Sublime Forum

Reason to consider VS code instead of Sublime Text 4

#1

Hi,

I’m a long time Sublime Text user and looking at the upgrade of Sublime Text 3 to 4, but I have my doubts about Sublime Text being up to date with Bootstrap 5 and other frameworks. I can’t find any plugin with Bootstrap 5 and when I look in my VS code editor there are around 10 Bootstrap 5 plugins available.

For me this is a real deal breaker and proves that nobody seems to be interested in creating such a plugin for Sublime Text anymore and that makes me think twice to upgrade to 4!

The problem is that there is no plugin plan.

Regards,

David

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#2

Sublime Text is a text editor. It doesn’t make sense to for it to be up to date with any CSS/JS framework.

Well, then. Improve existing Bootstrap plugins or make your own and contribute to the open source world (I am sure Bootstrap users that use ST would very much welcome it). There is much scope for improving or contributing to the ST packages open source infrastructure.

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#3

That is utterly nonsense!

Package Control is a essential part of Sublime Text since the beginning I used it and plugins are updated according to the current versions of all frameworks I use till now. They are not updated anymore.

Reason? Nobody seems to be interested to create them!

Don’t tell me that I have to update them or create them my self! That makes no sense.

It’s disturbing to see nobody creates them anymore, but the same developers do appear in the VS code plugin section with updated plugins.

That’s what I try to explain.

Plugins are a essential part of anyone’s workflow and a important part of a text editor.

1 Like
#4

Unfortunately for Sublime the editor world has moved on. If you look at any of the recent ‘developer’ surveys VSCode is the new shiny go-to editor. So it makes sense plugin developers have moved on as well. As someone else mentioned - if it’s important to you - contribute your own plugin :slight_smile:

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#5

I can’t remember any ST plugin ever reached such download counts - assuming they are no fake.

grafik

Maybe just different markets?

On the other hand I also found many poor and unmaintained VS Code plugins, too.

But sure, more plugin developers would be nice.

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#6

As far as I can tell, VSCode has a far larger user base than Sublime Text, meaning that it is more likely to find somebody willing to write plugins.
VSCode is also backed by a company with virtually unlimited money to spend. Maybe this makes some difference in the plugin availability.

It is also possible that the typical ST user has different needs than a VSCode user. For example, I’m not interested in web development plugins.

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#7

I think Sublime lost a chance to become really big company like Intellij. The main problem of sublime is poor updates, uncomportable and hard for new users UI. For example, user need to press ctrl+shift+P , then we need to download Package Control, then we need to select it in ctrl+shift+p and after that download plugin. Moreover there is no normal plugins page.
Sublime is too simple and that’s why it is too hard for out of the box usage. The main advantage of vscode is that I can download it, open it, and all my plugins and themes syncronise automatically with my microsoft account. And then I can start my work without environment setup. VScode can work in browser, it can work well with wsl, it can work well with SSH. VSCode is super simple and super functional IDE.

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#8

Sublime have completely different philosophy than VSCode. By design Sublime gets out of your way. And it’s fast by default. I personally don’t want things installed by default, half of my Sublime plugins for example are not even installed through Package Control … so again different philosophy.

As for plugins … VSCode plugins are written in JavaScript. If we have a bridge between the Python API for Sublime and a Node or Deno process running in the background, that will enable more developers to write plugins in their favorite scripting language.

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#9

ST and VSC are tools. Use whichever tool works best for the particular job you’re trying to do. Neither tool will accomplish everything.

VSC has a very large extensions base, but it’s slower at a lot of things compared to ST and has a lot of features that either help you or get in your way (imo). It’s also verging on IDE territory.

ST has a smaller extensions base, but it’s faster at a lot of things compared to VSC, and focuses on just being a text editor and staying out of your way.

Please keep JavaScript out of my editor, both in extensions and in the text area itself.

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#10

There could be several reason why people won’t update packages/plugins

  1. They are fully featured i.e. there is nothing to update anymore.
  2. Open source maintainers are humans after all. They are not robots cranking out features/bug fixes 24 * 7. When there is no incentive to maintain packages/plugins and people just want to see their pet peeves in the project without making some contributions/efforts in the form of support/donations/making PR’s/issue triaging/helping out, it becomes depressing. Open source is a very rewarding venture when it comes to knowledge and skill, but it is not financially sustainable on it’s own.
  3. They would have moved on to some other editor, in this case VS Code or something else.

Why doesn’t it make sense ? You can consume a package/plugin which makes your work easier and saves some of your time, but when you notice there could be potential improvements or bug fixes that could be made, you falter out of it and then complain they are not updated ? Also note that just because someone makes an open source package, neither does it mean s(he) is entitled to provide support & help all the time nor does it mean you can complain about it not being up to date just because you think contributing to it makes no sense.

As I have said above, feel free to fill the gaps you notice. People who created packages/plugins did notice those gaps and they are the reason you are enjoying the package ecosystem in ST.

1 Like
#11

There are people who have the time to develop plugins and I’m not one of them. I do support all plugin developers from plugins I always use by donating generously and contribute with testing and reporting bugs. Purchased a license for Sublime every time it was needed. Purchased the SFTP plugin.

