by ewired on 6/8/22, 3:06 PM with 853 comments
by nathansobo on 6/8/22, 4:17 PM
We learned a lot with Atom and had a great time, but it always fell short of our vision. With Zed we're going to get it right. Written in Rust, custom native UI framework, engineered to be collaborative. Just starting our private alpha this week, so the timing of this announcement feels quite fitting.
Here's a talk I gave last month: https://youtu.be/wXT73bBr83s
by Doctor_Fegg on 6/8/22, 3:17 PM
But saying that you’ve decided to “sunset” or “archive” it, telling users to plan for their migration, seems counter to the notion that open source software forms part of a commons - something that Github, of all companies, should understand.
by jstx1 on 6/8/22, 3:10 PM
by brundolf on 6/8/22, 3:45 PM
But once I tried VSCode... man, there was no going back. It was infinitely more performant and cohesive. Atom (with IDE-like features installed) felt so sluggish by comparison. I think the main improvement was how opinionated VSCode and its extension APIs were; Atom extensions could have dependencies on each other. I remember you had to install an extension for generic IDE hover-overs and such, before installing the actual language plugin, and then there were competing standards for which generic hover-over framework each language wanted to use. It didn't just complicate the user-experience, I'm convinced this was the reason the editor would get so slow; the APIs were too low-level and all the plugins were fighting with each other instead of going through standard channels.
But, Atom will always have a special place in my heart. It blazed new trails in editor customizability (even if the degree ended up being its downfall, quite a bit of that legacy can still be found in VSCode). It invented the entire concept of web apps as desktop apps, which despite what some here would tell you, I think is a very good and important thing. And it always had such a fun, community feel to it that's been mostly lost with VSCode.
It was time, but I will miss it. I'll close off with the very cute and fun Atom 1.0 announcement video: https://youtu.be/Y7aEiVwBAdk
by joshstrange on 6/8/22, 3:31 PM
I had to help a developer setup deploys to a dev server from vscode the other day and I wanted to pull my hair out. I'll admit it's at least in part due to not using vscode myself but I was a heavy Sublime Text user which is very similar to vscode when it comes to how you find/configure plugins.
I understand that vscode is very powerful and infinitely extendable but I feel like I shouldn't have needed to try 4-5 different vscode plugins (all configured via json) before I found one that worked and did what I needed.
At least 2 of the top downloaded plugins when searching for "SFTP" were read-only/archived on GitHub, the top one had a "reloaded" version which was also discontinued from what I could tell.
I'm comparing this experience to IDEA which has this built in (including support for deploying to multiple servers at the same time) and all configurable in the GUI.
Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky but vscode seems to get unwieldy very quickly (plugin conflicts, not being able to tell what's doing what, writing almost all config in json). The plugin ecosystem seems to be much lower quality that I what I see in the Intellij product line. I guess I'm just not interested in "building my own IDE" and forever tweaking it, I'd much rather buy a product that does almost everything I need in a sane way.
by franciscop on 6/8/22, 5:06 PM
• Atom has not had significant feature development for the past several years
• (thus) Atom community involvement has declined significantly
• (thus) we’ve decided to sunset Atom
Feels a bit weird in that sequence to blame the community. Just say that YOU have abandoned the project since Microsoft acquired Github and get done with it, no need to sugarcoat it or others in the way.
by Atreiden on 6/8/22, 3:26 PM
But it's still really sad to see. I use it because it was trivial to CSS style it to match my Desktop. It's comfortable to me in a way that other editors thus far have not been.
Are there other editors with this level of customizability? I know VSCode and Sublime support theming but from what I can tell it involves installing pre-packaged themes.
by oefrha on 6/8/22, 3:51 PM
I still remember the day VSCode was announced, and the binary on macOS (inside ./Contents/MacOS in the app bundle) was literally named Atom.
by haolez on 6/8/22, 3:29 PM
by fartcannon on 6/8/22, 3:46 PM
by hdivider on 6/8/22, 10:18 PM
Your work made more impact than you can possibly know. Atom became my absolute #1 editor. For code, and notes of every possible kind. As an entrepreneur, it carried me through so many adventures. The death of a cofounder, great losses and victories, the madness of 2020, a close friend's betrayal, a subsequent rebirth of sorts, and on and on. And always, this trusty piece of software sat there. Ready whenever calamity struck.
Thank you, folks. You created a wondrous piece of art and greatly impacted this entrepreneur's way of thinking and organization. Many have gained as a result.
Will follow Zed closely!
by betamaxthetape on 6/8/22, 8:34 PM
by john-titor on 6/8/22, 9:14 PM
What I appreciate about Atom is that it is very simple right out of the box and does not get in your way. You cold always beef it up with packages later, but that progression is much more pleasant to me than the VSCode approach.
