Every time Atom is discussed, it's pointed out how slow it is, and then others point out how VS Code is much faster yet is also based on Electron. Could someone explain what makes VS Code significantly faster?
Full disclosure: Every time I try Atom I decide to stick with Sublime Text, largely because Atom feels slow. I've never tried VS Code myself.
Why haven't you tried VS Code? Relatively small download, fast install, free and open source. You could install it in just a little more time than it takes to post this question. https://code.visualstudio.com/
Disclaimer: I work for m-dollar. My commission rate is 0.0% and VS Code is free, so I am hoping to make it up in volume.
Atom and VS Code only share the Electron environment, but the actual way they've implemented the editor rendering and interaction is completely different. Basically, all that VS Code shows is that it's not the JS/Chrome environment that's the bottleneck, it's the editor implementation itself.
Just flat-out more efficient code may have a lot to do with it (I have not deeply explored the codebase for either project). However, I suspect that the larger reason is that Atom ships with a ton of plugins enabled by default, whereas VS Code ships relatively lean.
If you look the settings in Atom, it tells you specifically how many milliseconds each plugin adds to startup time. They REALLY add up. Install even more plugins to customize your editor, and it rapidly enters IDE bloat territory.
All that being said, VS Code recently launched a plugin marketplace of its own. I've installed Vim emulation and a couple of others, and really haven't noticed any increase in startup time.
I used Atom for a while then switched to VSCode. Atom always felt a little "wrong" after Sublime. It works perfectly but there is this feeling of heaviness on all interfaces, scrolling etc.
VSCode works great, completely replaced both Atom and Sublime for me. Give it a shot sometime.
I wonder if the major Atom users are working with nicer repos than those who lament that they can't use it. The ideal project would maybe be a max of 3 or 4 levels deep (but fewer in most part) with 5-20 folders/files in each folder, and most files less than 200 lines and all less than 1000 lines. A lot of repos are not like this though - they have too much crap in them.
I never understood why everyone complains about atom's speed on HN. I have been using it for 3 years as my default editor with lots of plugins, never experienced performance issues.
The people with complaints about performance issues are the people coming from Sublime Text.
Everything you do in Sublime is done instantly. Try opening the command panel (ctrl+shift+p) both in sublime and atom. At least a 300ms difference. Multiple cursors, switching to different panels (I can see the whole pane getting rendered in front of my eyes -- not instant!), even things like loading the list of installable plugins or installing a plugin is far, __far__ faster in sublime, assuming package control, compared to Atom!
Sublime also has this insane feature where no matter how many plugins you have installed, Sublime will still start up in about 200-300 milliseconds, as fast as notepad on Windows and faster than gedit on linux. Atom only goes slower and slower and slower the more plugins you install.
When you're used to an editor that does everything instantly, everything that takes longer than 200ms takes too long.
When I'm working in Atom, it always feels like I'm an accidental click away from a hang. Open the wrong file and hang.
A wrong file could be something too big for Atom to open, or just a smallish XML file with all of its contents on one line. Either will lock Atom for a while on a high-spec MacBook Pro.
Other than that, I agree it's pretty fast for most things.
I stopped using atom last week. It crashed too many times on me even though I like it's feature set. Went back to trusty old sublime, Atom is crash-prone and slow.
Maybe it is because of the extensions I installed but they were all popular. If so then Atom should track crashes and correlate with extensions or something like that.
I tried to like Atom two or three times, but it was simply too slow and too buggy. Visual Studio Code is much faster and I haven't encountered severe bugs so far.
I share with others and recognize all the problems with atom. It's so incredibly slow on my strained workstation, especially with large files. And yet, same thing happened to me: it's become my default GUI editor.
I used VIM / Atom for a long time but after switching to Webstorm I just can't look back. I don't even use crazy IDE features but the click/symbol mapping and knowing what's in use or not is really dope. Atom didn't have anything that sophisticated when I used it. There was a click to tag thing but it wasn't as thorough as webstorm.
I really like how easy it is to customize Atom. I'm over "OCD" about syntax highlighting and I love how all I need to do is add some CSS and I'm done. I know it sound small, but it's a very friendly environment if you're a web dev. I still haven't made the full switch from Sublime but I'm using Atom more and more.
