Atom(atom.io)
atom.io
Atom
http://atom.io/
641 comments
I was all ready to be skeptical and everything... but this could actually be amazing.
I currently use Chocolat for code editing, which is beautifully elegant and I love it, but there are 25 little tiny things that I really wish I could fix. I file issues, but the developers rightly have their own priorities. It's closed-source, but even if it were open source, I'm not about to learn how to use XCode and Objective C and figure out how to compile and whatnot.
But if Atom is ultimately just a big collection of straight-up node.js files, and anyone can go in at any time to change a line here or there -- and it's in JavaScript, so it couldn't be easier for programmers in general -- and there's no compilation step or anything -- then it's almost a fundamental paradigm shift for what desktop software could be.
It already makes me dream of a word processor I could hack like that, or a music player. Just by opening up a text editor. It's an inspiring thought.
I currently use Chocolat for code editing, which is beautifully elegant and I love it, but there are 25 little tiny things that I really wish I could fix. I file issues, but the developers rightly have their own priorities. It's closed-source, but even if it were open source, I'm not about to learn how to use XCode and Objective C and figure out how to compile and whatnot.
But if Atom is ultimately just a big collection of straight-up node.js files, and anyone can go in at any time to change a line here or there -- and it's in JavaScript, so it couldn't be easier for programmers in general -- and there's no compilation step or anything -- then it's almost a fundamental paradigm shift for what desktop software could be.
It already makes me dream of a word processor I could hack like that, or a music player. Just by opening up a text editor. It's an inspiring thought.
> A hackable text editor for the 21st century
I'll fix: A proprietary (unhackable) text editor that only runs on OS X.
I imagine that web developers will drool over this.
I'll fix: A proprietary (unhackable) text editor that only runs on OS X.
I imagine that web developers will drool over this.
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.
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.
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.
On the other hand, the more the better, but we have already too many editors around.
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 gained a lot of traction, or could do stuff that I couldn't do with Sublime.
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 gained a lot of traction, or could do stuff that I couldn't do with Sublime.
Metrics is an interesting package. It reports usage stats to Google Analytics, referenced by a hash of the machine's MAC address:
http://atom.io/packages/metrics
http://atom.io/packages/metrics
To help us improve the editor, Atom sends usage information to Google Analytics. See [atom/metrics](https://github.com/atom/metrics) for details.
More data going to Google without opting in first? Bummer.
More data going to Google without opting in first? Bummer.
No mention of supported platforms, but the documentation refers to keyboard shortcuts like "cmd-shift-P". This isn't Mac-only, is it?
I'm really sad to see that they totally blew it.
The performance of a webapp with the accessibility of a desktop app. Not to mention that it's closed source. This is a tremendous step backwards.
Looking at the implementation of the open sourced packages is discouraging as well. It looks like they are using a Backbone inspired jQuery infested nightmare of clientside MVC.
Maybe my bitterness comes from the fact that I've already been down that road and it leads to a bad place.
Here's an editor that has deep Github integration, runs in the browser, and self hosts: http://www.danielx.net/editor
Maybe I just live too far in the future.
The performance of a webapp with the accessibility of a desktop app. Not to mention that it's closed source. This is a tremendous step backwards.
Looking at the implementation of the open sourced packages is discouraging as well. It looks like they are using a Backbone inspired jQuery infested nightmare of clientside MVC.
Maybe my bitterness comes from the fact that I've already been down that road and it leads to a bad place.
Here's an editor that has deep Github integration, runs in the browser, and self hosts: http://www.danielx.net/editor
Maybe I just live too far in the future.
Apparently this was almost 6 years in the making. https://twitter.com/defunkt/status/438791340222971904
"Our goal is a zero-compromise combination of hackability and usability"
I can see a huge compromise in hackability - its core is closed source.
I can see a huge compromise in hackability - its core is closed source.
Imagine Linus had used that sort of license for git. There would be no github, no nothing. I don't get it. Take for free, build a million dollar business and then make your own stuff closed...
