
Introducing Atom-IDE - gisenberg
https://blog.atom.io/2017/09/12/announcing-atom-ide.html
======
hacker_9
Honestly can't see why I'd use this - I have all the professional grade IDEs I
need, why do I need one that is written in JS, is slower and consumes 5x more
memory? Not to mention IDEs already have their own extension stores too. This
seems like an 'IDE-lite', which doesn't make much sense in a world where
professional grade IDEs are free.

~~~
Tenobrus
The same reason thousands of programmers use Vim or Emacs with various
extensions as their development environment. It allows the same editing
experience across multiple languages. A consistent interface, lack of need for
learning many (often very different) IDEs, less proprietary annoyance, many
many more options for customization, much easier to port your setup to various
platforms, etc.

Admittedly I don't think Atom is a very worthwhile text editor, but using an
augmented text editor as an IDE is a very common practice.

~~~
tootie
I think that's less relevant than it used to be. JetBrains is now the de facto
best IDE for Java, JavaScript, Python and PHP. It has Android Studio and even
support for C#. Visual Studio also supports a wide array of languages. I'm in
IntelliJ pretty much all the time, no matter the project.

~~~
kllrnohj
IntelliJ is expensive if you want languages not covered by the free edition
(like JavaScript), though, and even if you pay for it some things are
frustratingly distinct such as if you have a Java/C++ app you need two
different "IDEs" (CLion + IntelliJ), and you need to then juggle between those
windows. Android Studio is able to work with both even though IntelliJ
Ultimate isn't (why, Jetbrains, why!?), but getting Android Studio to work on
non-Android things isn't the nicest of experiences.

I'd be more willing to pay for the quality if a nice, unified experience was
the result, but it annoyingly isn't. To say nothing of the lack of support for
things like Rust.

That's what this new generation of IDEs is exciting to me - the unified
language server standards. Let the compilers handle understanding the code
which is what they are best at. Especially if it helps make IDEs less tied to
the build system in general (no, CLion, I don't want to use CMake)

~~~
noir_lord
Intellij Ultimate costs me £14 a month, with the plugins (which makes it
equivalent to Phpstorm, PyCharm, Rubymine and Webstorm) thats less than I
spend on coffee in two weeks, it's insane value however you look at it.

That said I still spend a chunk of time (maybe 30%) in vscode because for
somethings I prefer it (it's git support with git lens is incredible) and for
TypeScript it's comparable to Intellij with the advantage you can start it, do
an edit and close before Intellij has finished re-indexing.

~~~
tym0
I keep seeing people writing about these "cheap" intellij subscriptions but on
the website it's 400 pounds a year.

~~~
pdpi
You're probably looking at the "Businesses and Organizations" pricing, where
the org pays £499/yr per user. The personal ("Individual Customers") license
is starts at £199, and decreases to £159 then £119 for subsequent years.
There's a bunch of groups (e.g. Open Source projects) that qualify for free or
heavily discounted licenses too.

~~~
mpd
And maybe importantly, you can use a personal license at work, on paid
projects, etc.

I've never been particularly bullish on Atom or Electron, but I think
Jetbrains is going to be eating their lunch for awhile at least.

~~~
jbergens
You have to buy a personal license yourself, your organization cannot pay for
it. I just don't want to pay for work tools, my employer should do that and
then it is the higher price.

~~~
pdpi
That's fair. Personally, though I could get the business license and expense
it, I choose to pay for it as a personal license because I use it personally
as well, and I'd be happy to pay the individual license price either way.

------
aesthetics1
This seems aimed squarely at VSCode. VSCode does a lot of this now out of the
box (or with a few extensions). I think Atom is really just trying to keep up.
I personally do not believe they have the horsepower to compete with Microsoft
here though. VSCode is a phenomenal product.

~~~
vorpalhex
I've always chosen Atom over VSCode because I don't want these features.
Autocomplete even on really expensive IDEs runs way to slow, clever auto
formatting and it's ilk tend to not work well for me at all, and I dislike the
overbearing project management features in most IDEs.

I want a text editor that vaguely understands code with some simple file
browsing and plug and play extensions. Atom trying to become VSCode isn't
beneficial here at all.

~~~
mrnaught
> Autocomplete even on really expensive IDEs runs way to slow..

Not true for jetbrains ones. Autocomplete speed is One of the reasons for me
to go for their toolbox subscription

~~~
vorpalhex
Even with a fully unlocked enterprise license on it, autocomplete was lagging
far behind me on a high end macbook pro. Maybe I just type too fast or the
libraries I use are poorly laid out, but it was not working.

~~~
romanovcode
Java.

------
Will_Do
This seems to also have the BSD + Patents beloved by Facebook[0]. The virus is
spreading.

[0]: [https://github.com/facebook-atom/atom-ide-
ui/blob/master/PAT...](https://github.com/facebook-atom/atom-ide-
ui/blob/master/PATENTS)

~~~
echelon
What can we reasonably do to stop this? This goes against the very notion of
open source.

~~~
halfteatree
No, it is not. If you sue people with software patent, I’m happy you lose that
ability.

