
Future of GitHub's Atom Editor - thangngoc89
https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman_future_ceo_of_github_ama/e0a235q/
======
BoumTAC
What's I think people are missing the most about difference between Atom and
VS Code is the UI.

I think it's the main difference between them. Atom was about creating a
Sublime text with web technology, it's just a text editor, you open it and you
can write code, it's very easy to use.

VSCode was more about creating a IDE with web technology, so the UI is a lot
different and a lot harder to use for someone just starting to write code.

Performance wise Atom improve a lot during the last year and I don't see any
difference in performance between them on linux.

~~~
joekrill
I see a HUGE performance difference. I use VS Code now exclusively, having
moved from Atom months ago. But most of the rest of my dev team is still using
Atom. Every single time I've worked with one of them and used their machine
one of the first things I notice is how much slower it is. We're all on Mac.
And this happens even with folks that have much more powerful machines then I
do.

And to your other point: I never even _notice_ it's Atom at first. They are so
very similar visually, so I'm not sure I agree that the difference is in the
UI. The thing that always tips me off that I'm using Atom is the performance,
without a doubt.

~~~
mchahn
> I use VS Code now exclusively, having moved from Atom months ago.

Ditto. I was a huge atom fan when it came out. Being able to customize it with
web tech that I already knew was exhilarating. Between jobs I wrote over 20
packages.

When I went back to work I was still using Atom but I didn't have the time to
baby it. All my packages were slowly dying and I didn't have time to support
them. The overall stability of Atom was bad if you didn't have time to
identify and rotate out dying packages.

Then VSCode got far enough along for me to use it daily. I have found it to be
very stable and have almost all features I want without plugins. Rectangular
text selection, drag-drop text, etc. Being an IDE for Node sealed the deal. I
haven't used Atom since.

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saurik
Am I the only person who thinks they should make a shim that lets one of them
support the other's plugin API and discontinue the other?

~~~
nobleach
The hack-ability of the two products is pretty different, right? The reason
Vim Mode Plus (for Atom) is so amazing is due to GitHub's original internal
plugin for Vim emulation being a "first-class-ish" citizen. The fork has
gotten incredibly amazing. VSCode's vim emulation is fairly basic. That's not
to say that it couldn't get better, just that it's not a design goal for
VSCode.

------
cptskippy
VS Code is based on Atom right?

~~~
philo23
It uses Electron (the embedded Chrome wrapper) just like Atom does, but as far
as I'm aware they dont share anything else that actually makes them an editor.

~~~
iammiles
This is correct. VS Code is based off their Monaco Editor [0]

0 - [https://microsoft.github.io/monaco-
editor/](https://microsoft.github.io/monaco-editor/)

~~~
thangngoc89
Actually, it's the other way around. From Monaco Editor's README [0]:

> The Monaco Editor is generated straight from VS Code's sources with some
> shims around services the code needs to make it run in a web browser outside
> of its home.

[0] - [https://github.com/Microsoft/monaco-
editor#faq](https://github.com/Microsoft/monaco-editor#faq)

~~~
pseudalopex
VS Code is the primary project now, but Monaco came first.[1]

[1] [https://changelog.com/podcast/277](https://changelog.com/podcast/277)