I've just had play around with the beta. It looks like it's using a version of CodeMirror 4 (as it has multiple ranges). Fairly fast but it doesn't match Sublime Text just yet
Initial impressions: it's early days but this thing is just oozing for customisation. The fact it's written in JS means writing packages is pretty simple compared to Python for ST; we're going to see TONNES of addons for it. I can already think of 2-3 I'd like to build.
The one thing that really excites me is how people getting into programming could start off with a pretty basic editor and add and write packages as they hone their skills, ending with something incredible powerful and tailored to them. In fact I'd really love to see a super customised starter version for children / beginners that acts as a learning aid as well as a text editor.
No doubt there's going to be haters in the vim / emacs / ST / insert favourite editor here camp but I really hope this works out for the Github guys (and I have a feeling it will).
Initial impressions: it's early days but this thing is just oozing for customisation. The fact it's written in JS means writing packages is pretty simple compared to Python for ST; we're going to see TONNES of addons for it. I can already think of 2-3 I'd like to build.
The one thing that really excites me is how people getting into programming could start off with a pretty basic editor and add and write packages as they hone their skills, ending with something incredible powerful and tailored to them. In fact I'd really love to see a super customised starter version for children / beginners that acts as a learning aid as well as a text editor.
No doubt there's going to be haters in the vim / emacs / ST / insert favourite editor here camp but I really hope this works out for the Github guys (and I have a feeling it will).
Turns out it's going to be payware, closed-source only while the rest of their community gets to build and support it. http://discuss.atom.io/t/why-is-atom-closed-source/82/9
But who's going to buy an editor that can't even open a 1 MiB file? http://discuss.atom.io/t/unable-to-open-files-more-than-1mb/...
Moreover, besides code posers and managers, who is going to throw away all their knowledge and time configuring the editor they were using?
But who's going to buy an editor that can't even open a 1 MiB file? http://discuss.atom.io/t/unable-to-open-files-more-than-1mb/...
Moreover, besides code posers and managers, who is going to throw away all their knowledge and time configuring the editor they were using?
A common thread or line of argument that I find when reading about new editors is their out-of-the-box ease of use compared to Emacs and Vim. For example, a quote from the Atom blog:
>Sublime and TextMate offer convenience but only limited extensibility. On the other end of the spectrum, Emacs and Vim offer extreme flexibility, but they aren't very approachable and can only be customized with special-purpose scripting languages.
It doesn't seem like they (and many others) are denying that Emacs and Vim are excellent editors. Why is ease of use such an important issue for text editors? Emacs isn't terribly difficult to use, but if my livelihood and the majority of my time is tied to what tools I use, then it's worth the investment of time. I don't think I've met an Emacs user who has put in the effort of learning Elisp and customizing Emacs to their liking ever deny the benefits of learning it in the first place. Yes, it's a pain in the ass initially. I quit Emacs twice before I became determined to stop whining and spend quality time learning about tooling.
There is no doubt that Emacs has a steep learning curve and perhaps that's because its developers have a higher expectation of its users. I would argue that these expectations are easily matched by the capabilities of a competent programmer.
>Sublime and TextMate offer convenience but only limited extensibility. On the other end of the spectrum, Emacs and Vim offer extreme flexibility, but they aren't very approachable and can only be customized with special-purpose scripting languages.
It doesn't seem like they (and many others) are denying that Emacs and Vim are excellent editors. Why is ease of use such an important issue for text editors? Emacs isn't terribly difficult to use, but if my livelihood and the majority of my time is tied to what tools I use, then it's worth the investment of time. I don't think I've met an Emacs user who has put in the effort of learning Elisp and customizing Emacs to their liking ever deny the benefits of learning it in the first place. Yes, it's a pain in the ass initially. I quit Emacs twice before I became determined to stop whining and spend quality time learning about tooling.
There is no doubt that Emacs has a steep learning curve and perhaps that's because its developers have a higher expectation of its users. I would argue that these expectations are easily matched by the capabilities of a competent programmer.