The biggest selling point of Atom to me as a Python dev was the Hydrogen package. That tight integration of notebook features within the editor is something I have never seen before and a total game changer. Especially if you are working with data that you might need to visualize a lot. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understand there is no Hydrogen equivalent in VSCode? Sure, there are plug-ins that let you run your code through a jupyter kernel and display the output in a second terminal pane, but that is not the same as the ability to simply highlight a bit of code, run that and have the results displayed immediately on the next line below. Having pyplot figures displayed in such a way is also not possible from what I saw, or did I miss something?
by tlhunter on 6/8/22, 3:42 PM
I see people complaining about the death of Atom, but in the past few years there just hasn't been a use case where Atom was the best choice.
by Dave3of5 on 6/8/22, 3:24 PM
I suspect that what actually killed this is the acquisition of Github by Microsoft and the fact that Microsoft are pushing VSCode very hard. Dev tooling is something Microsoft had a lot of experience (and failures) in and it was always an uphill battle.
by KronisLV on 6/8/22, 5:35 PM
I recall reading about typing latency and it seemed to come out as one of the slower options: https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/
I guess it would have occupied a similar place as Brackets, another vaguely similar project? https://brackets.io/
Then again, with how popular VSC has become and with how insanely many extensions there are for it, using any other editor feels a bit... counterproductive at times?
Personally, i'm using the following:
- CLI: nano (vim works too, I just like the simplicity more)
- Simple text editing: Notepad++ or similar (usually whatever is on the system on *nix)
- Some scripting, but nothing too serious: Visual Studio Code
- Development in larger and more complex codebases: JetBrains products (e.g. IntelliJ IDEA, WebStorm and so on)
by Gentil on 6/9/22, 1:39 AM
> Atom has not had significant feature development for the past several years, though we’ve conducted maintenance and security updates during this period to ensure we’re being good stewards of the project and product.
Because MS made sure it didn't get any?!
> As new cloud-based tools have emerged and evolved over the years,
Big player being VS Code and Codespaces?
> Atom community involvement has declined significantly.
Because MS made sure the community was NOT backed with actions?
> we are archiving Atom to prioritize technologies that enable the future of software development.
This should be the first sentence. Not last.
by gcau on 6/8/22, 3:48 PM
by eberkund on 6/8/22, 6:48 PM
Sure VS Code has a lot of extensions, but many of them offer only basic features or are poor quality. The extensions which deliver the most value are actually the ones supported by large corporations (like the Go extension from Google or the Python extension from Microsoft).
If another editor could port these powerful extensions I would care very little about the lack of icon themes and snippet extensions.
by ericd on 6/8/22, 3:41 PM
by Arubis on 6/8/22, 3:19 PM
by curiousmindz on 6/8/22, 3:17 PM
Since it is only happening in 6 months, I wonder if the community will try to transition/fork it.
Do you know if there is still enough interest?
by Animats on 6/8/22, 5:34 PM
by bellBivDinesh on 6/8/22, 3:50 PM
by meanmrmustard92 on 6/8/22, 9:12 PM
Anyone on HN have recs [besides vim slime or send-to-terminal options in other editors, which work but are clunky] ?
by Narann on 6/8/22, 3:46 PM
I'm reluctant to use VSCode because of M$ pushing for its tooling, but it looks like I will have no choice on the long run.
Is there anyone in the same boat? Which highly configurable text editor can be use for this?
by likortera on 6/8/22, 4:07 PM
https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman...
Not surprising. When this stuff happens is always lies because you plan for people to forget about stuff as times goes by, which usually happens.
by jlkuester7 on 6/8/22, 4:33 PM
by Night_Thastus on 6/8/22, 3:18 PM
by jimnotgym on 6/8/22, 4:52 PM
I think Electron is an amazing legacy to leave. Like many I would like it to use less resources, but it is still a grest idea.
by jonathaneunice on 6/8/22, 3:23 PM
If VS Code were not exceptionally good, Atom might have had more of an opportunity. But "yet another good option" is not enough to drive investment, sustain a community, and spin an ecosystem.
by ehayes on 6/8/22, 3:31 PM
by keewee7 on 6/8/22, 3:38 PM
by gtsnexp on 6/8/22, 4:04 PM
by mproud on 6/8/22, 3:14 PM
by maxpert on 6/8/22, 3:19 PM
by andrew_ on 6/8/22, 3:59 PM
by alaricus on 6/8/22, 4:54 PM
by emehex on 6/8/22, 5:21 PM
by chad_strategic on 6/8/22, 5:42 PM
I will not be switching to VsCode just on principal. Yes, I'm still using Github, so I guess I'm a walking contradiction.
I also understand the economics of this situation why keep Vscode and atom IDE can't co exist, i'm surprised it took so long.