~~~
imtringued
Yeah but the protection only applies to facebook. You can still sue github and
everyone else. We can clearly conclude that facebook is selfishly doing this
for their own benefit and not because of an altruistic reason like a world
without patents.

So in reality what you're saying means: "If you sue facebook with any patent,
I’m happy you lose that ability. If you sue any other company other than
facebook, I’m happy you keep that ability."

~~~
halfteatree
And now github is using the same license too :)

------
reificator
Still playing catchup with VSCode, but without the integrated debugger and all
the rest of its fancy tooling. Is it still mind-numbingly slow as well?

I can't imagine switching back to Atom at this point, or even Sublime. For
individual projects I might use IntelliJ or Visual Studio again, but outside
of that VSCode is my exclusive editor for all languages for the foreseeable
future. I'm very impressed by what Microsoft pulled off to be honest.
(Blinking cursor jokes aside, of course)

~~~
slewis
Can you comment on when/why you might use IntelliJ/VS over VSCode? I've
recently switched to VSCode from vim, and haven't really used full IDEs since
college (except for small amounts of mobile app development).

~~~
askvictor
I haven't looked at vscode for a while, but intellij and it's ilk allow me to
do everything inside the ide with the same interface. For example, for a
django project, it has support for vagrant, SSH, django-admin tasks, remote
debugging, DB inspection/modification, virtualenvs, package management, just
off the top of my head.

------
jamescostian
In my opinion, this is how IDEs should be - make something better described as
a text editor (like a fresh install of vim, sublime, or atom), and allow users
to add more things to the light-weight(ish?) base. So many IDEs are overkill.
Text editors with the right plugins can accomplish the same things but also be
much more lightweight, and help you achieve a balance between "IDE" and "text
editor"

~~~
cletus
Sorry but not only could I not disagree more but you're demonstrably
incorrect.

Anyone who says a text editor "can accomplish the same things [as an IDE]"
just doesn't know how to use an IDE.

The text editor vs IDE difference is the difference between using regexes and
a lexer/parser to read, analyze and manipulate source code.

The amount of effort I see people put into configuring their .vimrc or .emacs
files to get a subset of what you get out of the box with a decent (ie
Jetbrains) IDE that at the end of the day just dosn't work as well is...
staggering.

I mean text editors have their place and most notably vim/emacs work over an
SSH connection. That's fine. But where possible give me IntelliJ or CLion
every time.

~~~
yodsanklai
You're comparing editors like vim with IDEs. I'd say "modern" text editors
such as Atom, VSCode or Sublime are between these two extremes. They provide a
lot of "higher-level" features while being lightweight and programming-
language neutral.

------
MikusR
I like how they downplay Microsoft' role in Language Server Protocol.

------
philosopherlawr
Unlike lots of the posters here, I see a real need for an IDE that's
completely free. I have used Eclipse and IntelliJ, and the bloat/bug/setup
process in them is incredibly painful. However, I don't know if we're just
going to add those problems into atom instead of what makes atom awesome -
easy package management, fast text editing - and remove it.

~~~
baby
I think the bloat about Eclipse and IntelliJ is more about Java. As much as I
hate the language, if I have to do some Java I don't think there is a smoother
alternative than IntelliJ.

------
amirmasoudabdol
"It's like the Atom editor but even slower!"

I never managed to work with Atom as it is now. It's just too slow. Now they
are pushing it even further, I cannot imagine how much slower could still get.

~~~
cr0sh
I've only found a couple of instances where Atom was slow:

1\. On startup, it seems to take "forever" \- but I can be patient for it

2\. When having multiple files open that are really long; this may be due to
linting or something, I'm not sure currently

And yes, memory usage is insane...

~~~
jussij
> When having multiple files open that are really long;

I've not used Atom so I'm curious to what you mean by this.

Firstly, what would define a _really long_ file. Is a file with 10k of lines
long?

Second, I would have though the ability to open lots of files would be a
rather common occurrence for any programmer working on a large code base.

What happens in Atom if you have 30 files open?

