
Panic – Nova Private Beta - sergiotapia
https://panic.com/nova/
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steve_adams_86
I'm a heavy user of VS Code and recently RubyMine (JetBrains does a wonderful
job on their IDEs), but I'm really excited about this.

I wonder mainly about two things.

One, how can Panic compete with a free tool like VS Code? Its extensions are
stellar, free, and well maintained. The core product is _extremely_ well
maintained and constantly improving.

Two, if they're competing with products like WebStorm or SublimeText, again...
How?

I don't doubt that they can do it and that they have a solid plan, and that's
exciting. Panic delivers on polish and that alone is very appealing. RubyMine
for example is really great in terms of function, but it feels clunky as hell
at times. It feels like the beastly Java app that it is. I respect the work
JetBrains does on their platform more than enough to pay for it, but there's a
ton of room for polish!

I'm eagerly waiting to give the beta a test run anyway. The prospect of a new
tool to play with is always exciting, and I've never used a tool from Panic
that I didn't enjoy.

~~~
pvg
Panic's tools are native and have real macOS UIs. This is a very well-trodden
path for small companies to make money selling tools in fields that are
typically not huge moneymakers because of free competition.

~~~
craiga
This is why I'm excited about Nova. I'm still using TextMate despite
Sublime/VS Code/whatever having way more features just because a non-native UI
makes me feel icky.

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joshstrange
I LOVED Coda, it was my first "real" editor (a step up from NP++) but now that
I'm using IDEA I can't imagine going back to something with such a small
market cap/plugin developer ecosystem. I wish Panic the best (and I still love
them as a company) but I just don't see Coda/Nova being worth it (price or
ecosystem-wise) just to have a beautiful editor. Maybe I'll try a trial when
it comes out but it just looks... less powerful... that I really need from my
editor.

All that said Panic is awesome and the breadth of what they do (Mac Apps, iOS
App, Games, handheld gaming hardware) is crazy. I wish they would show Prompt
some more love as I fear that is slowly being abandoned and I'll have to find
an alternative SSH iOS client.

~~~
irq
Termius is an excellent alternative. (I am a happy user, and unaffiliated.)

[https://www.termius.com/](https://www.termius.com/)

~~~
joshstrange
If it was a one-time purchase I'd be interested but I don't want or need a
full terminal replacement across all my platforms. I just want a solid iOS SSH
client and I'm willing to pay (I already paid for Prompt and Prompt 2 along
with a handful of other SSH clients that I've since discarded).

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lcnmrn
VS Code + fork.dev + TablePlus + Insomnia lets you achieve a lot more for
free.

~~~
norswap
Didn't know TablePlus, so looked it up. Looks very interesting, but it isn't
free: [https://tableplus.io/pricing](https://tableplus.io/pricing) (doesn't
even seem to be trialware).

~~~
lcnmrn
It's free and has limited tabs (2). But it's fast and works better than
DBeaver or other Electron based solutions.

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GlenTheMachine
Honest question here:

I was a user of Textmate for Mac for years. I'm not a web developer, so I just
needed it as a programming text editor. But it wasn't updated for, like, a
decade.

Then I discovered Atom. I know a lot of people who don't like Electron apps,
but honestly, it's been fabulous for me.

At this point is there any reason to go back to a paid text editor like Coda
or TextMate?

~~~
whywhywhywhy
> I was a user of Textmate for Mac for years .... But it wasn't updated for,
> like, a decade

Still a Textmate user, it was updated 16 days ago.

Honestly I'm so close to moving full time to Windows on all machines for
performance reasons, Textmate is the only reason I use a MBP for my laptop.

~~~
GlenTheMachine
It’s good that they’re updating it again. I stopped using it about two years
ago.

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rcarmo
I like the idea of a Mac-native code editor (although I spend most of my time
inside vim or VS Code). Regardless of all the alternatives, it might be worth
pointing out that Coda was really good, but that its extension ecosystem and
language support was... well, limited.

I hope they have a real solution for that this time around, since I eventually
stopped using Coda even for relatively common stuff like Python.

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MatekCopatek
TBH screenshots look very similar to Visual Studio Code/Sublime Text/Atom as
far as functionality goes (there's a terminal, code outline, file browser,
linter errors, quick command popup, ...).

Not saying that's a bad thing, far from it, but they're calling it "totally
rethought". What am I missing?

~~~
pvg
They've rethought their existing editor product, 'Coda'. They're telling you
it's not just what they have now with some tweaks and features.

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parliament32
Meta but about the design on this site: that slanted line/text format made me
super uncomfortable for no good reason. And all the pink-on-black... ugh.

~~~
hombre_fatal
Counter-opinion: I loved both of those things. And love the idea of having
completely different themes depending on context (local vs remote editing).

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mfrye0
Idk if it's just me, but it hurt my eyes to look at that site. The dark
background and red/pink font were too much.

Apart from that, it looks awesome.

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jhbhjjhvhjkgh
I get that Panic is a mac shop, and they make great platform-specific software
but...

I recently ditched macos as a dev alongside a handful of my friends. The wall
is cracking due to a combination of Apple's poor hardware (mbp kb) and
Microsoft's frantic efforts to catch up.

The fact of the matter is that if you work on a team, you probably have a
pretty standard set of tools and runtime environment. And, mac only tools
exclude both linux and windows users, but also people who have existing
configurations.

But the biggest barrier, as I see it, is that there's no midrange space. You
have the "low end" of free tools, like vs code, and high end (IdeaJ). I just
don't see value in paying for an editor if it doesn't go "all the way".

So yeah, it's easy to armchair strategize, but I just don't see who this is
for other than existing coda users. Or maybe, that's enough. They know better
than I do, after all.

