
“We are working on getting Sublime Text 3.0 final ready to launch” - robin_reala
https://forum.sublimetext.com/t/is-sublime-no-longer-updated/30712/11
======
dsacco
I'm a (more or less daily) Sublime Text user, in addition to a few other
editors.

After reading through the thread, the developer's points seem to be rational,
coherent and well-delivered. I can understand some of the frustration from
users, but not the outright hostility towards the end of the thread. They only
have so much bandwidth, and the responses feel very "patient" to me.

To be honest, I've been using Sublime Text since before work started on
version 3 and I don't really understand why there is such a fixation on the
update cycle. Unless I'm mistaken it's only two full time developers, and
historically it's been only one. The dev releases feel _very stable_ to me,
though of course I can't claim my workflow is the same as everyone else's.

I can't think of any particular features the text editor feels like it's
missing. They seem to be nailing it, in my opinion. I ascribe to the
philosophy that perfection occurs when there is nothing left to remove, not
nothing left to add - they are relatively slow with adding new features, but
the editor is blazingly fast and consistently delivers the experience I want
in an editor.

For what it's worth, my opinion here is colored by the fact that I don't
really think about the development cycle of most of the software I use. I
couldn't tell you what major point release I'm on for 1Password. _I think_
it's 6 on macOS, but I'm not confident. I just update it when it gives me an
alert. Similarly, I don't really know what version I'm using for JetBrains
PyCharm or CLion, and I've never followed the development roadmap. All I
typically know is that I'm on the most recent version for the desktop software
I use, and if something seems buggy or odd I check the changelog and then
maybe look into it.

I'd be genuinely interested in hearing why people seem to be disappointed with
Sublime Text, and what features they wish it supported.

~~~
dflock
Something that I didn't like about Sublime was the random radio silence.

They'd do a few regular beta releases, then just randomly _complete_ radio
silence for months, a year or so - then, bam, another release, some "I'm not
dead" activity on the forum from jon, then randomly silent again - maybe for a
month, maybe a year - maybe forever.

The editor was good - although not free of bugs - but that complete lack of
communication - did I just buy dead software? will there _ever_ be another
release?

That makes it hard to have confidence that the software will continue to be
supported - and hard to build a community around. The plugin ecosystem has
definitely suffered a lot because of this stop-start cycle.

Bear in mind that the bugs that Sublime _does_ have often hit plugin authors
hardest and they're the ones that need docs & help from the original
developer, who's often been completely AWOL for months or years at a time.

~~~
horsawlarway
This pretty closely matches my experience. I was trying to develop plugins for
ST3 and it was a complete bitch.

Documentation is rare, often wrong, and the best you can do is try to find
another plugin and dig through the source for that to determine how to
implement something.

Or you can ask a question and... radio silence for months.

So I left.

I went to VSCode and Atom, both of which are more active and (total blessing
for plugin developers) have source code available for viewing.

I really like Sublime. I think it's a great editor. I don't use it because I
have better things to spend my time on than hoping a single dev gets the
bandwidth to answer my question, or that I can hunt down some obscure plugin
that happens to have the correct 'magic' that's not documented anywhere.

------
5_minutes
I've been running this beta 3 version for years now and it's been rock stable.
To the point that I sometimes wondered what the difference was with
SublimeText 2.

This final v3 might involve a licence upgrade but if there's one dev team I
happily support it's these guys, what an awesome product.

~~~
coldtea
> _I 've been running this beta 3 version for years now and it's been rock
> stable._

Same experience. OS X, lots of plugins (Python, JS, Go, JSON, etc).

------
biocomputation
I love Sublime.

I'm not sure what to say about the belief some people have that 'we need
releases twice a month' for a stable, high-performance product. I don't want
or need product releases twice a month unless there's a good reason.

I feel like the regular releases crowd is mostly cargo cult driven by a desire
to emulate the big web companies who are constantly - and often infuriatingly
- tweaking their products for whatever reason.

From what I can see, this desire/need for constant tweaks arises mostly
because web companies tend to ship very buggy products, and because there
seems to be this belief that a company is going out of business if their web
page that doesn't change often enough.

~~~
hprotagonist
Bingo.

Very relatedly, I kind of wish TeX Live would release _less_ frequently -- the
4-GB-of-crap song and dance is a pain, even once a year.

~~~
epmaybe
random question, is there a xelatex compiler that works online? I only really
use LaTeX for my CV (though I would like to write papers in it!) so it'd be
nice not having to have that huge MacTeX install on my hard drive all the
time.

~~~
hprotagonist
i think Overleaf ([https://www.overleaf.com/](https://www.overleaf.com/)) is
kind of what you had in mind?

It shouldn't be too hard to combine [https://github.com/thomasWeise/docker-
texlive](https://github.com/thomasWeise/docker-texlive) and a linode server or
something into a LaTeX CaaS, either, but I can't say I've ever done so.

------
satysin
I like Sublime Text and would be happy to pay around $15 to upgrade to v3 but
anymore and I will stop and really think about what I am actually spending my
money on. Yes Sublime Text is very nice but the world has changed with the
arrival of Atom and Visual Studio Code (not to mention Visual Studio Community
being a free for many people).

