any issues with it. Performance has been fine for me although I am using a high-end MacBook. The limit on opening files over 2MB is a little annoying but it's rare I need to edit files that large.
benologist 12y ago
It's painful sometimes, like the wait the first time I want to jump to a file in a project while 50k files get re-indexed, or the slow regex replace. Or the cludgy add ons that spew errors out onto the screen and console windows. In spite of all the flaws I think it's only a matter of time until Atom is better than sublime and continues to improve beyond that, while being open source.
vdaniuk 12y ago
Atom is now my primary text editor for miscellaneous tasks, quick fixes and languages that are not supported by Jetbrains IDE plugin ecosystem. It can't match the refactoring and autocompletion capabilities but it is a very useful addition to a toolbox. Its strongest selling point is extensibility. I've never thought of developing text editor modules but to my surprise I've made a few Atom packages. They are strongly dependent on my personal workflow and have measurably contributed to my productivity. I've not experienced such benefits neither using sublime nor using notepad++. And it was quite enjoyable. Just opened the docs(admittedly somewhat lacking) and started hacking away. I am well aware that it is heresy, but I like that it is built on DOM. I don't care much about startup time or editing files with thousands of lines. Atom works great for my use cases.
bakies 12y ago
I still use sublime for all of my projects. I don't see any reason to change over
merrua 12y ago
I still find it a bit slow and a bit of a memory hog. But its very nice and getting better.
NathanKP 12y ago
I've tried making the switch last week but Atom is still missing some very essential basics for me, such as the ability to quit the app, reopen it, and have it automatically restore the same views, layout, files, and cursor location it had when it closed. I tried a couple add-ons that claimed to add this feature of Sublime Text to Atom but I just got a lot of plugin errors and they didn't actually work. I also miss some basic things like the ability in Sublime Text to start up in fullscreen automatically (not a maximized window, but true distraction free fullscreen with no system UI or menubar visible). Additionally for some reason the fuzzy search is extremely slow and seems to reindex from scratch regularly, blocking me for about 10 seconds every single time I restart the app, compared with Sublime Text where I have never had to wait on a blocking indexing operation to use the fuzzy search. I think Atom will be great some day but it still isn't there for me yet.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- asantos3 12y ago
  The issues on your first paragraph: * https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/1603#issuecomment-93599126 https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/1603#issuecomment-935991... * https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/6396 https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/6396
  - NathanKP 12y ago
    Awesome! Looks like I'll be giving Atom another try soon.
robotic 12y ago
I still prefer a full IDE like IntelliJ for my day to day work. If I do use a pure editor it is going to be Sublime (and sometimes vim).
lloeki 12y ago
Using it on and off, but that's mostly because I'm hopelessly addicted to vim. In fact it says a lot that this is the first editor that can replace vim for several days in a row. Coworkers otherwise completely replaced Sublime with Atom. That said, atom can do stuff that is simply impossible to do in vim†, such as https://atom.io/packages/svg-preview https://atom.io/packages/svg-preview (shameless plug). † used to use vim+fswatch+open(1) on OS X, but that's incredibly hackish in comparison to what amounts to instantaneous native support by design.
jszymborski 12y ago
I've been using it full time since their windows release, and I'm very happy with it. Takes a while to start-up, but otherwise I find it's very snappy.
PublicEnemy111 12y ago
I'd love to hear a testimonial from a python dev. I'd like to make the switch, but I can't without basic tools like autocomplete
bdcravens 12y ago
I've used it for a while. I think the ecosystem is great. I don't have too much of a gripe for the things that most do (slow startup, can't handle large files). However, there's a bug with full screen on OSX that is a deal-breaker and keeps sending me back to Sublime: if you swipe between full-screen instances of Atom, sometimes modals end up in the wrong place, but you can't get to that instance. So you have to hard-kill, and imagine if that modal is a Save As. (the other day it did something differently strange and annoying: Have 2 projects, A and B open. Swiping between full screens, it only showed A.. only way to get B was to select from Window menu, and this behavior kept persisting whenever I'd swipe away)

Are people using Atom as their main editor now? i.e. have successfully made the switch from sublime? Just wondering how it holds up under daily use.

jrosenbluth 12y ago

I'm primarily a haskell developer and most haskell source files are relatively small so I don't have too many issues with speed or lag. I just love atom, the look and feel, package installations, extensibility ...

vdaniuk 12y ago
Yep, I can't define it precisely but something about Atom has this comfortable feel. What Haskell package would you recommend, btw?

sergiotapia 12y ago

I use it for Go exclusively because of go-plus but I would never use it for anything else. Those extra 20ms when scrolling, typing, etc are very distracting to me.

rhodysurf 12y ago
Is there any benefit to go-plus over GoSublime? https://github.com/DisposaBoy/GoSublime https://github.com/DisposaBoy/GoSublime
- geeio 12y ago
  I find it to work much more reliably than GoSublime. Frustration with GoSublime is the reason I switched.
- sergiotapia 12y ago
  I think they both sort of have feature-parity. I prefer go-plus massively though because it's features run on save without any configuration on my end. Go fmt, linters, etc all run on save and that's great for me.
  - nopar8 12y ago
    I can certainly see the value, I've fallen in love with build on save. I thought I would mention a solution here for people that wish to stay with their current browser but like the sound of automatic build. I've been using a fork of fresh[1]. I haven't found a single issue yet. I simply cd to my project and run it. [1] https://github.com/lateefj/fresh https://github.com/lateefj/fresh
aikah 12y ago
Liteide works well for me. auto completion,a few re-factoring capabilities , class view, outline , auto imports , build/clean/install relative to each package/folder , and it's blazing fast. Not sure about Atom, it felt slow when I tested it, just like other web tech based IDEs.

