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I still like Sublime Text

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Re: I still like Sublime Text

#401

Post by sadcodemonkey »

I went back to Sublime Text after trying VS Code for a few months.

VS Code is very nice, when it works. My main problems had to do with the extension ecosystem. It felt very chaotic: it was hard to figure out which ones to install to get the functionality I wanted. Updates to Python extensions sometimes caused instability, crashing the editor. And I found it difficult to set extension preferences: the UI tries to be slick but in practice it ends up being clunky and awkward. On top of that, there was an annoying bug on Linux, related to Electron, that prevented the Save dialog box from appearing properly, which... kind of sucks. https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/32857

Sublime is the perfect programmer's editor for dynamic languages like Python, and for general text editing. It's lightning fast. LSP is just enough to be helpful without getting in the way. Workspaces work the way I would expect. I prefer editing JSON files for preferences over navigating a complex GUI.

Best money I've ever spent on a license, and I'll happily renew just for maintenance updates, to be honest.

Re: I still like Sublime Text

#402

Post by smitelli »

readingnews wrote: post #338

Used to use sublime, and wanted to purchase a license, but it is only good for the version you are on. Since I use gentoo and it upgrades frequently, my license would require me to hold it back, and eventually it will break. How do others deal with this? Just keep purchasing a license?

I used ST2 for like five years in its unregistered state. (I rationalized that by telling myself that nothing I used it for made me money, but I still feel a little gross about it.) In practice it was no problem.

I paid for an ST3 license, then I paid again for an ST4 license. Whenever ST5 comes out, if they ask, I'll pay for that too.

Re: I still like Sublime Text

#404

Post by moffkalast »

eigenvalue wrote: post #90

I use both Sublime and Vscode every day for different things. Sublime is just so fast and responsive all the time, while vscode can get annoying slow and laggy, often because of all the many plugins I have running. If I just need simple text file editing with syntax highlighting, say while editing a markdown file, Sublime is just snappier. For actual coding VScode is much better because of all the IDE features.

I like VSCode's feature where it doesn't constantly bitch and moan about buying a license. Like cmon, there's billions of text editors to pick from, it would be like paying for breathing air or worse, for winrar.

Re: I still like Sublime Text

#405

Post by anonymous344 »

vscode would be better than sublime, but I hate so much every notification and dialogs every time popping up when i just trying to focus on my work. for this reason i still use sublime 3, yes not the 4 because the 3 was supposed to have lifetime licesense.

Re: I still like Sublime Text

#406

Post by smitelli »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #228
stonegray wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alt-tabbing (or cmd-Q if you’re done) back to your terminal window after running `subl` to edit a file is equivalent difficulty (as measured by keystrokes) to exiting nano or vim.

I've been using iterm for years mainly because it has a Quake style terminal window. I realise how I just can't get to grips with tabbing through screens on either macos and windows anymore, not with having multiple browser profiles (personal and work) and screens open. I should figure out a solution to that, but at the same time I decided that I should keep my various employers (I'm a contractor/consultant/temp/what…

Isn't that kind of where macOS features like Exposé and Mission Control come in handy?

Re: I still like Sublime Text

#407

Post by diggan »

mufasachan wrote: post #324
diggan wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Emacs and Neovim are things one gets into in ones free time and gets good enough to make the switch at some point at the job. I'd probably never end up proficient with vim (and today neovim) if I didn't do the complete opposite of this and forced myself to use it for real work directly. True, I went a bit slower for one/two weeks, but if you really have to use something foreign for most of your work, you'll learn i…

I would be curious to know how you managed to do this. I really tried to do this but the tons of dev tools I am using was too much for transitioning to neovim for my daily work. Namely, I need a DAP, multiple dev tools (lsps, linters, formatters) because I work with several projects which do not have the same tools[^1]. Luckily, I do not mix multiple programming languages. Plus, I containerize all my dev env. There m…

> Did you face similar issues?

I don't remember what exact year I did the transition at, but around 2014 - 2016 I think. At the time I was working on a PHP Symfony application (and its frontend made with Backbone.js) powering Typeform, and I think this was right about when docker entered the scene, we were still using Vagrant with what I think was NFS syncing or something else dog-slow. But both Docker and Vagrant works fine with vim, as long as you have a generic VM/container setup, it shouldn't matter what editor you use, in my mind.

But before that I was using Sublime Text 2, with minimal plugins/extensions, so moving to vim was mostly getting used to moving around and manipulating text, using some very basic text-based autocomplete, before eventually migrating to a "proper" setup years later. Since then, I honestly haven't touched my config much, so I'm sure there are smoother/better ways now.

Since then, I've used (neo)vim to write JavaScript (+HTML+CSS), Ruby, Go, Python, Rust, various other languages, but mostly Clojure/Script. When trying out a new language, I find some (neo)vim plugin that seems suitable and try it out. If it works well, great, otherwise try another one.

Re: I still like Sublime Text

#409

Post by james2doyle »

catwell wrote: post #136
ben-schaaf wrote: post #81

Sublime Text developer here, thank you for all the praise! I'm looking forward to what we can accomplish this year. If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer.

Hey! I'm a Sublime Text user since ST2 in 2011. I love ST (my last blog post is https://blog.separateconcerns.com/2025-01-04-teal-lsp-sublim... ) and I think the main thing lacking compared to the competition is the remote development experience. I work in AI so we typically work over SSH on machines with big GPUs. Most of my colleagues use VSCode because it has a very good Remote Development extension.

I actually have heard that working over a remote connection can be a pain. From what I've seen from other Sublime users is that they will usually just mount a drive and then edit off that. There are also a couple of SSH plugins that can be used. In the past, I've just downloaded the files I've needed and then used rsync or scp. Not slick, but it works.

Re: I still like Sublime Text

#410

Post by steve_adams_86 »

laserbeam wrote: post #311
blibble wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found this plugin works surprisingly well https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Debugger

Cool, but git integration in the editor was also cool until SublimeHQ decided to spin out a dedicated client for it. The only debugger I'm happy with right now (in terms of performance/features) is RemedyBG, but it's windows only and compiled languages only. In general, I mostly live with painfully slow debugging in VSCode. I would really love to see RemedyBG's dedicated debugging UI/UX approach refined by some group…

> Cool, but git integration in the editor was also cool until SublimeHQ decided to spin out a dedicated client for it.

Is it completely removed from Sublime Text?

I love merge, but the simplest controls like stage/unstage/commit/indicate file status seem kind of essential.

Having said that, Merge is far and away the best git UI I've used. It has saved my bacon a few times. I'm not terrible with git in the terminal (I use it there 98% of the time), but sometimes... I really don't want to be doing things without a decent visual representation of the mess and chaos, and intuitive access to the tools available. I get why they wanted to create Merge.

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