In atom there’s APIs to create those side and bottom panels, see: https://atom.io/docs/api/v1.0.0/Panel in my day to day I have to run sublime and visual studio code because visual studio code has a usable debugger, whilst sublime does not
I think if sublime text had native panels like atom has tried to do then plugin creators could leverage them to make rich debugging experiences on top of sublime’s superior performance/UI
Some debugger plugins use the layout mechanism to create views which are arranged like panels, but this is indeed quite hacky and may interfere with user layouts of “normal” views. What I hate most with it are the tabs which are displayed on top of such panels as they are not really needed if each focus group contains one view only.
Besides the fact a debugging interface is somewhat more than being able to create dedicated panels, I agree with you. A more powerful API to create panels, like in atom or VS Code would enable new functions here and there.
But I guess it won’t be part of ST3 but maybe ST4 in the future.
Yep, the UI of the forum got updated on my PC just after posting. 
Amazing stuff! Did not yet get to the blog as testing 4143 has higher priority 