------
skybrian
So Atom is yet another editor supporting the language server protocol. Whether
you like Atom or not, that's good news. The more that editors support it, the
easier it is for new languages to get a good IDE experience with many editors.

~~~
brotherjerky
Yes, this is the best part. Joint effort makes all editors better for tooling.

------
pjmlp
Given that even Eclipse runs faster, uses less resources and has a much better
plugin ecosystem than Atom, no thanks.

------
EasyTiger_
Good luck against PHPStorm / IntelliJ. Nothing comes close yet, worth every
penny.

~~~
nkkollaw
Definitely. I wish they didn't do the autosave crap.

~~~
on_and_off
I will regret asking this, but why ?

I don't even remember what it was like to code without autosave in IntelliJ.

I will review the changeset before creating the PR anyway, so I don't see the
downside of autosave.

~~~
nkkollaw
Close editor by mistake, battery dies, go to lunch and forget what I was
doing.

What is the upside? One less keystroke..?

~~~
on_and_off
The upside of not potentially losing everything you have done since the last
time you remembered to save ?

is this a real question ?

------
Dirlewanger
I Imagine this will run like mid-2000s Eclipse, but with 5 times worse
performance.

~~~
amiga-workbench
Man, Eclipse used to be such a dog. I was overjoyed when the Android SDK moved
to IntelliJ.

------
pwdisswordfish
So I pressed CTRL + F and typed in "debug" \- zero results found. It seems
like this is still a glorified text editor and not IDE-ish editor like Visual
Studio Code.

------
deedubaya
Interesting to see no Ruby support, since Github runs on Rails. Maybe code
completion is too hard with Ruby?

~~~
amorphid
Rubymine has it, so it can be done. Although you'd have a hard time supporting
elements defined at runtime. I'd guess Ruby just has a smaller user base, and
IDE support was added for tech that is the most popular among IDE users &
stuff Facebook was interested in making a priority. Personally, when I program
in Ruby, I don't like using an IDE.

~~~
jeffbax
Just started a new job at a Ruby shop and really wanted to use VS Code… but
the plugins just aren't there. RubyMine is miles ahead of the free stuff right
now. Maybe one day!

~~~
cpayne624
Can you elaborate? We're a Ruby via VSCode team. I fear I'm blissfully
ignorant of the possibilities.

------
lewisj489
20Gb of RAM latter.

------
fineline
Lots of people talking about their preferred IDE/editor here. It's great that
we can use what we choose, because the underlying standards - languages,
runtimes, repositories - are so standardised. I sometimes swap to and fro on
the same project. Not at all like UI development in the 80's and 90's, where
you picked between, say, VB, Delphi, Omnis etc. and that's what you were stuck
with.

I use WebStorm/IntelliJ for my daily drivers. Tried Atom a while ago and have
been liking VSCode more recently (good for Rust) and was very impressed, but
still prefer WebStorm for JavaScript. Recently prompted to try Atom again due
to the plugin for Marko.js, and was pleasantly surprised. Performance on my
2013 16GB MBPro is fine and it seems overall cleaner and snappier than I
remembered. Just installed this new IDE plugin and it's instantly impressive.
Good to see that the underpinnings of IDE functions are also becoming
standardised thanks to LSP.

------
stevenschmatz
How is this different than Facebook's Nuclide?

~~~
Ajedi32
> Atom IDE UI is fast and lightweight by design. It extracts only the subset
> of the core UI features from Nuclide necessary to support Atom’s atom-
> languageclient library in displaying features supported by the language
> server protocol.

Source: [https://nuclide.io/blog/2017/09/12/Introducing-Atom-IDE-
UI/](https://nuclide.io/blog/2017/09/12/Introducing-Atom-IDE-UI/)

So I guess the main differences are that it's more lightweight, and open-
source.

------
batisteo
I like how this blog is not responsive. Atom is for desktop, so the blog has
to be so.

~~~
andreime
YES! cause nobody reads news.ycombinator while taking a dump.

------
robohamburger
This is interesting because language servers are interesting. I will probably
hold out for a vim language server client that isn't just a port of nvim's.

~~~
ComputerGuru
What’s wrong with neovim?

------
zython
Is this the fate of all text editors once they run out of ideas to implement ?

I for sure wouldnt use this, especially with the whole kite controversy just
being over (is it ?).

------
alloyed
I appreciate the extended support for LSP, but this seems to repeat the
mistake VSCode made of requiring custom plugins for each backend you'd like to
integrate. This increases the overhead for server authors and makes it less
likely that language servers and clients actually match spec, if people give
in to writing custom integrations that can paper over bugs.