xhrpost 12y ago

I use it regularly but there still seems to be a lot of stability/GUI issues, especially when using a lot of packages. I feel a lot is missing natively but I'm comparing to Notepad++ which has a lot of utility functions by default. I still haven't reached parity with NPP but I'm fairly close for my most used functionality.

davidwparker 12y ago

I've been using it for the last 1.5 years or about a month after it came out full-time. I used to use Emacs for most of my development, and while I lost speed moving to Atom, I gained a little bit of sanity, and I like the UI of Atom more. I also use LightTable for a few things (namely WebGL), but don't do it as much as I like. I like LightTable's UI more than Atom, but Atom does most of what I like. My main dev work in Atom is JS / Ruby / HTML. I also use it for Git sometimes (diff, adding, committing, pulling, etc), though I use the command line more often for Git. I don't find speed to be a problem, and I can get around pretty quickly. I don't see a reason why I'd still use Sublime TBH.

seanwilson 12y ago

I've been using Atom for a few months now for projects in various languages. I like the UI and haven't had any issues with it. Performance has been fine for me although I am using a high-end MacBook. The limit on opening files over 2MB is a little annoying but it's rare I need to edit files that large.

benologist 12y ago

It's painful sometimes, like the wait the first time I want to jump to a file in a project while 50k files get re-indexed, or the slow regex replace. Or the cludgy add ons that spew errors out onto the screen and console windows. In spite of all the flaws I think it's only a matter of time until Atom is better than sublime and continues to improve beyond that, while being open source.

vdaniuk 12y ago

Atom is now my primary text editor for miscellaneous tasks, quick fixes and languages that are not supported by Jetbrains IDE plugin ecosystem. It can't match the refactoring and autocompletion capabilities but it is a very useful addition to a toolbox. Its strongest selling point is extensibility. I've never thought of developing text editor modules but to my surprise I've made a few Atom packages. They are strongly dependent on my personal workflow and have measurably contributed to my productivity. I've not experienced such benefits neither using sublime nor using notepad++. And it was quite enjoyable. Just opened the docs(admittedly somewhat lacking) and started hacking away. I am well aware that it is heresy, but I like that it is built on DOM. I don't care much about startup time or editing files with thousands of lines. Atom works great for my use cases.

bakies 12y ago

I still use sublime for all of my projects. I don't see any reason to change over

merrua 12y ago

I still find it a bit slow and a bit of a memory hog. But its very nice and getting better.

NathanKP 12y ago

I've tried making the switch last week but Atom is still missing some very essential basics for me, such as the ability to quit the app, reopen it, and have it automatically restore the same views, layout, files, and cursor location it had when it closed. I tried a couple add-ons that claimed to add this feature of Sublime Text to Atom but I just got a lot of plugin errors and they didn't actually work. I also miss some basic things like the ability in Sublime Text to start up in fullscreen automatically (not a maximized window, but true distraction free fullscreen with no system UI or menubar visible). Additionally for some reason the fuzzy search is extremely slow and seems to reindex from scratch regularly, blocking me for about 10 seconds every single time I restart the app, compared with Sublime Text where I have never had to wait on a blocking indexing operation to use the fuzzy search. I think Atom will be great some day but it still isn't there for me yet.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
asantos3 12y ago
The issues on your first paragraph: * https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/1603#issuecomment-93599126 https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/1603#issuecomment-935991... * https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/6396 https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/6396
- NathanKP 12y ago
  Awesome! Looks like I'll be giving Atom another try soon.

robotic 12y ago

I still prefer a full IDE like IntelliJ for my day to day work. If I do use a pure editor it is going to be Sublime (and sometimes vim).

lloeki 12y ago

Using it on and off, but that's mostly because I'm hopelessly addicted to vim. In fact it says a lot that this is the first editor that can replace vim for several days in a row. Coworkers otherwise completely replaced Sublime with Atom. That said, atom can do stuff that is simply impossible to do in vim†, such as https://atom.io/packages/svg-preview https://atom.io/packages/svg-preview (shameless plug). † used to use vim+fswatch+open(1) on OS X, but that's incredibly hackish in comparison to what amounts to instantaneous native support by design.

jszymborski 12y ago

I've been using it full time since their windows release, and I'm very happy with it. Takes a while to start-up, but otherwise I find it's very snappy.

PublicEnemy111 12y ago

I'd love to hear a testimonial from a python dev. I'd like to make the switch, but I can't without basic tools like autocomplete

bdcravens 12y ago

I've used it for a while. I think the ecosystem is great. I don't have too much of a gripe for the things that most do (slow startup, can't handle large files). However, there's a bug with full screen on OSX that is a deal-breaker and keeps sending me back to Sublime: if you swipe between full-screen instances of Atom, sometimes modals end up in the wrong place, but you can't get to that instance. So you have to hard-kill, and imagine if that modal is a Save As. (the other day it did something differently strange and annoying: Have 2 projects, A and B open. Swiping between full screens, it only showed A.. only way to get B was to select from Window menu, and this behavior kept persisting whenever I'd swipe away)