I find myself often searching for better editor experiences when writing code.
Things I've tried:
-
Visual Studio code: too slow, resource hog. -
Atom: same as above. -
Intellij: very slow to open. -
NeoVim/Vim: steep learning curve and requires a good memory (human, not computer!). -
Lite (and Lite-xl): lacking fully-featured language support currently. -
Sublime Text: Has probably come the closest to my reliable editor, but actually getting it setup to be an editor can be fiddly, because it's primarily supposed to be a text editor.
Things I need:
- Speed - my biggest frustration
- cross-platform
- LSP integrations (specifically gopls and pylsp)
- debug support (delve, pdb)
- Large extension library / list of plugins
Things I want:
- Nice Testing & coverage visualisations
- Kubernetes & docker support
- hackability / customisation
This got me thinking, with modern LSPs (Language Server Protocols) and rich web-based ecosystems - what do you look for in an editor?
Top comments (29)
Does it support vim bindings? 😄
On a serious note: highly customisable, ability to write your own plugins, not too resource heavy.
I've been using Jetbrains products for so long (IntelliJ etc.) that I don't really know any other IDEs. Vim + IntelliJ works for me!
I enjoy Vim, quite a lot in-fact! But vim required learning and when you're pairing with other members of the team that don't use Vim... it can be quite frustrating for them to follow I find
Yeah, I can relate with that. That's why everyone should learn vim :D
I recently went on a spree to find a alternative for VSCodium which I am using. Tried Emacs, Lite-XL, Kate. And ended up liking Emacs and Lite-XL.
Emacs just blows any text editor out of the water with respect to functionalities IMO. The only problem is that it's just too hard to get used to. Not to mention the keybindings are from jurassic park era. Keybindings before
ctrl+candctrl+vfor copy and paste were even a thing. Found everything unnecessarily hard and you have to relearn a lot of things. After using it for almost a month, I moved on. Not because it is bad. But because I didn't get settled with it even after almost a month. And I ran out of time. Still can't deny that...Lite-XL is fast and minimal. It's is my ideal choice and I use it whenever I can. Trying it out made me learn a lot about text editors. It needs a little more tools and functionality support is all. And it is getting there as far as I can tell. Also, you can extend it easily with Lua. I ended up writing stuff in Lua even though I didn't know Lua. So I am pretty sure anybody can if they really wanted to.
While I had to come back to VSCodium, I still use Lite-XL as my secondary text editor. Oh, and their community is really nice. :)
The only other text editor I want to try out now is NeoVim. It has good support AFAIK. It uses Lua for plugins, so it's an excuse to play around with Lua outside of Lite-XL. All I need now is some time. :)
Never heard of Lite-XL, and reading it was write mostly in LUA makes me happy :D
I'd second what @unsungnovelty said. It's certainly worth a try if you've a mind to get creative. I'm tempted to start writting some overlays for gopls for it just so i can start seeing how difficult it would be to replace something like VSCod[e|ium]
Lite-XL is a continuation of Lite text editor. With an emphasis on convenience and functionality. You should try it if you have time. It is a really good text editor.
I think the key here is not to expect one editor to rule them all. In my case I use sublime text for quick edits but rider/webstorm for most of development. This way you get the best of both worlds. You really can't have a super snappy ide that does everything and also starts really quickly , something has got to give. Hence going with two is a great strategy. Is there really anyone who exclusively uses one IDE and no other editor? I've never met one
This is how I see it as well. My major projects are all done in IntelliJ or PHPStorm. I don't care about start up time. I want the features. I'm not opening and closing it all day long, it starts up and runs all day.
When I need to edit something quick, like some notes or a system config file...something non-project based, then I resort to sublime on GUI based machines and vim or nano on remote servers.
I've been learning VSCode, and it's turning out to be a fairly middle of the road option, faster to open but less full featured for project based stuff. More features and slower opening for non-project based quick stuff.
I guess I'm that person. I use Sublime Text exclusively. :) The ONLY exception is the times I'm working on Arduino projects, so non-commercial stuff, just some hobby tinkering stuff. In that case, I do all my editing in Sublime Text, and then Arduino IDE just for compiling. But that's also because the Arduino IDE cannot keep up with editing the size of projects I work on.
I could in theory setup the compile environment inside of Sublime Text for all of the microcontrollers I work with, but I'm just lazy is all it really comes down to LOL
That being said, I use Doom Emacs as my main editor and VSCodium as my supporting editor.
I feel like emacs ticks all your boxes.
If you try it, pick a popular distribution and read the docs first. I recommend spacemacs, but I know a lot of people prefer doom these days so give that a try, too. You'll want to
I most of the time need LSP, so I only use this editor:
If you are using Mac, maybe you also can try Nova. It's written natively for Mac.
Is it really called that? 😄
I used Sublime for years and loved it! I switched to VS Code about 2 years ago because it had better support for Typescript at the time. I just downloaded Sublime again and going to give another shake. I am running an M1 Mac, so VS code is not painfully slow. Sublime has got to be blazing fast with M1 support. Speed is huge for me.
One thing that's absolutely essential for me is that an editor must be programmable. I get paid to solve problems, not to operate a text editor; so whenever there is any repetitive typing to do, I want to automate that as much as possible.
In that sense, having an interface for extensions is useless to me. Sure, it's a great thing to have, but it doesn't solve my problem of wanting to hammer a few lines of code into an editor and within 30 seconds have a solution that solves my problem even though it's way too brittle to be of general use.
So far, vim is the only editor I've used that does this. I'm sure emacs is the same, but I don't see the reason to switch away from one stone-age editor to another. Among the modern browsers, I haven't yet found anything like what I expect.