
Atom 1.10 and 1.11 beta - okket
http://blog.atom.io/2016/08/31/atom-1-10-and-1-11-beta.html
======
120bits
Ok after reading comments about performance compared to sublime. I wanted to
try this out myself.

I opened a 7.5K LOC on both atom and sublime, atom was responsiveness and no
lag.

Second, I fired up my linux machine and filled a log file with 159K lines. I
use vi first and no lag. I opened it on atom, it was slow, took more than 30
secs to basically show the file, not completely loaded. And finally, I opened
that log file on sublime, bam! instant load, no lag.

So, yes, I can see what fellow HNers have been saying about the performance.

cpu: intel core i5 680 @ 3.60GHz, Memory: DDR3 12G, OS: Windows 10
Professional

~~~
jhallenworld
Here is a performance comparison of a bunch of editors:

[https://github.com/jhallen/joes-
sandbox/tree/master/editor-p...](https://github.com/jhallen/joes-
sandbox/tree/master/editor-perf)

~~~
zzleeper
Wait so Atom uses 825mb of RAM to open a 5mb xml file with no highlighting?
(compared to 64mb for Sublime and 34mb for notepad++)

My newish X1 Carbon has 8gb of ram (soldered); this probably means a few Atom
instances are enough to use all the RAM...

------
azeirah
Just to let people know, github is very interested in making Atom more
performant; look at this job opening:
[https://jobs.lever.co/github/baaa9a2c-c249-4d06-b73f-e9bee1a...](https://jobs.lever.co/github/baaa9a2c-c249-4d06-b73f-e9bee1a3d147)

> In the next year we're focused on improving Atom's performance,
> collaboration features, and better responsiveness with our open source
> community.

> Things that might make you stand out include:

> •Demonstrable experience building lightning-fast desktop applications

> ..

------
balanceiskey15
Obligatory: Is it fast yet?

Apologies if this comes off as trolling. I really want it to be snappy so I
can switch over.

~~~
virmundi
Similar real line: Does it still eat battery like a mid-westerner at a buffet?

I've thought about using underlying tech for a desktop app. I don't know how
easy it will be to sell given that it would drain battery at probably 1.5 the
rate of a normal Java or QT app.

~~~
cwyers
As a Midwesterner, I have to ask, what do you coastal folks do at your
buffets?

~~~
twic
Well they don't eat batteries, it seems. I know, doesn't make a lot of sense
to me either.

~~~
wyldfire
Maybe they meant the mid-west of some other continent?

~~~
doug1001
not sure, but i think for buffet restaurants on the coast, "all you can eat"
is at the customer's discretion; it's not a legal requirement like it is in
the MidWest

------
weatherlight
“There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the
ones nobody uses.”

― Bjarne Stroustrup, The C++ Programming Language

Same goes for Software, I love atom precisely because I can hack it into
whatever I need it to be with knowledge I currently have as a Web developer.
For that and that alone, Atom is awesome :)

~~~
azeirah
I don't use it, I just complain about it and use Sublime instead :D

------
peterkelly
I'm an avid user of Atom, but one thing I'm curious about regarding the
performance issues (which I primarily see on startup) is whether or not the
JIT compilation done by V8 (which is what it uses behind the scenes) does any
caching of generated code that lasts beyond a single program launch.