I use Sublime Text for personal projects I make no money from so obviously I
don't want to spend out much money when I can get other excellent editors for
free.

~~~
knodi123
what does VSCode do that sublime3 doesn't? I ask as a sublime user who took
vscode for a brief spin and then put it down when I wasn't quickly wowed.

~~~
zeroxfe
Frequent high-quality updates, lots of communication, great plugin ecosystem,
open source.

~~~
remus
> Frequent high-quality updates, lots of communication

Genuine question: does this really make a difference in your day to day usage?
I feel like once I've learnt the ~20% of features that are useful to me on a
regular basis everything on top is marginal gains. Im really not that bothered
by loads of new features.

~~~
holydude
Yup I can relate. I would change the "high-quality updates" to "lots of
integration taken care by the community".

I really really do not want to spend time to figure out on my own how to
integrate this or do that (unless I need to) and the myriad of
plugins/packages available to Emacs and Atom is something that is insanely
helpful if you need to do something quickly.

------
Overtonwindow
I love sublime. When I used to have to write legislation, and amendments, I
had a set up that made it much easier using sublime

~~~
edgarvaldes
Now this is really interesting. Care to elaborate?

~~~
Overtonwindow
The IT dept at the lobbying firm I was at set it up for me. Legislative
writing requires certain formatting, and referencing to the US Code. I could
hot key things and it made the formatting very easy. When writing amendments,
it made it easier to do strike throughs and new language additions by color
coding them, and inserting hyperlinks to reference bills and laws. I really
wish I still had access to it because it was incredibly useful.

~~~
komali2
That's awesome of the IT department, and kind of outside the scope of what I'd
expect their knowledge to be - customizing an IDE. Was that the "standard IDE"
for the company or something? Maybe you just had a random Sublime expert on
the team?

~~~
Overtonwindow
Probably the latter. That was not the standard at all. If anything, our
"standard" was MS Word. This was a new idea when I lamented on the
difficulties of using Word. The IT guys came up with this solution, and I
absolutely loved it. Others stuck to Word, but Sublime was absolutely my go-
to. Another minor, but critical point, I really loved the color scheme. Dark
grey was much better than bright Word white.

~~~
komali2
Hah yes! I've always wondered why word doesn't have a dark theme. When I was a
recruiter I was always working in word and outlook and it hurt my poor eyes. I
wasn't allowed to install a blue light dampener either :( Luckily found
settings on my monitor to cut the blues, but still.

------
rjv
I'm not sure I understand the complaints. What will a "stable" tag offer that
isn't available already via dev builds? Are there things that are limiting
your productivity or effectiveness? How will formally calling it "stable"
change your life as a developer?

------
yoodenvranx
> When 3.0 is released, upgrades will be available for $30, or $15 for users
> who have purchased recently

I will buy it again for the full price as a "Thank You!" to the developers. I
have been using Sublime Text daily since 5-ish years and it has always been
amazing. It's easily one of the best 50-60$ I have ever spent.

------
have_faith
Are people more concerned with a piece of software being "finished" these days
than the features available to them?

------
netule
Serious question: What's keeping people who are frustrated with Sublime Text
from switching to VS Code or Atom?

~~~
joeblau
The Electron runtime (JavaScript). I work on projects that load files that are
tens/hundreds of thousands of lines. No Electron based apps can handle that
without choking and crashing. Electron is decent for smaller files and it's
got a great ecosystem, but they are definitely not optimized for performance.

~~~
zeroxfe
Just FYI, the most recent version of vscode supports huge files.

(I agree in general about Sublime performance vs Electron -- Sublime is way
more responsive.)

------
turdnagel
This "kaiser101" guy is an unfortunate e-jerk. He says: "I agree that there
are only 2 people working on this product," as if that's something one could
disagree with, and then goes on to say that people paying $70 - for Sublime 2,
no less - have a _right_ to know when the next stable release will come out.

I am using the dev build for my production work and it runs like a Swiss
watch. The title of OP and the forum post is essentially a troll to instigate
the developer(s) to come out and give a more definitive answer.

------
geetfun
Sublime 2/3 has been very valuable for me. Don't know what all the fuss is
about there being no roadmap or some other stuff. The dev team has never asked
me for another dime other than the initial license fee. I've written so much
code on it (and the code has made so much money for me, in return) that I'd
gladly pay for Sublime 3 whenever it comes out.

------
rishabhsagar
I love ST3, paid for it personally and influenced my ex-boss to stop
procrastinating and actually buy it.

I wonder if they could look at staggered pricing system; where you can get:

N-1 release at £X; N-2 release at £(X-0.1*X) etc.

Where N is devel release channel.

That way people in N-2 will know what is coming and approx when.

People who want 'clarity' for the sake of it can pay less and STFU?

------
agounaris
Sublime text is an amazing editor, I cannot even remember how many times MS
reverted updates on code because of stability issues. I have never faced a
single bug in sublime. It just worked and I applause the developer for being
an "engineer" and not a hacker coder cracker who moves fast and brakes things.

------
captainmuon
They would avoid a lot of trouble if they change the version name:

Dev -> Beta

Beta -> Final

Final -> Legacy

The current beta versions are rock solid. If you have been sticking with the
previous stable version, you have been missing a lot for no reason.

IMHO this is the same mistake the Gnome team is making recently: Calling the
finished version "final" or "stable". "Final" means to me "doesn't crash and
has no bugs (as far as possible)". It doesn't mean that it receives no more
updates. On the contrary, if it gets no more updates I would call it "legacy"
or "abandoned".

