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Sublime Text vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Atom Performance Test (Dec 2016)

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Re: Sublime Text vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Atom Performance Test (Dec 2016)

#3
Awesome comparison! I believe both Atom & Visual Studio Code will only get faster over time.

I've been using Atom for over a year and it has made great strides over the last few months. I don't have any problems opening large repos or files now, as much as I did a few months ago.

I use VScode for personal projects & it's fast and awesome as well.

I linked your comparison in one my detailed Quora posts comparing Atom & Sublime --> https://www.quora.com/How-does-Atom-compare-with-Sublime-Tex...

Re: Sublime Text vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Atom Performance Test (Dec 2016)

#4
Have been using Sublime Text 2 for years now and then last year tried out Sublime Text 3 (various builds). Sublime Text 3 (still in Beta), for me, has issues when it comes to loading text files which are around 20MB in size (or more). It just freezes or takes a very long time to load (on my Linux machine). Haven't seen the same issue with Sublime Text 2, which has been a very good editor. I understand that Sublime Text 3 is in beta, but it's the only version that's made available via the official repos on LinuxMint installations. So I had to manually switch to Sublime Text 2 to have a stable working editor.

Re: Sublime Text vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Atom Performance Test (Dec 2016)

#5
For my programming class in the upcoming winter, I'm finally switching to Atom from Sublime Text as the recommended default text editor for my (novice) students. My reasons, in descending order of importance:

1. Atom has nice defaults, such as spaces for default tabbing and automatic trimming of white space upon save. In ST, you have to manually alter the user config file.

1.5 Atom has much better file handling in its project sidebar -- e.g. Right-clicking a file brings up the expected options for moving/copying/etc a file. And the dialog box is much clearer. In ST, IIRC, I have to install 2 separate plugins to have that convenience.

2. Atom's package manager is built in. In ST, you have to activate the console and paste in a Python command to install the PM.

3. The prominent "Download" button on sublimetext.com, until recently, defaulted to 2. And the download page for 3 lacks a call to action, at least in comparison to the page text that warns the reader that 3 is still in beta. I was always amazed at how many students installed ST2 contrary to my instructions until I visited the ST homepage for myself (which I never do unless I have to reinstall ST from scratch).

4. Atom installs the 'atom' CLI command by default. ST requires manual shell configuration to get 'subl'

5. Atom is free. ST has a free trial but then nags the user upon every nth save. I know, minor inconvenience, but as a happy purchaser of ST, I found that I vastly underestimated how much that nag dialog broke the flow, especially if students followed my advice to hit Cmd-S casually.

I agree with the OP that ST is substantially more performant, which is why ST is still my editor of choice. But for my students, performance is less of a concern. For most novices, their concept of a "text editor" is Microsoft Word...so a 3 second load up time won't bother them.

That Atom chokes on non trivial data files, e.g. a CSV of 100K rows, has been the strongest reason to stick to ST. But I now see that as an asset when it comes to teaching beginners. I make them learn the command line, and no better way to drive home the importance of tools like head, tail, sed, and grep than to have students experience firsthand Atom's grinding death when trying to render even simple text.

Re: Sublime Text vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Atom Performance Test (Dec 2016)

#6

Have been using Sublime Text 2 for years now and then last year tried out Sublime Text 3 (various builds). Sublime Text 3 (still in Beta), for me, has issues when it comes to loading text files which are around 20MB in size (or more). It just freezes or takes a very long time to load (on my Linux machine). Haven't seen the same issue with Sublime Text 2, which has been a very good editor. I understand that Sublime Te…

That's truly interesting, I load HUGE (I mean stupidly huge, like multi-hundred MB) files into ST3 and have done for years without issue, even on a relatively low spec machine like my base MacBook (non-pro, gutless as anything) it's quite acceptable.

Re: Sublime Text vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Atom Performance Test (Dec 2016)

#7
I find Atoms memory usage (and leaks) combined with odd periods of strange input latency so aggravating that I end up going back to sublime text 3 every time I try it. It just 'feels' so javascripty - like a web app, not like a snappy desktop app which is the reason I don't use my web browser for development. Coupled with the poor performance handling files over a few MB in size I can't see myself using atom in the foreseeable future unless it became a native / compiled app which isn't going to happen.

Re: Sublime Text vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Atom Performance Test (Dec 2016)

#8
post #6

Have been using Sublime Text 2 for years now and then last year tried out Sublime Text 3 (various builds). Sublime Text 3 (still in Beta), for me, has issues when it comes to loading text files which are around 20MB in size (or more). It just freezes or takes a very long time to load (on my Linux machine). Haven't seen the same issue with Sublime Text 2, which has been a very good editor. I understand that Sublime Te…

That's truly interesting, I load HUGE (I mean stupidly huge, like multi-hundred MB) files into ST3 and have done for years without issue, even on a relatively low spec machine like my base MacBook (non-pro, gutless as anything) it's quite acceptable.

Given that I was able to consistently see this issue when I was using Sublime Text 3, I'll see if I can come up with something more concrete to show/report this issue, over some weekend.

Re: Sublime Text vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Atom Performance Test (Dec 2016)

#10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's truly interesting, I load HUGE (I mean stupidly huge, like multi-hundred MB) files into ST3 and have done for years without issue, even on a relatively low spec machine like my base MacBook (non-pro, gutless as anything) it's quite acceptable.

Given that I was able to consistently see this issue when I was using Sublime Text 3, I'll see if I can come up with something more concrete to show/report this issue, over some weekend.

Yes and I don't disbelieve you either, I'm just wondering if it's perhaps something like interaction with a specific file system or disk scheduler that might be causing a block level locking issue, it's a bit of a stab in the dark without knowing anything about your setup but I build quite a few storage systems and have experienced some fun interactions with IO blocking.
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