27% of the world wide web websites are based on Bootstrap according to:
https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/js-bootstrap

Sublime Text is used by 17 million plus users if I have to believe this:
sublime users base

At the moment there is not any Sublime Text plugin available with all the new Bootstrap 5 classes or any other Bootstrap 5 plugin. So it’s nice to have a Sublime 4 coming now, but as long as there is no clear vision on the plugin management it makes no more sense to me to update and pay for a editor with a too small plugin base for my needs.

I guess I’m not the only Bootstrap developer on this planet.

That’s the reason I consider VS Code instead of the Sublime Text 4 upgrade.

It’s just guessing what plugins will come, go or maintain.

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#12

That’s because people who use ST are too smart, so they won’t do thing that “makes no sense” :upside_down_face:

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#13

I have no clue what you try to say!:thinking:

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#14

I mean, writing a plugin makes no sense (as you stated). So I suppose it makes sense that the plugin you want doesn’t exist because other people think in the same way as well.

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#15

That’s why the plugins I’m looking for are to find in VS code with the choice out of 10 different ones and in Package Manager Zero?

Maybe it’s an idea to read the whole story instead of one sentence!

Do you try to be funny on the expense of a very serious matter for me?

I use Sublime Text from the beginning of it’s existence and reaction like the one you are giving make it clear to me that it’s over and out for Sublime despite the nice Sublime 4 upgrade.

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#16

I might as well wade in, a bit of procrastination never did any harm !
Firstly a few folks have said this: (sorry @simov)

Until it doesn’t, I’ve spent hours with ST3 very much in the way. Now I admit maybe I’m not interpretting what you mean correctly (both communicator and communicatee have a duty to try and understand each other I believe) I’ve found the ST3 very light weight fast etc etc, but sometimes trying to get it to do what you want it to do IS very frustrating. However as my knowledge has increased it seems that this is the way for many configurable apps and isn’t just ST3. (I know the conversation is about ST4 but I have no experience in that department I’m just trying to take a little heat out of the conversation and avoid doing some class refactoring/housework)

However that’s a bit of introductory chaff if you like, to the real meat of the problem, firstly I think we’re comparing chalk and cheese, or perhaps apples and cheese. Both are edible, but both come from vastly different sources.

This conversation reminds me of the debates about linux and windows, they’re on the surface they’re the same but in reallty they’re completely different in philosophy, financial structure and just about evrything else.

I haven’t paid for a licence, but if I had, I do think some of the comments on this forum would wind me up, some of them coming across as a bit glib at best. This may be due to folks being culturally different or English not being their first language and we who are native English speakers are very lucky that computer science is conducted in our native tongue rather than a second…
However I do wonder sometimes at some of the comments that are made it’s almost as if a valid observation has become some kind of personal attack.

(Even if the observation is “misfounded”, folks aren’t wasting their time on this forum to diliberately troll (except some are) but usually because they’ve got some issue that needs solving, from what I can see.)

The holy sanctity of the Sublime has been desecrated. Attack, attack ! (Now I’m being a knob)

@ALLMEDIALAB I sympathise with your predicatment, sorry I can’t help you out in any way, I’m just having a ramble instead of doing some work !

Ps Microsoft nicked £10 off me (through a technicality, they bought my Skype account, made skype 64 bit only for linux users, hence locking me out, so boo to them)

Pps To think I used to like google too :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

1 Like
#17

A large portion of the web development (JavaScript) world have moved to VSCode. And a lot of them were using Sublime before that, so having a way to write plugins using JavaScript isn’t a bad idea. If we pick Deno, then that is a single binary that by default will be sandboxed, and it won’t be able to access the file system or the network. Theoretically every Python interface can be translated into a JavaScript one. In case you don’t want to use such extensions they can be flagged as requiring an additional binary in Package Control.

That being said, I don’t know if a Bootstrap 5 plugin would need any of that.

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#18

How ungrateful do you think you sound on a scale of 1-10?

Do you think the creators are truly unaware of the type of issues that you are raising?

Is the difference between v5 and v4 really so critical that you need to change your text editor?

I use Sublime because it is not bloated.

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#19

Use whatever you want. All I can say about this is that this is a really petty reason to switch to VS Code.

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#20

Think you are missing the point! This is a very serious matter and has nothing to do with being ungrateful! The creators gain more out of this kind of criticism then looking at their disciples saying “You create the best editor”.

I don’t care if the creators are aware of this problem or not.

We need a clear plan to solve this issue! Plugins as part of the subscription or payed plugins that are both maintained and updated all the time.

In the real world we use a plugin ecosystem and we invest time and money in a certain system to work with it for a long time. We depend in a huge way of it. But if the ecosystem is disturbed and all plugin developers walk away you can not build on it with certainty.

That’s why I have a Sublime 4 subscription now for my company and aside of that a completely configured VS code for the moment I have a problem with Sublime Text or plugins are missing.

No I need updated plugins that are only available in VS code at the moment and that’s a pitty.

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