~~~
wbond
I didn't intend to use the term "final" as based on your definition, but
rather was just trying to make it clear we were talking about graduating out
of beta, since the term stable is somewhat overridden with Sublime Text.

We are definitely going to continue development of 3.0, so it won't become
legacy any time soon. And yes, we do realize the beta period stretched on a
tad too long. ;-)

~~~
captainmuon
Thanks for your reply!

Yeah, I guess the problem is now that people are not sure which version is
supposed to be used for daily work, which version is still under development,
etc..

But it is great to hear that development is continuing!

------
sergiotapia
It sounds like S3 is going to get a huge feature - is that why people are
desperate for an update? Or have the user just gotten used to seeing something
update every three days for any reason?

------
heldrida
Sublime Text is the only text editor that never let me down. I don't remember
it crashing, a single time! I also paid for a license. I don't see what else
is there to improve.

------
jimwalsh
I finally broke down and moved away from Sublime. I love it, but I couldn't
justify the price. I'd rather invest in an IntelliJ IDE that I use every day
and use Atom instead.

~~~
coldtea
> _I love it, but I couldn 't justify the price_

$70 dollars or so every 4-5 years?

~~~
zeroxfe
In many countries $70 is a lot of money. Especially when there are superb free
options (like vscode, neovim, etc.)

~~~
coldtea
> _In many countries $70 is a lot of money_

For farmers yes. Not for developers in those countries -- which can make
$30,000 - $50,000 in the international market.

~~~
icebraining
You mean, remotely? I never figure out how to break into that market. Are you
talking about freelancing or regular employment?

~~~
coldtea
Remotely -- and it can be either freelancing or regular employment.

------
eric_b
Recently I've moved away from Sublime. The irritating modal dialogs about
updates and the new tabs package manager would create all the time were just
too much. For most coding I've switched to VS Code, and for simple light
editing I've gone back to Notepad++. VS Code really is fantastic these days
(and I was originally a big skeptic of any Electron based editor)

------
math0ne
I used to use sublime a ton but I feel like in this day and age things like
atom and emacs have left them behind with a much more mod-able UI.

~~~
adrianN
You're aware that emacs had a mod-able UI for at least the last thirty years
or so?

~~~
zeroxfe
The modern editors take "mod-ability" to the next level because of tighter
integration with the graphical chroming. (E.g., it would probably not be very
straightforward to have a minimap 30 years ago.)

~~~
holydude
You are underestimating emacs a lot (even if we talk about 30y ago)

------
schwap
Your comment is visible so you aren't (anymore at least).

~~~
komali2
What's the difference between hellbanned and regular banned?

~~~
zerocrates
Hellbanning is "scream into the void" mode. You can login and post and see
your posts appear as usual, but nobody else will see them.

~~~
icebraining
Just to add, one can see the posts of hellbanned people by changing the
"showdead" option in one's profile to "yes".

------
heavymark
Wow Sublime that's quite a throwback. I remember it back in it's hayday as
people ultimately flocked from TextMate. And then the community flocked to
Atom. Hopefully Atom won't see the same fate since they are backed by a
commercial organization, GitHub.

------
deckar01
Why don't they scale their development team with it's popularity? My initial
guess would be greed and arrogance. If their priorities are shifting on a
regular basis, that demonstrates to me a lack of mature leadership.

~~~
rhodysurf
Because they don't have to. Sublime Text 3 has been rock solid for like 2
years now, and the competitors (VS Code and Atom) are like the same thing but
slower and use javascript instead of python for plugins. There really isnt
anything missing that they have to scramble and add people to help with.

Not everything always needs growth.

~~~
deckar01
Products have to be maintained, because operating systems update around them.
New bugs happen. You need growth to fund the maintenance your existing
customers expect.

------
alexruf
To be honest after more than 4.5 years of development I don't care anymore
about Sublime. Meanwhile there are a plenty of alternative editors available
with very simmilar functionality. So why pay a lot of money for a poorly
maintained editor?

~~~
logical42
A lot of money?

~~~
alexruf
As I see it $70 is a lot. VScode is free and offers me almost the same (if not
more), plus it's activly develop.

~~~
zzleeper
TBH for something that you probably use daily for your day job, $70 is not a
lot at all.

And last time I tried, working with large files was a pita on vscode.

~~~
maccard
I'm not the op, but for me, it's not really worth $70. I use visual studio
daily, and just use another editor for odd things - editing a value in a
config file etc. 70 bucks is too much for yhatcfor me. Atom/vs code have way
too much of a start up time for a quick one file edit, so I use notepad++