------
dubcanada
Off-topic but does anyone know what that atom skin used in the screenshot
([https://user-
images.githubusercontent.com/378023/29859731-74...](https://user-
images.githubusercontent.com/378023/29859731-741403be-8d9e-11e7-99c5-6b914e3fff9c.png))
is called?

------
karmakaze
What I'd much rather have is a reasonable development on Android or iOS. I've
tried some but it always felt awkward, even with a Bluetooth keyboard.
Eventually it we"ll get there as web apps are now fine replacements for
desktop apps. Question is when.

------
romanovcode
Playing catch-up with VS Code.

------
diedyesterday
I can't believe it took this long for language servers and an open
editor/"language smartness server" comm protocol to be developed.

------
thrillgore
I hope they address memory consumption at some point too.

~~~
jbob2000
Yep, I was using Atom for 6 months, I wanted to give a solid go. But now I am
back to sublime text.

I can't really put my finger on it, but sublime text is just snappy and
reliable in ways that Atom isn't. Got really tired of Atom lagging because I'm
typing too fast, got tired of lockups and hanging. VS Code has very simillar
issues too.

It was a nice experiment (can we do editors in HTML/JS?), but I'm convinced
native is the only way to go for proper editing.

~~~
pitaj
Have you tried VS Code? It's very snappy in my experience, much better than
atom.

~~~
jbob2000
Yep, been using it for a month full time so far. It IS better than Atom, but
it still has snappiness problems. The embedded console is great, but not as
fast as just using command prompt, it just has weird laggy moments. Using the
built-in Git is also laggy, there's a delay when you click to stage a file,
really annoying. The search is really laggy too, when you do a search across
your app, it locks up the whole window for a second or two.

Microsoft also has this really annoying tendency to use icons for everything,
every once in a while I find myself googling wtf these icons are.

------
sandGorgon
Flow is supported, but Reason is not ? I thought it would be the other way
around.

Anyone know which one is what the React ecosystem is moving to ?

~~~
dubcanada
This was made mostly by Facebook, it stands to reason Flow would be supported.

~~~
fasquoika
Reason is also made by Facebook

------
dikaiosune
Is this a nicely packaged version of nuclide?

~~~
ezekg
Seems like it. I tried Nuclide back when I used Atom, but the performance
wasn't great so I eventually uninstalled.

------
bigdubs
No golang support, going to pass for now.

------
johnhenry
Relevant: [https://nuclide.io/](https://nuclide.io/)

------
peternicky
How is this different from Nuclide?

------
alexashka
Can someone compare this to Visual Studio Code?

It seems to be the exact same thing?

~~~
purerandomness
One is written in .NET, while the other one is written in JavaScript, run in a
JavaScript runtime environment ripped out of Chrome.

~~~
AlphaSite
They’re both electron applications?

~~~
bernadus_edwin
Yes. Both are electron

------
ndreckshage
what theme is used in the screen shots?

------
k__
Sad.

Hoped they would cooperate with MS on VSCode

------
m4tthumphrey
Why why why why why?

What is the point in this? Seriously. Please can someone enlighten me. Atom
was bad enough with all of the other text editors are out there and not
written in JS, but now you can't even say it's just a text editor. Facebook
and the other contributors clearly have too much spare time on their hands.

JetBrains. End of.

</rant>

~~~
eduren
>What is the point in this? Seriously. Please can someone enlighten me.

People want to improve the tools they use. Whether or not you feel they are
using their "spare time" correctly, I'm sure they don't care.

~~~
bernadus_edwin
I hope fb team put ability auto import on react native flow ide

------
tvanantwerp
> [Utilize] the power of language servers to provide deep syntactical analysis
> of your code and projects.

Having my code analyzed by others' servers just so I can have better
autocomplete does not sound like something I want.

~~~
coldtea
Language servers are local services that analyze the code outside of your
editor (and can be used by several editors etc). It's a protocol that got big
the last 2 years or so.

It doesn't refer to servers in some Cloud.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
So... daemons?

~~~
alloyed
yes and no? Unlike a traditional daemon, this isn't a system service that
always runs in the background.

The IDE (in this case atom) spins up the process and shuts it down when
necessary, and then both sides communicate to each other using an
implementation-defined IPC mechanism.

So it's a server more in the sense that the IDE requests info as a client, and
then the server provides it (pull, not push).

~~~
alphaalpha101
So it's not a daemon or a server. It's just a process. Running some code in a
separate process isn't a 'server' it's just how all programmes operate.

~~~
Rapzid
In computing, a server is a computer program or a device that provides
functionality for other programs or devices, called "clients".

~~~
alphaalpha101
_across a network_ in modern parlance

