Why I Still Use Vim

This is an interesting response!

For the first point, I'd say it's less about time as it is about ease-of-use. I still use Vim when I'm SSH'd somewhere or the common occasions where I just need to change one line of a file. The process of "vi", entering the editor, using the shortcuts to find, edit, replace, save the file is done before an editor even loads. Time is valuable and not using Vim in some situations is like choosing a hand saw over a power tool (my analogy game is on point today).

On the last one about encouraging less resource-intensive software, I completely agree with you, and think software has grown increasingly careless toward memory usage. Unfortunately I'd estimate that less than 10% of computer users have ever opened the Activity Monitor on their mac or know which particular app is slowing it down. For developers I'm sure that's closer to 100%, so tools like Xcode/Atom/Eclipse will have their usage scrutinized more, but I certainly haven't seen anything close to mass rejection over it - we accept the free benefits and pay for it with better hardware. I also think the benefits of the underlying Electron library being seamless across platforms, plus the added benefit of extensions being as easy to write as a webpage, makes it a good trade-off for memory.

I really don't mean to minimize or refute any point you just made, what you wrote makes a lot of sense and really got me thinking. Maybe car vs bike should be the analogy for a more convincing blog post ;)

These types of articles are little, if anything, more than pure fanboy-ism that is littered with hyperbolic claims.

I'm running a 2013 Macbook pro w/ 8 GB of RAM, the Intel Iris graphic card, sttached to two external, stacked Ultra wide HD monitors(sometimes a 3rd 1080p in portrait). The only "upgrade" it has received is an extra SSD installed after I removed the optical drive. You would be insulted if, as a dev, a company gave you this as a workstation in 2017.

Currently, I am running 8 electron apps(Slack, Discord, Headset, kiwi for Gmail, Insomnia as a GraphQL client, Visual Studio Code, Hyper as my terminal emulator, Spotify. When I feel like being unproductive, I open Pocket and push the total to 9) Bartender manages another dozen+ apps.

Oh, and I also have open Chrome, Chrome Canary, Firefox Nightly, and Opera Neon. Chrome is running with 60 or so enabled extensions, Firefox has another 15 active add ons. And between all the browsers, I usually have around 75 open tabs, 18 or so sre running video or some other resource intrnsive media.As well as the occasional Linux VM. Iused to run the McAfee Global Threat map animation as a live background, but that was a little too much. Depending on what Im working on, Im usually running at least 4 or 5 servers. none that have to deal with huge amoubts of data, as id usually just provision cloud resources for that.

Did I mention my 2013 8 GB MacBook handles this with ease? If I had a more powerful workstation, it would nit make me any more productive. I type at around 100-110 wpm and a more powerful machine wouldnt allow me to interface faster.

So, when ornery devs violate the DRY principle on every single HN thread that is tangentially related to electron and trash it with an exuberance that would make McCarthy proud, I wonder, why?

I imagine most have more powerful workstations than my own. I understand it from the perspective of those who have hundreds or thousands of tabs open (Around 30 or do open tabs causes cognitive overload for me and refuces productivity the more i have open.) I did have issues when running Atom and trying to open 30MB log and JSON files, but I wiuld also usually have 4 or more open projects. Ive since moved to VSCode after a year of apprehension due to having to give up ny many atom extensions, without looking back

It doesnt sound like the author is doing anything that complex. There is no way that it takes minutes to open a 6MB log file, especially if using the newer version of atom.

The idea that electron brings yoyr system to a crawl is simply not true, especially one app(unless its Atom).

Electron apps work. The performance benefits of native apps are negligible on my productivity . And, usually, their aesthetics are a hindrance as I like ny apps to be visually appealing. All the other cross-platform solutions almost always look like crap. But this is only important if one values those particular aesthetics of which i speak.

So, the attacks remind me of the discussion of artificial benchmarks comparing gpus or game consoles... immaterial and irrelevant to actual usage. Its an argument of pitentials and thereoticals never achieved. Especially for a freaking web developer.

Even if you disagree with me, these threads are trash because nothing new or original is said. Just the complaints about the "kids these days" from a small, but extremely vocal minority whose comments are in stark contrast to the threads overall karma.

Oh, and if If you're working out of emacs, electron apps are not for you.

You would have to extend it yourself which others do for me with plugins in vim or emacs.

This is unduly personal. That breaks the site guidelines. Please post civilly and substantively or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Just to add there are students too. I was an international student until last year and made less than $20k in Boston. I had 8 GB of RAM, it wasn't plenty, but it was just enough. I definitely would not have preferred to use Atom then, as the benefits over Emacs weren't worth the trouble I would have had otherwise.