Comment by ss3000 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ss3000 | Hacker News Reader

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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.

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