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by ashworth 3673 days ago
Genuine question:

What do Atom and Visual Studio Code offer that Sublime Text doesn't?

I have tried both within the last year and wasn't able to find any significant advantages (except for VS Code's excellent TypeScript experience), but they both ran slower and used more memory. Perhaps I should have used Nuclide?

(Not asking about Webstorm because I've used the IntelliJ family of IDEs and understand their advantages)
5 comments
CJefferson 3673 days ago
A better 'bus factor'.

It would greatly suprise me if either Atom of VSCode shut up tomorrow. They couldn't entirely shut up, as they are both entirely open source projects.

The Sublime Text website could just close tomorrow if one person got badly hurt / lost interest, and then the executable could not work on Mac OS X 10.11.6 for some reason, and it is done.

I've had too many pieces of software go that way to get another one which is so fundamentally important to me (text editor).

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hantusk 3673 days ago
I use Atom over Sublime Text solely for the Hydrogen plugin (https://github.com/nteract/hydrogen).

That plugins are written in javascript (larger developer base) and allows more customization of Atom (more open plugin api) also yields more niche plugins.

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jsmeaton 3673 days ago
In these threads I see "larger developer base" when referring to javascript developers over python. I wonder if that's true, and by what margin.

For what it's worth I would imagine more javascript devs would write plugins for Atom than python developers would write plugins for Sublime Text.

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oneeyedpigeon 3673 days ago
These resources are by no means perfect, but they're the best I can think of off the top of my head:

http://stackoverflow.com/research/developer-survey-2016#tech...

https://github.com/blog/2047-language-trends-on-github

If anyone has anything better, we can refine our collective thinking.

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_Wintermute 3673 days ago
I wasn't aware of Hydrogen. Looks like it might be enough for me to try Atom again.
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DigitalSea 3673 days ago
To be honest I use Atom mostly for writing Markdown. I am a paid subscriber for Webstorm, but I have found that I am using it a bit less lately and have been using Visual Studio Code a lot more, partially because I use TypeScript, love the intellisense and overall the editor is super fast and stable. Atom definitely has some slowness issues they need to overcome and ironically Visual Studio Code is based on Atom, but it is a great editor and there are a heap of plugins out there for it.

In terms of memory usage, Sublime would arguably win the fight (at least it feels that way). I think ST is also lacking in the plugin department these days as well, but I could be wrong about that. The interface of both Atom and VSCode is arguably better as well and maybe things have changed, but the ST3 betas have been pretty buggy in my experience as well. The native Git integration is also pretty great as well (especially in VSCode).

Sublime also lacks a native package manager of which VSCode and Atom have, but there is a third party package manager which works well, so it's a moot point.

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LionessLover 3673 days ago
> partially because I use TypeScript

Which WebStorm supports perfectly well?

More a clarification comment than a response, for those who don't know.

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shurcooL 3673 days ago
As a ST3 user, both Atom and VSC have superior git integration built in, no plugins needed.

That's really the only/main thing I miss.

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bjz_ 3673 days ago
It's a small thing, but I really love how Atom highlights the files that have changed in the tree view out of the box. Haven't figured out how to do that in Atom...
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tomsmeding 3673 days ago
In Atom or in Atom?
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bjz_ 3673 days ago
Oh woops, I meant to say 'in Sublime'! It seems my brain detached from my brain in the process.
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bsimpson 3672 days ago
Atom has git integration built-in? I couldn't find it when I tried it a few months ago (and I was shocked, considering it's sponsored by GitHub).
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shurcooL 3671 days ago
Yes. When you open a directory that is a git repository, the files in the sidebar will have different color if they're modified, new, etc. When viewing actual files, edited/new/deletes lines will also have markers in the gutter.
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stankot 3673 days ago
They are free and development is much more active. Community is also getting stronger, as they are both open source. This means that plugins are always up to date.

I love Sublime but there is also a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor

Also if you have tried Atom at some point, try it again, they made it much better and faster. Only thing I miss is how incredibly fast Sublime Text is.

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