$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.
> $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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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/