This is the second software application that Microsoft has ruined, remember the incredibly awesome wunderlist?
by sam0x17 on 6/8/22, 7:27 PM
by OberstKrueger on 6/9/22, 6:34 AM
by alchermd on 6/8/22, 3:52 PM
by lionkor on 6/10/22, 10:55 AM
It's legacy the minute we don't feel like adding any more features to it.
I'm being snarky for the sake of clowning on corporations who do this.
I'm sure the choice of Rust was made on the shoulders of many existing issues in atom. However, it bothers me incredibly when a product advertises itself as being built with a specific language. If that's your main selling point (it's in the headline for zed.dev), maybe you're about to build something utterly irrelevant.
by ilovecaching on 6/8/22, 4:31 PM
by stjohnswarts on 6/8/22, 6:55 PM
by a1371 on 6/8/22, 3:44 PM
by albertzeyer on 6/8/22, 6:18 PM
But technically, as far as I know, they are both pretty similar.
So where is the difference? Are these just small details which VSCode got better? Or are there bigger things?
Or why else did VSCode actually won?
I have used both in the past. VSCode seemed a bit snappier, which is an important aspect for an editor. But I'm not sure if this was really the case actually. Or also, why there would be such a difference. Both used Electron, and I assumed both would use similar techniques for the editor.
by kylebarron on 6/8/22, 4:12 PM
by jhoelzel on 6/9/22, 7:23 AM
by dindresto on 6/8/22, 3:38 PM
by Matthias247 on 6/8/22, 5:53 PM
> It’s worth reflecting that Atom has served as the foundation for the Electron framework, which paved the way for the creation of thousands of apps, including Microsoft Visual Studio Code, Slack, and our very own GitHub Desktop.
This is so true! Atom spearheaded a new generation of exciting apps and set them up for success. That is a huge achievement on its own - so thanks Atom team for everything you have done!
by bilekas on 6/8/22, 9:08 PM
But when VSCode came along it was over for my time with Atom. Wish the best for the new spiritual successor though zed.dev.
by vjandrea on 6/8/22, 3:45 PM
by lozzo on 6/10/22, 9:17 AM
by whiskey14 on 6/8/22, 4:03 PM
by yeq on 6/8/22, 3:21 PM
by ionescu77 on 6/9/22, 12:20 PM
by stefanos82 on 6/8/22, 7:20 PM
by mshenfield on 6/11/22, 4:34 AM
by fungiblecog on 6/8/22, 8:00 PM
by marcodiego on 6/8/22, 5:34 PM
by sykp241095 on 6/9/22, 1:29 AM
by theteapot on 6/11/22, 8:10 PM
by mempko on 6/8/22, 3:50 PM
by pjmlp on 6/8/22, 3:34 PM
by trinsic2 on 6/8/22, 3:46 PM
by eftychis on 6/8/22, 8:36 PM
by mohas on 6/8/22, 7:46 PM
by fungiblecog on 6/8/22, 7:59 PM
by swlkr on 6/8/22, 4:42 PM
It was just such a nice editing experience.
Also never got on the vscode train and opted for neovim instead (been using vim and bindings since 2012)
by mattsouth on 6/8/22, 3:39 PM
by 7speter on 6/8/22, 7:50 PM
by spicysugar on 6/8/22, 7:38 PM
by mytailorisrich on 6/9/22, 9:16 AM
by db39 on 6/8/22, 4:34 PM
by wellsjohnston on 6/8/22, 8:33 PM
by josephcsible on 6/8/22, 6:47 PM
by peter_retief on 6/8/22, 3:40 PM
by robinsonrc on 6/8/22, 7:30 PM
by HouseOfBagels on 6/10/22, 3:59 AM
by slumber86 on 6/8/22, 3:31 PM
by dokem on 6/8/22, 7:00 PM
by HouseOfBagels on 6/10/22, 4:00 AM
by hexo on 6/8/22, 8:42 PM
by samstave on 6/8/22, 10:08 PM
by rubyist5eva on 6/8/22, 7:21 PM
by uneekname on 6/8/22, 4:09 PM
by tough on 6/8/22, 10:42 PM
by oxff on 6/8/22, 4:16 PM
by zanethomas on 6/8/22, 4:29 PM
by rvz on 6/8/22, 3:11 PM
Really expected and unsurprising.
by productceo on 6/8/22, 5:55 PM
by DarkContinent on 6/8/22, 7:21 PM
by ramesh31 on 6/8/22, 4:36 PM
by sakaroz on 6/8/22, 3:34 PM
by wly_cdgr on 6/8/22, 3:35 PM
The situation now is:
* Sublime for the Williamsburg corpo-hipsters
* emacs and vim for the wizards and furries
* VSCode for all the normies who just want to get on with doing their job and don't feel a need to express their identity or politics through choice of editor
* WebStorm for the chads with the monster rigs to run it
by adictator on 6/8/22, 4:40 PM