[Sublime + Python Setup] why Atom can’t replace Sublime

Hey there,

"In a nutshell, Atom is a Sublime Text editor that just got better."

When I read this quote I got so worked up I nearly fell off my chair.

Because every time I've tried Atom or VS Code or any other of these newfangled "web-technology based" code editors it's been AWE…ful:

They're janky as heck.

I can just about hear the CSS diesel engines and Web Font Renderers churning beneath the surface: clank, clank, clank…

There is no such thing as a "native web app". Every "native" (ahem) app I've ever used that's based on web technology was easy to bust:

With few exceptions, web apps in a native wrapper just feel paper thin and gLitcHy.

Slow reaction to user input, slow screen refresh, laggy scrolling… just to name a FEW of the problems.

Okay, so why am I ranting about this?

First, because I think using these INFERIOR tools leads to a huge amount of wasted time for software developers—

And second, because it is PROOF that fast and optimized editors like Sublime Text are here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Just look at what usability research has to say about sluggish user interfaces:

Slow website page load time has a large effect on user abandonment.

Basically, when humans get bored waiting for something to happen it increases the chances that they'll abandon the original task they had in mind.

As software developers, waiting on tools to complete their job is a normal part of our day to day workflow (unfortunately!)

We're always waiting for a module to install, a test to run, or a commit to finish ("It's compiling!")…

Now sure, we're not "abandoning" our work every time we have to wait a few seconds for a tool to run—keeping focused on the task at hand is what we're getting paid for after all.

Yet, generating that focus costs us mental energy that we might then lack in other areas of our work.

We get tired a little quicker in the afternoon, or introduce a "tiny" little extra bug with our latest commit —

You know the drill. In my experience even small forced pauses and delays add up.

Switching files in a slow editor or jumping between apps on a slow computer is simply harrowing.

It pains the engineer in me to think that things I literally do hundreds of times each day are not performing at optimum efficiency…

And don't get me started on editor typing latencies… Sure, the scale is different—microscopic even—but boy does it feel agonizing to have my cursor freeze in place, or some crappy web-app based editor taking a second to render a character I just typed. Yarghh!

All of those issues just slowly (hah!) KILL productivity…

Here's a little thought experiment, to loosen things up:

Let's say you're waiting for a task to complete for about 1 out of every 10 seconds you spend on productive work.

That adds up to half a day per week, or 2 days a month… or *1 whole month* of time wasted on slow software over the course of a year!

Maybe this estimate is too high—but what if you could "only" get an additional week of productive time a year, just by spending a few hours on optimizing your tools? I'd say that's worth a try.

Heck, what if you could 'only' free up 1 week every 5 years by spending an hour on your tools today? The rational person in me is foaming at the mouth right now…

It turns out you can eliminate *dozens* of these little kinks and hitches in your Sublime Text workflow. And it'll take you less than 60 minutes to do it, see below for details:

>> Click here to improve your Python editor efficiency

— Dan Bader