[miffy900]

Just wanted to mention that some basic Windows-OS keyboard shortcuts don't work, like ALT+F to open the File menu. Also things like ALT+SPACEBAR to bring up the system context menu for the focussed window (the menu with maximise, minimise, close options etc.) do not seem to work. I'm guessing with the DirectX rendering backend, the 'app' is rendered more akin to a video game than a native win32 process.

Also after install, the install directory takes up 400MB+. Even VSCode only takes up around 380MB. I believe it when they say it's not an Electron app, but I do wonder what's being packed in there. I was always under the impresion that Rust apps are pretty lightweight, but that install size is nearing Java levels of binary/dependency bloat.

[bdhtu]

Compared to Sublime Text:

RAM:

213 MB Zed

41 MB ST

Storage:

406 MB Zed

52 MB ST

Startup time:

Zed is slower than ST (but only by a few milliseconds).

Also when you reopen ST it will remember how you've resized the window from last time whereas Zed won't.

[andrewl-hn]

Probably it helps that Sublime doesn't come with an AI agentic features, LSP, and a whole video-conferncing and screen-sharing client by default.

[markus_zhang]

ST is a text editor while Zed is an IDE. I wish there were something like VSCode that is very modular but written in native. But VSCode is good enough and it is my daily driver.

[wseqyrku]

No, that doesn't matter. I think you should be looking for how quickly it can get you a working environment for your favorite language not how long it takes to boot up once per reboot. If you want features the bits have to live somewhere. Look at it like a trade off, if you're just going to look at it, by all means, take a memory dump. But I find that a little bit hard to work with.

For me, as long as it's better than alternatives it's good enough. Especially if it's not running JS.

[neobrain]

> I was always under the impresion that Rust apps are pretty lightweight, but that install size is nearing Java levels of binary/dependency bloat.

For what it's worth, the zed executable on Linux weighs 3.2 MB.

EDIT: Sorry, the nix store is too good at hiding things from me. It's actually around 337 MB plus webrtc-sys.

[johnisgood]

I just compiled "zed" with "cargo build --release" and not only did it pull >2000 dependencies, its size (executable file) is literally 1.4G. Debug is 1.2G.

  $ pwd
  /tmp/zed/target/release
  $ ls -lh ./zed
  -rwx------ 2 john john 1.4G Aug 28 17:10 zed

---

  $ dut zed/ | sort -h
   598M    0B   | | /- webrtc-sys-0a11149cbc74bc90
   598M    0B   | | | /- out
   598M    0B   | | |- webrtc-sys-090125d01b76a5e8
   635M  160M   | |   /- s-hal7osjfce-1h7vhjb-4bdtrsk93m145adnqs17i9dxe
   635M  160M   | | |- project-06kh4lhaqfutk
   641M  161M   | | /- project-1ulvakop54j8y
   641M  161M   | | | /- s-hal5rdrth3-0j8nxqq-d0wsc7qnin39797z4e8ibhj4w
   1.1G  1.1G   | | /- zed-ed67419e7a858570
   1.1G  1.1G   | |- zed
   1.3G  1.3G     | /- zed-64b9faeefdf3b7df
   1.3G  1.3G     |- zed
   1.4G    0B     |- build
   2.2G    0B   | |- build
   7.9G  1.4G     /- deps
   9.4G    0B   |- release
    14G  2.9G   | |- incremental
    19G  4.2G   | /- deps
    33G    0B   /- debug
    42G    0B /- target
    42G    0B zed

Summary:

  $ du -h ./target/debug/deps/
  20G     ./target/debug/deps/
  $ du -h ./target/release/deps/
  8.0G    ./target/release/deps/

  $ du -h ./target/debug/zed
  1.2G    ./target/debug/zed
  $ du -h ./target/release/zed
  1.4G    ./target/release/zed

This is on a whole new level of bloat; both with regarding to dependencies AND the resulting executable file(s) (EDIT: executable files are unstripped).

Any explanations as to why "cargo" does not seem to re-use libraries (dependencies) in a shared directory, or why it needs >2000 dependencies (that I see being downloaded and compiled), or why the executable file of the release mode is 1.4G unstripped while of the debug one it is less?

[torginus]

What does a desktop text editor have to do with WebRTC?

[WD-42]

Amazon q is 100mb and that’s a cli app. Rust programs be huge.

[tremarley]

A 400mb+ install of bloat will upset many people

This needs to be justified asap to help people understand and reconsider installing it.

[landr0id]

Strangely it's the actual binary's .text section that's about 400MB. Time to dive in!

[hdjrudni]

I was a little sus, so I checked: https://imgur.com/a/AJFQjfL

897MB! But it appears to have installed itself twice for some reason. Maybe one is an 'update' which it didn't clean up...? I'm not sure.

Edit: I just opened it and it cleaned itself up. 408MB now. I guess it was in the process of upgrading.

[juliangmp]

Will it though? I mean it's a lot for a "text editor", but much less than a classical IDE. And 400M is pretty negligible if you're on Windows, where your OS takes up dozens of GB for no reason.

[bowsamic]

> I was always under the impresion that Rust apps are pretty lightweight

I'm not sure what gave you that impression. I'd say Rust is pretty well known for fat binaries

[kibwen]

Most of the sticker shock from Rust binaries is due to them being statically-linked by default. Considering that, Rust binaries aren't especially large, especially if you strip them. Dynamically-linked binaries are better at obscuring their size.

[1718627440]

Rust Hello World is larger than Git. Still smaller than Java and Electron, but not exactly small.

[ben-schaaf]

Entirely untrue. Download git, run make and you'll get a 19MB `git` binary along with a whole lot of other 19MB binaries. Running `cargo build` produces a 3.8MB binary.

And that's still comparing apples to oranges, because git is compiled with full optimizations. Running `cargo build --release` produces a 462KB binary.

Even if I'm comparing to my system's git installation, that's still 3.9MB, and that's with all the debug info stripped.

Yes rust (like C++) tends to produce larger binaries than C, but lets be real here: The reason Zed has a bloated binary is the ~2000 rust packages that comprise it.

[ChrisSD]

That's an entirely different issue. The kb's of overhead for backtrace printing and the format machinery is fixed and does not grow with the binary size. All combined it wouldn't account for anywhere close to 1mb let alone 100's of mb.

[timeon]

Helix binary on my system is 20MB+ but dynamically linked grammars are additional 200MB. Those 380-400MB are probably not pure binaries are they?

[adastra22]

> I was always under the impresion that Rust apps are pretty lightweight

Maybe compared to electron, but binary size is an issue with any nontrivial rust application. Due to how cargo works, it compiles and bundles in every dependency in world.

400MB is unnecessarily large though.

[TiredOfLife]

> I believe it when they say it's not an Electron app, but I do wonder what's being packed in there

Half of Electron namely Node.js. As majority of lsp are .js based. Also extensions are WASM. Also VS Code keeps extensions in separate config directory, while Zed in main directory.

[andrewmcwatters]

Just so others here know, it’s possible to have a graphics context and a Win32 menu bar in the same window.

[gethly]

PSPad is 40MB. And that is quite a legacy software that is still being updated to this day. Notepad++ is 17 mb.

400 mb for new project in this amazing bestest compiled language ever made is ridiculous.