[geluso]

Atom is free. Sublime costs $70. Plus, Atom comes with several lovely features Sublime doesn't have. Pay less, get more? Great deal! It's funny to catch friends looking at Sublime's payment popup window. I always joke, "oh, you're still evaluating?" Of course they're not evaluating. They're never going to pay for it. What a nuisance.

Atom has excellent window management. It's very easy to drag a tab and split it half-and-half with any other window horizontally or vertically. Amazing! Sublime doesn't do this.

Atom allows me to rearrange files in the left-nav. I can drag a file from one directory to another. Sublime doesn't do this.

Those two simple features alone are killer features for me. I don't see why Sublime doesn't copy them.

I understand Sublime has some cool multiple cursor stuff. My friend has definitely wowed me with a specific example before. I use vim motions inside Atom, which are great, and I'll occasionally open a file in native vim if I want to use more powerful features like recording macros.

Sublime's code-preview side-bar is semi-useful. It definitely looks pretty. I used an Atom plugin that emulated that behavior but ultimately disabled it to gain screen real estate. Also, long files with redundant code blocks (that looks oh-so pretty in that side bar) is bad code! Keep files short, gain screen real estate, and there you go! I swear, I worked with someone who used Sublime and he wrote the longest, most redundant code I've ever seen. I assumed he loved looking at the code in that preview side bar. I admit: the experience left a bad taste in my mouth.

Those are my reasons for using Atom over Sublime. Sorry I don't have enough experience with VSCode to answer your actual question!

[marpstar]

VS Code has practically all of the features you mentioned from both Atom and Sublime Text 3.

[mcrider]

I'm pretty sure VS Code's window management does not match up. For instance, VS code doesn't allow nested horizontal window panes inside vertical window panes, which is super useful for large displays.

[netcraft]

Here is a relevant issue for that feature: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/1749

edit: here is the best issue to vote on: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/14909

[Etzos]

I regularly use VS Code, and this is one of the few features that I don't miss much until I need it, and then I really, really wish it had support for it. This is definitely one of the major negatives for VS Code.

[whatever_dude]

There's still a lot that people seem to love in Atom that VSC doesn't (yet?) offer. The issue/request list[1] offers a good glimpse of what's left.

[1] https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3...

[datagram]

Including a good Vim plugin? Last time I tried VS Code, that wasn't the case.

[chillee]

Hey I'm a developer for VSCodeVim (god I feel like a shill sometimes), and I'd love to hear about any issues you have with the plugin.

We've been fairly active developing the plugin, and we've closed a ton of issues and added a lot of new features over the last couple months.

More recently, we've added full Ex command support (through Neovim integration), and there's work underway to support some Vim plugins.

[frenchie4111]

You can do multi-cursor stuff in Atom too. I rarely jump into vim for macros anymore, multi-cursor handles most things.

[guessmyname]

$70 is nothing compared with the performance that you get.

If you have a job (either as a freelancer or professional) you certainly should be able to afford to pay for a $70 license, if you cannot then maybe your problem is your salary. If you are a student, ask your parents for it. I have given away at least 8 single-user licenses to friends and fellow co-workers who had your mentality, and they are now happy SublimeText users.

The problem that I see with Atom IS NOT in the startup speed, which is something that many people complain about, obviously you can just open the program once in the morning and leave it running during the day... Oh wait! You cannot! Because the program is running on top of a full-feature web browser (and one of the most heavy ones) which means that during the day it will consume a significant amount of RAM. Do you want to listen to music while you write code? You got it! Atom will turn up your computer's fan for you so you can listen to the peaceful sound of air blowing at your CPU because the full-featured browser behind it is doing some crazy shit in the background.

I don't even care about the loading screen when you are opening large files, the major problem that I notice is keystroke lag, after the first hour or so I start to notice some lag between the input from my keyboard and the actual visual in the editor [1].

Some time ago I thought that GitHub would get tired about the criticism of their beloved project and deprecate it, but then they converted their Git client [2] into an Electron app. They are really invested into that technology. If I were one of their engineers I wouldn't mind to take a C++/Qt project alone just to be able to provide a resource-friendly program that people will love for its performance (as we do for SublimeText) more than for its plugin ecosystem and "beautiful" themes.

You know, the first thing that I do every time I need to install SublimeText into a new computer is to disable some settings, not because they are going to make the editor faster but because I really don't need them. But with Atom, I really-REALLY need to disable many built-in plugins because they are either tracking me or because they are genuinely slowing down the program (the GIT integration, for example). I configure SublimeText to my needs because I want to, I configure Atom to my needs because I need to.

[1] I am sure there will be someone in the replies saying that they don't notice any lag, they will even include the amount of RAM in their computer as if it was relevant (no, it is not, it's a code editor, it should be fast). The fact that it runs well in your computer doesn't means the problems don't exist.

[2] https://desktop.github.com/

[uranian]

> $70 is nothing compared with the performance that you get.

Maybe on a slow pc, but with Atom on my macbook pro I have no performance issues at all period. I code 8+ hours a day (for many years), and no my fan is not spinning all the time because of Atom. I have 16Gb ram, have multiple apps open at the same time, Chrome with 30+ tabs, listen music via youtube, etc..

I was a long time Sublime user, but the $70 they're asking is really way too much with so many great open source alternatives today. Would they at least divide the $70 to all the package writers that actually make Sublime a great editor I might be willing to spend it, but unfortunately they want all the money for themselves..

Switched to Atom a while ago, I gained (some really great) features and finally got rid of the trial pop-up.

[arghwhat]

Top of the line MacBook Pro, freshly installed with only Sublime Text and Atom side by side shows a very, very clear performance difference. I have a fetish for clean machines, so it's an "experiment" that repeats itself quite often for me.

Don't get me wrong - I use Atom quite often. However, stating that it does not jave performance issues is just wrong. Period.

Atom needs to do a metric fuckton more work (webengine, remember?) to move the cursor than Sublime, and thus it has severe keystroke lag. Whether you're okay with it or even notice is something entirely different.

[problems]

It's not just $70, it's $70 for a closed source text editor when perfectly viable free, open source alternatives exist.

Even if I can afford something doesn't mean I'm going to pay for it without feeling like I'm getting ripped off.

Yes, Atom has its problems, but many of those don't exist in VSCode, Vim, Emacs, even SciTE, I'd advise considering more than 1 alternative option before spending that much.

[thepratt]

For Haskell, Atom is near unusable. Input lag reaches double digit seconds, and crashes are frequent. Sublime is a tad better, but background processes for both are not managed well. Base editor vs editor, Sublime is the clear winner for general editing (not dependent on background processes/hooks) in terms of performance mainly due to io cycle time - mostly electrons' fault.

Vim and emacs are the solution most of my colleagues use, my experience with bindings in those editors is poor, but I'm switching slowly.

[dragonwriter]

> I am sure there will be someone in the replies saying that they don't notice any lag, they will even include the amount of RAM in their computer as if it was relevant (no, it is not, it's a code editor, it should be fast). The fact that it runs well in your computer doesn't means the problems don't exist.

It actually does, for any user's rational purchasing decision: a problem that doesn't manifest, or does manifest without any cost, in their use case does not exist as a problem.

[dragonwriter]

> $70 is nothing compared with the performance that you get.

Relative to the best free alternative for any particular use case, I'm not convinced that's generally the case.

[HalfwayToDice]

"It's funny to catch friends looking at Sublime's payment popup window. I always joke, "oh, you're still evaluating?"

You sound like a really fun guy to know.