[loup-vaillant]

Every time I type `git commit`. Every time I visualise files with ranger (terminal based file browser). Every time I typed an email, back when I was using Mutt —which I might again.

For such quick jobs, launching the editor should be instantaneous. And I don't want to use another editor for them, I like the key bindings of my main editor.

[acdha]

> Every time I type `git commit`

This is true with something like Vi but with a separate GUI app, wouldn't the most common case be setting EDITOR={atom,code,etc.} and it simply opening a new window in the already-running app?

(Or, for that matter, don't most people using something IDE-like use the built-in UI to make a commit?)

[Zarel]

Opening a new window in the already-running app is also slow; they cover a strategy for increasing that performance in the linked blog post.

[acdha]

No doubt but e.g. VSCode’s sub-second performance shows that’s not a huge stretch while sticking with Electron and it has a subset of the challenges for startup performance

[joehewitt]

Have you considered that Atom is not an editor meant for "quick jobs"? It's a workhorse for programmers who are coding all day every day.

[seawlf]

I don't think that's a good justification for slow startup time and general sluggishness. Despite having 30+ plugins and 800 color schemes installed vim starts up in just a few milliseconds on my work rig. I code all day every day.