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Sublime Text 3 Public Beta

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Re: Sublime Text 3 Public Beta

#82
post #50

I use Sublime Text every day. I love it. I paid for it. I even develop plugins for it.[1] But I don't recommend it to peers. Why? Because Sublime Text has a low bus factor.[2] 6 years ago, I bought TextMate. Like Sublime Text, I enjoyed using it. Sadly, TextMate became abandonware. The sole developer suffered burnout. Bugs were never fixed. Promised features never showed up. Users wanted to fix these issues themselve…

If everyone involved with Sublime disappeared tomorrow, Sublime would still work -- and likely continue to be usable for at least a few years.

I don't understand what the concern is here.

As you say, developers marry their editors. I certainly would be frustrated if Sublime were abandoned tomorrow, but I'd still rather use it today over any other editor.

Re: Sublime Text 3 Public Beta

#83
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest bug for me is that it's $70 - Although I'm a professional developer, I'm still fairly underpaid (I don't live in London, San Fran, NY, etc.) and thus it's out of my price range when I can barely afford travel, rent and food.

Being underpaid isn't a function of being in a particular region (assuming your in America). Middle America Jr. Devs with little/no programming experience are getting started around $70K.

_Everybody here_ lives in a first world country. /s

Re: Sublime Text 3 Public Beta

#85
post #39
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a developer tool. I bill more than that per hour. Lots of people bill more than that per hour. If it saves you time or stress, it's easily worth $70.

Not an expert but wouldn't you be able to deduct it from your taxes anyway?

That works if you are doing consulting on your own but not for full time employees.

Re: Sublime Text 3 Public Beta

#86
post #50

I use Sublime Text every day. I love it. I paid for it. I even develop plugins for it.[1] But I don't recommend it to peers. Why? Because Sublime Text has a low bus factor.[2] 6 years ago, I bought TextMate. Like Sublime Text, I enjoyed using it. Sadly, TextMate became abandonware. The sole developer suffered burnout. Bugs were never fixed. Promised features never showed up. Users wanted to fix these issues themselve…

A couple of things come to mind.

1. Sublime Text 2 (and also Textmate 1.5) are STILL good editors. And they will continue to be good editors for the foreseeable future. Just like Vim and Emacs. You don't need a newer version every year. Even though Vim and Emacs DO release newer versions, I have no idea what is in the new releases. Why? Because Emacs 22 and Vim 6.3 do well enough. Textmate 1.5 does well enough. Sublime Text 2 does just fine.

2. I get the bus factor ideal, but it doesn't always turn out that way. Sure it's a chance, but look at the Jack Slocum, ExtJS situation. He was a one man show. He was a machine that could output beautiful amazing work. Then he actually let Sench Labs take over. He seemed to disappear for a time. They had a few stumbles. Now he's back. Same could happen. The same could happen for Sublime.

Overall. I don't see it as a hinderance. Watch Railscasts or Peepcode. They don't seem to have a problem using a 5 year old editor. Heck, I still use a table saw from 1982.

Re: Sublime Text 3 Public Beta

#87
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The potential problem is not so much the price, which is as you say very reasonable, but getting locked into a proprietary product that you are then attached to. What if they stop developing it? What if they take it in a direction you don't want? What if they move to a higher and higher price? All things to consider. As for me, you can pry my Emacs from my cold, dead fingers.

Also my main objection to Sublime. It's such a waste to make such a nice text editor and then make it proprietary.

A waste to who? It's the editor of choice for a large number of people. It provides value to developers. In turn, the people who spend all day building it (I assume from a comment above) get paid to do so. Do you want to work for free?

Re: Sublime Text 3 Public Beta

#88
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an expert but wouldn't you be able to deduct it from your taxes anyway?

That works if you are doing consulting on your own but not for full time employees.

It does in Australia. It's a work expense. Just because there are other options that are free it doesn't mean it's not deductible. That'd be like telling a carpenter they have to use a tree branch as a hammer. But I'm no tax expert in your region, so it might be worth investigating if you're not certain.

Re: Sublime Text 3 Public Beta

#89
post #29
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a developer tool. I bill more than that per hour. Lots of people bill more than that per hour. If it saves you time or stress, it's easily worth $70.

The potential problem is not so much the price, which is as you say very reasonable, but getting locked into a proprietary product that you are then attached to. What if they stop developing it? What if they take it in a direction you don't want? What if they move to a higher and higher price? All things to consider. As for me, you can pry my Emacs from my cold, dead fingers.

And using Emacs without remapping your Caps Lock key will cause those fingers to die just a bit sooner....

Perhaps the wrong place for flaimbait.... I apologize ahead of time!

Re: Sublime Text 3 Public Beta

#90
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Still debating if the $70 price is right.

It's a developer tool. I bill more than that per hour. Lots of people bill more than that per hour. If it saves you time or stress, it's easily worth $70.

My problem is that I am invested in vim to the extent that I will need to relearn quite a bit if I give up vim. I can do that but what does ST provide me over vim - that's my main point of debate along with the fact that the $70 price for one version with paid upgrades means things are not in the impulse purchase zone over the long run. (Not upgrading doesn't really work - ST2 might stop working if I upgrade to say Ubuntu 14.04 and I am not sure if ST2 will continued to be supported and how long.)

I would have bought it if it was $29 and proprietary OR $70 opensource donation ware or $49 proprietary with 3 free version upgrades. That's my comfort feel around editors - YFMV of course.

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