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Microsoft owns Github. Microsoft owns VS Code. VS Code is superior to Atom. Do you need an official comment? It seems abundantly obvious to me.

Nat is the CEO of GitHub, not Microsoft, and despite any promises made on a Reddit AMA a year ago, why would they devote resources to two competing editors?

All I really want is to hear an explanation from Nat Friedman, CEO of GitHub, the human being, who said he wouldn't pull resources away from Atom development and then evidently did so soon after, to end all this needless speculation once and for all (and what you've suggested in your comment is still speculation, however plausible it might seem to you).

It offers very little solace to the few Atom users still hanging on, but I think the least he could do is end the speculation, and provide some certainty on Atom's future as a GitHub/Microsoft funded project so we could decide to either move on or stick around for longer.

Please realize that there still hasn't been an official statement that Atom's development at GitHub/Microsoft has been halted/dramatically reduced, or that they hope to transition it into a community led project, or anything to that effect.

I hope an official nail in the proverbial coffin is not too much to ask for.

EDIT: This comment was a lot snarkier in an earlier iteration. In hindsight, I realize that was in bad taste, so I've reworded it and adjusted the tone. I don't think being needlessly confrontational adds any substance to the discussion here (or anywhere else for that matter), so I would like to apologize for that and hopefully de-escalate so we can resume civil discourse.

> It offers very little solace to the few Atom users still hanging on

This is kind of hilarious. What are you hanging on for? It's damn editor. Pick a new one and move on.

Sometimes my wife wants an explanation from me the human being who said he would take the trash out but then never did.

Then maybe you should own up to the consequences of the choice you made and explain your reasoning for not fulfilling the promise that you made.

I did. I was playing Factorio and all of a sudden it was 3am.

Why does he owe you an explanation for a product that was free? Its posts like this that convince him that open source isn't worth contributing to.

Gosh, you have completely misunderstood the point of this comment.

The comment is not asking for an explanation about supporting an open source product.

They're asking for an explanation about promising continuing support for something and then apparently doing nothing to back that claim up.

You seem to be implying that integrity in public statements should only apply if you're referring to non-free commercial software.

Nothing is free. Accountability matters.

You have the explanation laid out pretty well by chipotle_coyote in the comments of one of your linked posts.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22601557

Specifically:

> But the words of the linked Reddit comment from Nat Friedman were "we will continue to develop and support both Atom and VS Code going forward"; that's a true statement today. Atom is currently being developed and supported. That's a case of adhering to the letter of the statement rather than the spirit, I know. But that circles around to the problem of VSCode's rapid ascent in mindshare -- if your company ends up owning two very similar editors and they both have roughly equal downloads and community interest, you might try to support both equally. But if one of them has orders of magnitude more downloads and community interest than the other, you're going to focus your efforts on the popular one.

This is the second time I've seen a comment from you complaining about Atom development when an unrelated Github article is posted. What's the purpose of these posts? Do you expect Github to start funding active development of Atom again?

If not, what's the goal of the complaints? I.e. why do you keep bringing this up if you know this is water under the bridge?

I'm a github user, though I wouldn't call myself a fan exactly, and I don't really know how "teams" works or why it's valuable. I came to this thread to learn more, and I find your comments grousing about Atom again. Hence my question.

Um... I think you might have me confused with someone else?

I looked through my own post history and it looks like I did reply in a thread about this topic a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22606843

(same thread that I linked above)

I can only speak for myself as to why I posted here. And I really just want an answer for the question I posted (I'm not naive enough to believe a post like this has any chance of changing project priorities at a megacorp). I wrote about this in a bit more detail here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22875388

And judging from the upvotes, a decent number of people want the same question answered. If you don't care about the answer, my recommendation would be to simply collapse the thread, downvote if you must, and move on.

I'm honestly puzzled as to why so many people seem to be actually offended by the very fact that I'm asking the question, and even seem to be taking it somewhat personally, even though it's not directed at anyone other than the OP.

> I'm honestly puzzled as to why so many people seem to be actually offended by the very fact that I'm asking the question

Comment quality and civility has dropped in the last few months.

I don't use or even like Atom but if this natfriedman says it will be continue to be supported post-merger, then it isn't, then he needs to clear the air.

I did confuse you with someone else. lewisl9029 opened this question last time, you were further down thread, apologies.

Mostly I'm curious, just like you. You're curious "what happened to Atom development", I'm curious why people bring this question up over and over on unrelated GH threads when they already seem to know the answer–to wit: active feature development on Atom by Github/MSFT has stopped and will not resume.

I don't see the point of derailing threads/starting editor flame wars over this question, but I am frequently missing some crucial point. So I ask: What am I missing? What's the point of these "what about atom!!" questions when you know the answer already?

I think you're taking that specific opening question a bit too literally (though to be fair, I'm also at fault for not being as direct as I could have been with my point). It's fairly clear from the rest of my post and from the linked posts that I'm fully aware that Github/MSFT-funded Atom development has mostly grounded to a halt.

These are the actual questions I'm trying to get at:

What made Github/MSFT stop funding Atom development when their CEO went on record to say they won't?

And why haven't they announced that was the case officially?

If the very same CEO then goes on an AMA on Hacker News, surely it's fair game hold him accountable to previous public statements and ask him to clear the air. If this was just some random scrub posting their thoughts on the acquisition I definitely wouldn't have wasted my time to bring this up.

Makes sense that you'd like some sort of apology or mea culpa from the CEO, who has not been completely forthright. I know you don't want answers from me specifically, but here's my thoughts:

> What made Github/MSFT stop funding Atom development when their CEO went on record to say they won't?

Because circumstances changed and it made no sense to continue to do this. Atom shrank as VSCode grew by leaps and bounds, there's no clear business case for continuing to develop a withering product.

> And why haven't they announced that was the case officially?

Why would they? Why go out of their way to print upsetting news (to some) in a 40pt headline, when the writing is already on the wall for anyone who cares to read it? i.e. what's the benefit to the company of doing this?

I think the better question for the Github CEO was "why did you ever promise to continue supporting Atom? You either knew this was not possible, or were making a promise you could not keep, either one is bad." And the answer to that is probably "to avoid creating a furor around cutting Atom off at the same time as the acquisition was announced." But yeah hearing him say that would be useful.

I gave up on Atom this month because of the lack of development. Too bad really.

I gave up on Atom when it was released because it was the most slow editor I have ever seen. It single handy bias me against Electron app until I discover VSCode.

Slow or no slow, I couldn't understand how it works. Windows kept opening wherever one least expected it, i got multiple copies of tabs with some introductory help text when i just wanted to get back to my project etc.

For once, I'm not going to complain that something is made in Electron :) It was unusable to me in other ways too.

VSCode is electron-based.

This is precisely what he is saying.