JavaScript JITs are designed with interpretation first in mind, and then
optimised native code generation for hotspots. This works pretty well for apps
loaded irregularly, but I'm wondering if it happens for apps based on Electron
(of which Atom is an example)?

~~~
randomfool
Such as [http://v8project.blogspot.com/2015/09/custom-startup-
snapsho...](http://v8project.blogspot.com/2015/09/custom-startup-
snapshots.html)?

At a glance, it looks like there were some issues:
[https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/169#issuecomment...](https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/169#issuecomment-33667112)

------
Dowwie
My hardware was set up in January 2013:

cpu: i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz , ram: Patriot 16GB(2x8GB) Viper III DDR3 2133 (PC3
17000) , ssd: Kingston HyperX 3K 240 GB SATA III 2.5-Inch 6.0 Gb/s Solid State
Drive SH103S3/240G , mb: ASUS P8Z77-V LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB
3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Operating System: Ubuntu 16.04

My Atom performance report: No lag nor unresponsiveness to report. Nav
responds in milliseconds as does auto-complete and live Python syntax
checking. I am using atom primarily for Python development.

------
kapv89
Obligatory: Please stop trolling atom on performance. Have set up several dev
teams on atom + eslint. Finishing up my own product now, 170K LOC react-native
app, 7K LOC api code. All written on atom. One thing it hasn't done noticeably
till now is lag.

The only times I see a hit on perf is when I run react-native server,
genymotion emulator, chrome, and android studio along with atom. But then, I
see a perf hit on everything at these times.

~~~
grosbisou
Try opening a database dump or a log file in Atom. It is slow and it will
crash.

~~~
guessmyname
Just move on man. I used to be a big hater of Atom, but then I realized that I
was not contributing on its development so I stopped being a "hater" and
continue with my own life using another editor that actually works for my use
case. As the parent comment says, Atom works for some people and that is
enough for them to continue its development, I am fairly confident that it
will never have the performance that a native editor has but it is workable as
long as you don't do resource intensive tasks.

My computer is not powerful at all so Atom is obviously slow as hell and lags
all the time, at first I thought I improved my typing skills because I was
typing faster than the editor was displaying the characters, but that was
obviously not the case. Most Atom users — or at least the most active users —
use rMBPs with i7 CPUs and (maybe?) 16GB of RAM, I don't want to buy a
computer like that just to use a code editor like this, I would do it for an
IDE though; and even if I had a computer like this I would not want to give
most of its resources to the code editor when there are more important things
to spend the CPU / RAM on.

If your intention is to open a database dump then use a different tool, a
proper log viewer or something like that, I don't even understand why would
you want to use a code editor — even with good performance — to inspect a DB
dump in the first place.

~~~
grosbisou
I am not a hater. I rather like it even.

Database dump and log files are just good example of potentially big text
files. They should be usable in any text editor. Not looking at the issue is
not a good way to build software.

------
crbelaus
Atom is my main editor (actually I use Vim for git commit messages and for
doing quick file editions). It may be unresponsive sometimes, but it is known,
officialy recognized and actively being worked on.

The main reason I use Atom is because it is free as in freedom. Since Emacs
and Vim no other free text editor has received so much effort. This makes me
think that Atom will live for a very long time.

------
puppetmaster3
I have been developing for 20 years, handy w/ vi, eclipse, inteliJ, sublime...

But the new king is Atom. One reason is it easily plugs in the modern
'transpilers' / generators. Ex: jade. inteliJ is pita for jade.

i urge you to try the free atom.

~~~
shalabhc
What do you mean by 'plugs in'? Is it just that Atom has good support for
syntax highlighting or something else?

~~~
Klathmon
The plugins are the major selling point of atom.

You can add them for things like syntax highlighting, but they can do so much
more, and in many cases can border on "IDE-level" features.

Things like autocomplete, code linting, smart refactor tools, find
reference/definition, test runners, debuggers, git integration, and a ton
more. (one that I use a lot adds a terminal in the browser so I can run some
command line tools without having to tab away to something else)

They are pretty limitless. If it can be rendered via HTML/css/js, it can be a
plugin.

------
wldcordeiro
FYI to anyone on Linux (may apply to other platforms too), the beta doesn't
override your previous install anymore so if you had the 1.10 beta you need to
uninstall that after because the 1.11 beta is `atom` and the 1.10 was `atom-
beta`.

------
nkg
The version number going from 1.9 to 1.10 disturbed me...

~~~
krisdol
I suggest you read about Semantic Versioning
([http://semver.org/](http://semver.org/)).

~~~
nkg
good read, indeed!

