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Comment by untog | Hacker News Reader

Genuine, non-trolly question: why would I use Atom over Sublime Text?

I've used both and by and large they were very effective replacements for each other, but Atom had performance issues with large files so I went back to Sublime. What am I missing out on?

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Obvious reason: Open Source vs Closed Source.

All the usual Open vs Closed Source arguments apply.

Atom has a much better extension API, which can do a lot more. Here's a quick list of cool uses of the API:

    https://atom.io/packages/hydrogen
    https://atom.io/packages/merge-conflicts
    https://atom.io/packages/minimap
    https://atom.io/packages/color-picker
    https://atom.io/packages/markdown-preview-plus
    https://atom.io/packages/preview-inline
    https://atom.io/packages/pdf-view

If you don't utilize the API, IMO Atom is just a noticeably slower, slightly prettier version of Sublime Text.

I used Sublime for 6 years (I migrated when TextMate was obviously dead) and am just recently attempting to switch to Atom. The package manager is fantastic, and the git integration is very nice as well. It's much better now than when it first came out. It can be very sluggish though.

That said, it's missing two very important features from Sublime that I used constantly. First, you can't use it like a scratch pad like Sublime. In Sublime you can open a file, write stuff to it, and it will be persistent. Atom seems to have an option to save your current work, but can't be used this way from my experience. The second is it doesn't have multi-select like Sublime. You can't drag your mouse and have a bunch of different carets. That was TextMate's killer feature imo, and Sublime as well.

Atom isn't abandoned.

And neither is Sublime Text. There was a new dev build released just today and there have been new builds every week or so this year.

$70

True. I'd honestly forgotten that I paid for Sublime Text all that time ago.

Really? If you're a programmer you probably spend 6-16 hours a day in your text editor. An artist pays $120+ a year for Photoshop. They don't generally settle for gIMP. The 2 are barely comparable. Similarly construction workers don't use tools from the 99¢ store.

If you value your time you shouldn't look at a few hundred dollars as the difference between using some software and not. That software is a force multiplier.

I'm not saying sublime text is better than atom. I'm only saying that price should not be the reason to choose something you use several hours a day.

You're kind of missing the essential part of alternatives here, and that argument also is a slippery slope. With the same logic, it might make sense to spend thousands of dollars on something you use for your job the majority of your day. Besides that though, yes, I agree it would make sense to spend $70 on a text editor that you use every day for many hours a day, but only if it is the single best option on the market. If someone believes that Atom is equally good, then no, it is not worth it to spend $70 on sublime text.

I wish one could flag questions. This discussion was done in hundreds of Atom related HN threads. Please look them up.

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