Sublime Forum

ST 2 vs ST 3: what are the real differences?

#1

Hello Folks,

I use the ST 2 for quite some time and I just love it. I installed the beta of the ST 3 and to be sincere, as far as my knowledge go, I did not see any difference.

Could someone please point me the major addons?

Thank you,

Rom Pereira

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#2

And here’s our troll again… :frowning:

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#3

  • Speed.

  • Python3 - which includes threaded plugins.

  • Packaged plugins.

  • Sidebar now has icons.

And I’m sure there is more that I can’t think of right now.

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#4

The symbol indexing in a project is a huge improvement: just use f12 when on a function call or do ctrl+shift+r to navigate among your class quickly.

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#5

[quote=“jbrooksuk”]

  • Speed.

  • Python3 - which includes threaded plugins.

  • Packaged plugins.

  • Sidebar now has icons.

And I’m sure there is more that I can’t think of right now.[/quote]

Thank you for your answer jbrooksuk. Maybe since I mostly develop web apps, usually in the regular trio html/javascript/php, I never noticed this speed gain, usually with a maximum 10 to 15 scripts open at all times. I only tried the ST 2 and 3 on Mac OS X though in my mac mini and macbook pro, both quite powerful computers, but again, I have no idea if that would benefit such a small app. Even with all scripts open, ST never passes over 100 Mb in memory. By packaged plugins I imagine you mean ability to work with them compressed. I have a friend that works with python, he keeps bragging all the time about it. I did not spent the time to study it yet, but it is in the bucket list, that is for sure!! The sidebar I noticed before…

All the best,

Rom Pereira

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#6

Hello Clams and thank you for your answer.

Darn this feature is cool!!! Took me a while to learn that you need the project created and the files loaded to it to it function correctly…

All the best,

Rom Pereira

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#7

Maybe you meant that they are separated from the main app in the memory. :smile:

All the best,

Rom Pereira

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#8

[quote=“henkbb”]

And here’s our troll again… :frowning:[/quote]

I understand the user’s sadness, but very feel developed applications today let you interact this much with its main development. In my humble opinion ST is an unique application and even if ST3 delay another year I would say that is worth the while. But again we always hope that those “lazy developers” move their buts waaaay faster :smile:

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#9

[quote=“romrp”]

Hello Clams and thank you for your answer.

Darn this feature is cool!!! Took me a while to learn that you need the project created and the files loaded to it to it function correctly…

All the best,

Rom Pereira[/quote]

Holy crap, how did I not know this feature existed? I’ve been reluctant in the past to create projects because I felt they weren’t worth the hassle. That changes today.

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#10

Dude, you probably mean GPS. Try your car, drive straight to … Well you get the picture. :wink:

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#11

[quote=“romrp”]

Dude, you probably mean GPS. Try your car, drive straight to … Well you get the picture. :wink:[/quote]

Don’t feed the troll.

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#12

The Goto Definition stuff is great.

The other feature I like in ST3 is multiple workspaces (under the project menu). Workspaces store the tabs you have opened (etc.), whereas project files define the project-specific settings like which folders to ignore.

I work on a largish Rails app with a single project file and a handful of workspaces. If I need to work on a section of our app again, I can reopen a workspace to continue where I left off, instead of tracking down a bunch of files.

Nathan.

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#13

Sorry to raise the dead, but:

  • I bought ST2/ST3 and naturally loved it.
  • But then ran into the problem that several ST2 plugins were not ported
  • And my teammates had stayed behind on ST2 and were happy with that.

That was a while back. Have things changed? Because of the pain (I think), I didn’t “go back” to ST2 but instead started using Atom … which is lacking in a lot of ways, and slooooow.

So any advice?

  • Switch back to ST2

  • Stay with ST3

  • Punt and stay with Atom

    – Owen

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#14

@backspaces

Generally speaking, most plugins have been ported to ST3, with one or two exceptions which typically were dead projects at that time anyway. I guess what matters to you is that plugins that you find useful have been upgraded. Chances are they have been, but without any idea of what they are you’re not likely to get a more useful answer.

As to the gist of your question. ST2 vs ST3… If you’re completely happy with ST2 stick with it. Guessing you weren’t as you switched away. If there is a single feature in ST3 that’s useful to you, upgrade unless there’s a compelling reason not to. In my experience, ST3 is like having some upgrades to the engine of a cherished car. It’s not a different car, but it feels a heck of a lot nicer.

Personally, trying to do real work in Atom was a chore simply because while in broad brush Atom copies Sublime’s UX sugar, it misses a lot of the details and although improving it’s still lacks by a country mile. Twas also too damn slow.

The only thing that’s tempted me to switch a few times is phpStorm, simply because it has a lot of code intel features which can be quite a timesaver. But in the end it’s not enough to tempt me away and there are too many little things about phpStorm I don’t like; it reminds me too much of the various IDE’s that I used to wrestle with in the days when I always ended up back in the comfort of my favourite old editor back then, Brief.

If I could have the the code intel and formatting features of phpstorm in an open and extensible framework, a whole raft of little bugs fixed and a bigger API to allow more of Sublime to be customised, I think Sublime would just about be my dream editor. As it is, it’s not so far away. Oh, that and an engine that handles very large files more gracefully. And, and and… :smile:

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#15

caniswitchtosublimetext3.com/ checks to see what plugins you’re running have ST3 compatibility.

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#16

I bought it few days ago and still looking around for new stuff.
Seems it’s no longer needed CTags plugin since there is a new build-in file indexing system (unfortunately still too far from the one of PHPStorm :unamused: ).
It works fine with functions’ declarations but not with variables and constants…
Of course it’s always better to keep the plugin library as much dry as possible due to performance and conflicts (always behind the corner) issues.
Working with Terminal (configured with iTerm2 and Zsh), Phpcs, Emmet and all PHP-Drupal-Symfony related plugins (including Twig and JSON) I can say that Sublime is still my favorite editor.
I have also noticed that ST3 now shows up assets files (jpeg, png, gif).
Concluding, I really hope the dev team will improve the indexing system since it is, by my opinion, the most important aspect and PHPStorm is still untapped by this point of view.

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#17

Indexing in ST3 relies on the new context sensitive syntax definitions. It is basically possible to nearly index everything if the syntax definition comes with the required details. In fact this is something much effort is put into at the moment.

But ST can’t implement some kind of IntelliSense for each language on its own. It provides the API to implement something like that, but parsing the sources and collecting required information to put into popups and auto completion must be provided by language specific packages. Good examples are Anaconda or Sublime Jedi which provide IDE like features for Python development.

ST provides basic API to support built systems, debuggers and even can show errors in place using phantom text. So we basically have everything we need to get happy.

Have a look on VS Code. It comes with just nothing, but you can install many nearly feature complete language packages including syntax definitions (copied from ST), auto-completion, built systems, debuggers, etc…

What ST needs is a couple of willing and capable devs providing those packages.

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#18

https://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/sublime-text-3-point-0

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