It could be really great. I wonder if Jon Skinner knew, and said to himself "Welp, I might as well stop with Sublime". However, Sublime is (mostly) blazingly fast. I don't expect this from a node based app, especially in Windows. And: I didn't see it under Features, but Atom definitely needs the command palette from Sublime baked into core. Only if it's core, plugin authors will set their hooks correctly from the beginning. Or even better, there might be a flexible command api that exposes each plugin's commands from the start and can be extended too. -> edit: the readme says it has Command Palette. Great! Also, since the term is identical with Sublime Text, I wonder if there's more to it than inspiration.
Nice to see some innovate architecture for an editor but this product launch reminds me to product launches from Apple or Google: it doesn't matter what product or feature is shown, there is always tons of premature praise.
If an unknown third party came up with Atom it would have never gotten that attention.
ST3 is a very good product viewed from any angle and VIM either—it will be hard to beat these reference products. I love Node/npm and again the stack sounds great but I don't know if this stack will be much easier to extend than something like ST3 or VIM.
What I have seen from a product perspective on the Atom landing page does not blow me away, not at all. And it is wether free nor open source.
But it's from Github and that's reason enough to vote it up.
If an unknown third party came up with Atom it would have never gotten that attention.
ST3 is a very good product viewed from any angle and VIM either—it will be hard to beat these reference products. I love Node/npm and again the stack sounds great but I don't know if this stack will be much easier to extend than something like ST3 or VIM.
What I have seen from a product perspective on the Atom landing page does not blow me away, not at all. And it is wether free nor open source.
But it's from Github and that's reason enough to vote it up.
As was speculated in the other thread the beta looks like it will be closed, there's a "request and invite" form on the page.
Others noted that the source mentioned "free during beta", I certainly hope that's not the case and it's truly FOSS. Sublime Text development has slowed significantly recently and the community can't continue to drive it since it's closed.
Funnily enough, Sublime Text was born out of Textmate development slowing, and I can't seem to shake that vibe here too.
Others noted that the source mentioned "free during beta", I certainly hope that's not the case and it's truly FOSS. Sublime Text development has slowed significantly recently and the community can't continue to drive it since it's closed.
Funnily enough, Sublime Text was born out of Textmate development slowing, and I can't seem to shake that vibe here too.
I can't tell from this page whether it's open source -- I hope it is.
I don't like how it looks like Sublime text... couldn't they have designed something new?
> Emacs and Vim offer extreme flexibility, but they aren't very approachable and can only be customized with special-purpose scripting languages.
Only? I can point to a large number of Python, Ruby and Perl plugins for Vim. Unless they are considering those special-purpose and nodejs is the only truly flexible scripting language.
Only? I can point to a large number of Python, Ruby and Perl plugins for Vim. Unless they are considering those special-purpose and nodejs is the only truly flexible scripting language.
The blog post: http://blog.atom.io/2014/02/26/introducing-atom.html
Atom is a cargo cult.
Atom is eventually a dead end. They are paying lip service to eventually partially opensourcing it.
It is the opposite direction of the magic of git, which enables easy sharing and collaboration.
Beware the promise of later opensourcing of projects. Without an early commitment, the developers of atom will invariably include proprietary software to ease development which will preclude later opensourcing.
You are better off taking the hard road and investing your time in tools that are not cargo cults.
Atom is eventually a dead end. They are paying lip service to eventually partially opensourcing it.
It is the opposite direction of the magic of git, which enables easy sharing and collaboration.
Beware the promise of later opensourcing of projects. Without an early commitment, the developers of atom will invariably include proprietary software to ease development which will preclude later opensourcing.
You are better off taking the hard road and investing your time in tools that are not cargo cults.
Apparently github will be charging for it and it will not be fully open source.
http://discuss.atom.io/t/why-is-atom-closed-source/82/9
http://discuss.atom.io/t/why-is-atom-closed-source/82/9
I've been observing the reactions to this over several communities and I find it all to be rather interesting! [ Warning; meta comment incoming ]
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1z0ykn/atom_lau...
