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Comment by boromi | Hacker News Reader

Wholeheartedly agree. I just tested this new version out.

I really keep trying to use Atom, but it's just unacceptable currently when compared to Sublime. Very slow startups and laggy. This new version takes 5-10 seconds before I can start coding, that's far too slow. With every update I keep hoping things are faster, but only marginally so. VS code loads in less than 3 seconds and is a lot more snappy.

I don't understand why they don't address this issue as the highest priority problem. It's by far the most complained about issue. If the MS guys can make VS code launch that fast I don't see anything holding back Atom (save maybe coffeescript :P (tongue in cheek)).

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5-10 seconds seems slow. Atom for me launches in 3ish seconds. VSCode marginally faster than Atom to launch. Sublime around .5 of a second.

None of those are deal breakers for me.

> This new version takes 5-10 seconds before I can start coding, that's far too slow.

Last time I had to launch Atom was when 1.8 was released. In the use case where you leave the editor running this startup time isn't a problem.

I would love to see how many petabytes of RAM your installation is using.

I've never even seen Atom get into the top 20. Two windows, 5 panes, about 50 open files of Erlang and C#.

I suppose there are limits to Electron launch time ?

VS Code and Atom both launch a 'full' browser and server, html, css, js and the whole shebang to make all of that work; while Sublime is compiled C++ (with a python API).

Why is waiting 5-10 seconds for your editor to open such a problem?

Yeah I never resonated with this complaint. I guess if you are constantly opening different directories/files I could see it being annoying, but I end up opening it once in the morning when I get into the office and it is up all day.

For the same reason waiting 1-2 minutes for your laptop to boot is.

Also because people often open/close tons of small files during the day instead of opening a project and working on it for hours.

Plus, the slugginess extends beyond startup time, into working with large files (were large = puny for other editors' standard) and other activities.

The analogy to boot times reminds me of this story: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Saving_Lives.txt

It is a shame people don't value users time like this any more.

When my laptop is booting I'm usually fetching coffee. Most of the time I just crack the lid, it wakes up, and all my editors are still running anyway. I probably boot an app like Atom once or twice a week. Plenty of tools I use (PHPStorm, vagrant boxes, VMware) all take way longer than 5 seconds to load and that has no noticeable impact on my productivity or happiness.

It seems silly to me for someone to adopt a strategy of opening/closing Atom (instead of reusing an open instance) and then complain about how long it takes to boot. You don't park your car at red lights and turn off the engine, then complain about how long it takes to pull away when the lights turn green.

> Plus, the slugginess extends beyond startup time, into working with large files (were large = puny for other editors' standard) and other activities.

This I totally get. If this is someone's use case, they probably shouldn't be using Atom.

I don't mean to rail on you in particular, I just always found the "oh it takes so long to start" complaint to be a silly one. It's such a minor thing. Atom is really good for a bunch of use cases, it's a shame that people write it off for this stupid reason.

I fetch coffee when I want coffee. I don't plan my schedule around waiting for things that have no reason not to be completely instantaneous. I avoid any tool that takes longer than 100ms or so to start up. Anything slower than that is completely unacceptable at this point in the history of computing.

> It seems silly to me for someone to adopt a strategy of opening/closing Atom (instead of reusing an open instance) and then complain about how long it takes to boot.

That's not what happens. They looked at the tool, stated it doesn't meet their needs, explained why, and then _did not adopt the tool_. The Atom folks can decide they don't want those users or they can address their abominable startup time, but you can't suggest "change how you do everything" and hope to win friends or users.

> You don't park your car at red lights and turn off the engine, then complain about how long it takes to pull away when the lights turn green.

You didn't, until car startup time was optimized enough that modern cars do turn off the engine at red lights to save resources, then turn it back on when you put your foot down.

Because it should open instantly. The fact that it take 5 seconds implies a level of bloat that is unacceptable in well designed software.

Also 5 seconds is enough for my attention to maybe wander. Not every time but often enough to waste minutes of productivity per day. It all adds up. Amazon found that each extra millisecond delay causes customers to navigate away from the page. It isn't laziness just human nature.

Because I don't want multiple editors in my workflow, one for opening projects, another for opening single .txt or .log files (by right click, open with), I don't want to wait 5-10 secs before opening these single files and I don't want Atom opened all the time either, its a RAM guzzler. Sublime fits the bill perfectly, blazing fast and lot of plugins.

Time is the stuff life is made of.

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