I finally gave up with atom this week, after switching between st3, atom, rubymine and vs code I deleted all of them and just started using vim with spf13. I liked atom and its vim-mode _alot_ but its handling of tags even with atom-ctags never worked for me.
They do mention "rendering and performance improvements", and the linked pull request [1] mentions "much faster cold startup time and general increase in responsiveness".
I don't know if that means it's fast enough to replace other editors now, but it's promising.
This beta version of Atom introduces several important changes that will bring performance and reliability improvements to the editor, as well as some new features we are really excited about. We recommend you check it out! :sparkles:"
[+] [-] kbd|9 years ago|reply
Full disclosure: Every time I try Atom I decide to stick with Sublime Text, largely because Atom feels slow. I've never tried VS Code myself.
[+] [-] jongalloway2|9 years ago|reply
Disclaimer: I work for m-dollar. My commission rate is 0.0% and VS Code is free, so I am hoping to make it up in volume.
[+] [-] rmccue|9 years ago|reply
There's some discussion in this Atom ticket: https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/10188
[+] [-] slimsag|9 years ago|reply
I still wouldn't switch to VS code because by design[1] you can't open multiple folders in the same window, which destroys my workflow.
[1] http://stackoverflow.com/a/30234987/5905344
[+] [-] StevePerkins|9 years ago|reply
If you look the settings in Atom, it tells you specifically how many milliseconds each plugin adds to startup time. They REALLY add up. Install even more plugins to customize your editor, and it rapidly enters IDE bloat territory.
All that being said, VS Code recently launched a plugin marketplace of its own. I've installed Vim emulation and a couple of others, and really haven't noticed any increase in startup time.
[+] [-] shalabhc|9 years ago|reply
It's newish but very stable and uses Lua (not Javascript) as the extension language. It is very lightweight and faster than Atom.
Disclosure: I'm one of the contributors.
[+] [-] eknkc|9 years ago|reply
VSCode works great, completely replaced both Atom and Sublime for me. Give it a shot sometime.
[+] [-] benatkin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayiner|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ngrilly|9 years ago|reply
I'm wondering the same every time someone writes VS Code is faster than Atom (which is true in my experience): yes, but why?
[+] [-] lucisferre|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] obilgic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] azeirah|9 years ago|reply
Everything you do in Sublime is done instantly. Try opening the command panel (ctrl+shift+p) both in sublime and atom. At least a 300ms difference. Multiple cursors, switching to different panels (I can see the whole pane getting rendered in front of my eyes -- not instant!), even things like loading the list of installable plugins or installing a plugin is far, __far__ faster in sublime, assuming package control, compared to Atom!
Sublime also has this insane feature where no matter how many plugins you have installed, Sublime will still start up in about 200-300 milliseconds, as fast as notepad on Windows and faster than gedit on linux. Atom only goes slower and slower and slower the more plugins you install.
When you're used to an editor that does everything instantly, everything that takes longer than 200ms takes too long.
[+] [-] slimsag|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runako|9 years ago|reply
A wrong file could be something too big for Atom to open, or just a smallish XML file with all of its contents on one line. Either will lock Atom for a while on a high-spec MacBook Pro.
Other than that, I agree it's pretty fast for most things.
[+] [-] gtallen1187|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhouston|9 years ago|reply
Maybe it is because of the extensions I installed but they were all popular. If so then Atom should track crashes and correlate with extensions or something like that.
[+] [-] cryptos|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _RPM|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _8obc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfischer|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sotojuan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbailey5|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epmatsw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mohsinr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rosstex|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rspeer|9 years ago|reply
I don't know if that means it's fast enough to replace other editors now, but it's promising.
[1] https://github.com/atom/atom/pull/11474
[+] [-] voltagex_|9 years ago|reply
This beta version of Atom introduces several important changes that will bring performance and reliability improvements to the editor, as well as some new features we are really excited about. We recommend you check it out! :sparkles:"
[+] [-] angry-hacker|9 years ago|reply
The only excuse you can is 'but it's Foss'.
[+] [-] krisdol|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] hartator|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krisdol|9 years ago|reply