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Atom

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Re: Atom

#171
There's real opportunity here for Github and I hope they take it.

Why is the basic workflow of the modern-day programmer split over multiple tools and over multiple systems?

Aspects of Github could be modularised and added to the editor while still keeping the underlying tool simple and this could change our user experience for the better.

Imagine flipping through your pull requests in the text editor and then seeing your friends comments and code reviews appear on top.

Imagine an issue being created on Github and the file(s) referenced instantly glowing.

This opens doors to thinking about the engineering workflow in a new holistic manner.

Re: Atom

#172
post #23

The more I see new editors floating around, the more I'm sticking to VIm. I am getting old, or it's a just a survival instinct. On the other hand, the more the better, but we have already too many editors around.

I've sworn by SublimeText until now. And Atom is getting released during a time when I'm increasingly learning to love console-only computing. I envision a day when I can travel the world with a cheap laptop/chromebook and do all my coding remotely via SSH.. and Vim is very much at the core of that dream.

Now I just have to master it.

Re: Atom

#173

I think, in the long run -3 to 5 years-, Jon Skinner -Sublime Text- will be leading, like now. I can clearly see his passion and investment in his product. People at GitHub are also great, well funded, but this is not their core product. Do they have a leader -I don't know if they have or not- who will be focusing only on this product and keep up with jskinner? I am sure Atom will be around for long years, as well as…

I hope that this spurs Jon on to continue working on Sublime Text and start to be more transparent with what development is ongoing etc. See the forums for recent outcries.

Re: Atom

#174

I am very excited about this, I love the Github team and this looks like a great tool. My only question is -- why should I switch to this from Sublime Text? Are there specific use cases it handles better out of the box, or is it more of a modular base that will be expected to grow and outfeature ST2/3's seasoned plugin economy? I am very happy with Sublime Text now, but I would be willing to switch if either it gaine…

In practice, the ST3 API is extremely limiting and poorly implemented. The docs are both lacking and dated (read incorrect). It is trivial to crash ST3 by making the incorrect sequence of correct API calls. It is also common to resort to polling the editor to make up for other deficiencies. The API also only allows for extremely limited UI choices forcing highly unintuitive interfaces on end users. The ST3 runtime al…

I don't know if I'd call it extremely limiting… there are some places I'd like to see more accessibility. However, I've built some pretty extensive stuff with it.

I would love to see ssl compiled in - I believe the reason Jon currently doesn't is that it would require building on at least 6 different machines to cover 0.9.8 and 1.0.0 (libssl.so.10 and libssl.so.1.0.0) for x86/x64 plus a customized version of ssl.py.

Re: Atom

#175

Apparently this was almost 6 years in the making. https://twitter.com/defunkt/status/438791340222971904

Wow - I didn't even think node.js was that old. It will be interesting to see its genesis. The first git commit for node appears to have been on Feb 16, 2009: commit 9d7895c567e8f38abfff35da1b6d6d6a0a06f9aa Author: Ryan Date: Mon Feb 16 01:02:00 2009 +0100 add dependencies

It probably started out as a Rails app, but then Node came along.

Gotta keep it relevant!

Re: Atom

#177
post #171

There's real opportunity here for Github and I hope they take it. Why is the basic workflow of the modern-day programmer split over multiple tools and over multiple systems? Aspects of Github could be modularised and added to the editor while still keeping the underlying tool simple and this could change our user experience for the better. Imagine flipping through your pull requests in the text editor and then seeing…

IDEs, while they have fallen out of favor somewhat in the web development community, offer such a "holistic" development experience already - complete with deep integration into GitHub, in some instances.

Re: Atom

#178
post #128

You know, I'm usually very skeptical of web apps, but building a text editor in WebKit actually seems like a really good idea. Everything a browser should be good at — text display, scripting, styling — also applies to text editors. You don't really have to worry about complex UI, animation, or user input. You also get remote access almost for free. What other text-centric apps can be made better by a browser framewo…

So why is every text editor I have ever seen embedded in a website an abomination? > text display, scripting, styling The only thing that really matters is scripting. Every serious editor has solved displaying text and styling since ages and those two points aren't even that important in programming languages. All you want is a syntax aware highlighting. Maybe underlines and a little bold here and there. Scripting is…

> So why is every text editor I have ever seen embedded in a website an abomination?

Because most websites use contenteditable for their rich text editors, which is horrible to deal with. It's not standardized, it gives developers very little control, and its output and capabilities vary a lot from browser to browser.

Web rich text editors that don't suck - e.g. Google Docs - bypass the browser's support for rich text editing entirely. This makes them usable, but it also means everything has to be implemented from scratch, so the code is complex. AFAIK there are no general purpose rich text editors built like this that are open source or even licensable.

There are some pretty good non-contenteditable code editors, though. Presumably Atom will be built in this style.

Re: Atom

#179
post #132
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to get on vim tangent but it's very easy to learn vim slowly. If you use a gui like MacVim you can still use cmd+s to save, etc. and use it like a normal editor. The only thing you are really required to know is the difference between normal and insert modes.

Yeah, I understand what you're saying. It's just hard for me to justify (to myself) learning vim (or emacs, or vi, or whatever) when I can just load up Sublime Text and start working on something. Put another way: working with Sublime Text and Adobe Brackets is a good experience for me... There's nothing that screams out at me "Man, this sucks, I need to go learn vim."

Fair enough, can't blame you for that. If you ever start wanting to administer your own servers, being handy with vim is nice as you can quickly make changes on an ssh server.

Re: Atom

#180
post #23

The more I see new editors floating around, the more I'm sticking to VIm. I am getting old, or it's a just a survival instinct. On the other hand, the more the better, but we have already too many editors around.

I've sworn by SublimeText until now. And Atom is getting released during a time when I'm increasingly learning to love console-only computing. I envision a day when I can travel the world with a cheap laptop/chromebook and do all my coding remotely via SSH.. and Vim is very much at the core of that dream. Now I just have to master it.

Try using the Vim plugin (Vintage or the newer one, Vintageous) with Sublime. That way, you can gradually get used to modal editing.

I worked like that for 8-10 months then made the switch to Vim. I've gotten so used to modal editing (not to mention window management etc.) by then, that I didn't even skip a beat.

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