Almost every single comment is negative, dismissive, one liners filled with half truths and very few child comments seek to rectify any misinformation or support a discussion.
The first and by far most-upvoted with a 700 point margin.
>I must be out of touch with modern development. I don't understand the thought process that leads people to be excited about a closed source, node.js text editor that reports your usage to Google.
It suggests the user simply scanned over other comments, glanced at atom's site and proceeded to regurgitate karma bait. I suppose it says a lot about the attention span of these people as there are also highly voted "tl;dr" request comments.
A perfect example of misinformation:
>[ unquietwiki 70 points] Isn't Brackets this already? Node.js/Chromium app with plugin support? > --- [ MrSenorSan 67 points] yup, but atom is not open source yay! wait a min... > --- [ kmeisthax 17 points ] Yes, but with Atom, you have the priviledge of paying GitHub money for a software product in a market with numerous competent free and Free Software options.
The supply of vitriol is unending.
It was the same with the /g/ thread, though surprisingly not quite as bad.
http://archive.rebeccablacktech.com/g/thread/S40550074
My point is, stay classy Hacker News. While you may even have similar opinions with these communities, the reception in this thread has been far more exciting and you put effort into your discussions. The contrast is massive, and especially interesting considering this is one the highest upvoted articles on HN, sitting alongside Neovim. suggesting we desperately want to replace our editors.
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1z0ykn/atom_lau...
Almost every single comment is negative, dismissive, one liners filled with half truths and very few child comments seek to rectify any misinformation or support a discussion.
The first and by far most-upvoted with a 700 point margin.
>I must be out of touch with modern development. I don't understand the thought process that leads people to be excited about a closed source, node.js text editor that reports your usage to Google.
It suggests the user simply scanned over other comments, glanced at atom's site and proceeded to regurgitate karma bait. I suppose it says a lot about the attention span of these people as there are also highly voted "tl;dr" request comments.
A perfect example of misinformation:
>[ unquietwiki 70 points] Isn't Brackets this already? Node.js/Chromium app with plugin support? > --- [ MrSenorSan 67 points] yup, but atom is not open source yay! wait a min... > --- [ kmeisthax 17 points ] Yes, but with Atom, you have the priviledge of paying GitHub money for a software product in a market with numerous competent free and Free Software options.
The supply of vitriol is unending.
It was the same with the /g/ thread, though surprisingly not quite as bad.
http://archive.rebeccablacktech.com/g/thread/S40550074
My point is, stay classy Hacker News. While you may even have similar opinions with these communities, the reception in this thread has been far more exciting and you put effort into your discussions. The contrast is massive, and especially interesting considering this is one the highest upvoted articles on HN, sitting alongside Neovim. suggesting we desperately want to replace our editors.
Eclipse is massively modifiable but everyone hates it because of bloat. You see this kind of thing starts off with good intentions and then all the plugin madness gets going and suddenly everyone gets revolted and charges off to embrace the next great "lightweight" editor.
This might make developing on chromebook viable.
Seems like quite a weird priority for GitHub to dedicate resources into creating Yet Another Text Editor.
I don't know, I can't see how this is a priority for them...
I don't know, I can't see how this is a priority for them...
So it's light table without Chris Granger, for better or worse..
------
Hearing a disturbance, the master programmer went into the novice's cubicle.
"Curse these personal computers!" cried the novice in anger, "To make them do anything I must use three or even four editing programs. Sometimes I get so confused that I erase entire files. This is truly intolerable!"
The master programmer stared at the novice. "And what would you do to remedy this state of affairs?" he asked.
The novice thought for a moment. "I will design a new editing program," he said, "a program that will replace all these others."
Suddenly the master struck the novice on the side of his head. It was not a heavy blow, but the novice was nonetheless surprised. "What did you do that for?" exclaimed the novice.
"I have no wish to learn another editing program," said the master.
And suddenly the novice was enlightened.