Sublime Text as main IDE

[KarloSiric]

Hello, I wanted to ask you fellow sublime text followers, fans and friends. I am curious do you use sublime text as your day to day work and if you do which kind of work do you do with it. Do you use something beside it. The reason why I ask is because I find sublime text to be really amazing and I am
wondering if it can be your main editor. I understand most people use VSCode, not a fan of it tbh, have used it but find it heavy, bloated and laggy af. There is NVim and Emacs which I think are also amazing but the learning curve is quite something for those two, I find sublime to be a perfect fit for me. Is there somebody who has been using sublime for an extended period of time and decided to stick with it and if so why. Thank you

[kapitanluffy]

I have used it since around 2013 or 2014. I started using notepad++ then shifted to Sublime of how sleek looking it is. I have tried multiple times to move to Vscode but for some reason it always feels slow and cluttered. I also have tried Neovim and I do got familiar with how to use it but mastering it feels like needing to learn how to ride the bike again.

Here are some of the reasons why I got stuck with Sublime:

• Awesome people made language servers work with Sublime
• I found there’s an unofficial discord and the community behind it is more helpful than other “opensource” communities I have lurked in
• I learned how to create my own plugins

The only thing that would cement me here would probably be if the company become more in touch with their community.

[KarloSiric]

That is awesome to hear thank you for your reply I appreciate the feedback. Also do you use sublime text as your main IDE/editor in your every day work or do you use something along side with it for your heavier duty/projects and stuff. I love it for instance have been setting it up for quite some time and finally finished, now I am wondering if it can be really used for every day work like Web Development but at the same time for like fun stuff at the side like doing C, C++ Java, Python more in terms of game making/embeded programming and etc.

[stevelloyd]

I have been using Sublime Text for years as my main editor. I use it for PHP, Python, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript editing. I have also wrote custom build plugins that allow me to use Sublime to run SQL queries directly from sublime. I rarely use anything else.

[kapitanluffy]

Yes. I use Sublime for a lot of things. It’s my main code editor, scratch pad, log viewer, obsidian alternative.

I also have used it with Java way back in college since my laptop faints if I use netbeans or eclipse. I have also been recently using it for game development with godot (though unfortunately, there’s not much plugins for it).

Just so you know, it has a powerful build system internally and a debugger plugin (though, I havent extensively used it) which you can use for the compiled languages you mentioned.

I know it is daunting to set it up but I find it rewarding because it made me know my tool more. If you feel discouraged, ask how to do X on discord.

[KarloSiric]

Awesome to hear, I didn’t know about godot so good to know, you learn something new every day ain’t that the truth. Also I want to setup sublime for web development which I already have, I use css html javascript and php, I set it all up using plugins , especially LSP. Now my focus is setting it up for C and Java and Python, which I have also done , all the build system’s work and like you said, takes a while getting used to setting everything up but it is satifying once you actually do it! Need to find out how to code games in C on mac, that’s my next problem to deal with haha

[kira]

It’s my only editor. I usually write in matlab, R, python, C, latex, markdown, bash and nushell. I recently discovered the lsp, so the experience is even better now. The custom compile command are just great.

[gstalnaker]

It is my primary editor though my usecase is less for coding (though I have used it for that purpose) - it’s my primary text editor. I write in markdown and the pandoc plugin is indespensible for me both before I retired and after. No other editor has such a useful pandoc integration. The ability from within ST4 to write my markdown then generate using pandoc, based on my needs, HTML, PDF, DOCX, ODF, or plain text without having to exit ST4 is terrific. I should be very unhappy without this editor. I’ve tried Atom, NP++, VSCode, Kate, Emacs. ST4 is the best of them IMO.

[FattyBoomBatty]

I use Sublime as my main editor. Moved to VS for a bit to try out copilot, but found it too clunky, even if it does try to clone many features from Sublime. I also find the integration with Submerge to be sleek. Across our office devs may use any editor, some use VS. When doing a screen share it is noticeable how long winded VS is compared to Sublime, but each to their own.

[giampaolo]

ST has been my only editor/IDE for more than 15 years, and the only software I’ve ever bought.

The best selling point for me is that ST is THE text editor for Python developers (I am one). If you know Python and have time, you can customize almost any aspect of it. In this sense ST can be seen as a framework to write your own text editor / IDE. Or if you wish, an engine to program ST itself. My /User directory is a (GIT) project on its own, with thousands of lines of Python code and unit tests, which I kept expanding over the years. The end result is a ST experience which is specific to myself, quite different than the default ST installation. I doubt I could reach this level of programmability and customization with other GUI editors.

ST was written with extensibility in mind, and it was clearly meant to be used by developers (the JSON based configuration is a clear example). What they did is truly astonishing. A lesson in software design.

[tamj]

Used as exclusive web eng coding editor, i.e. for HTML, CSS, SCSS, JS, etc for last 8 years. All day every day really. I never use other editors alternately with it despite the mania surrounding VS Code - which I have installed but found it jammed on vigorous use.

Occasional use as text editor for scripting on Linux but not as main editor in this work. The built-in editors like Nano or Gedit do whatever I need so far. I have Vim installed but trying to remember all the shortcuts is a drag. In any case my (self-taught) productivity is not controlled by code entry speed but rather by implementation drags like choosing the best constructs, debugging and user testing.

I stuck with Sublime Text after VS Code’s limitations became clear, after I began to use the ST extensions effectively and moreover after ST quick response emerged. I must add a special word of thanks to a guy called OdatNurd who is the supreme package builder and explainer of packages on YouTube and on this forum. Without guys like him - and I don’t believe you’ll find anyone like him on VS Code’s community - and all they bring to the ST environment, it just wouldn’t be the same scene.

Welcome aboard, man.

[maegul]

Just wanted to second all of this as it’s basically the same as my experience.

The language server development has really made a big difference. If that work hadn’t been done, and the core team didn’t do it, I honestly would have probably moved on and kept ST for only niche things like markdown (as many do AFAICT).

The other thing is getting to grips with all of the customising and plugin options. OdatNurd’s youtube channel is great for this (https://www.youtube.com/@OdatNurd/videos) and they’re still active here.

I’ve published one (here if you’re curious) that I made for myself but thought others might find useful and made a few basic things here and there for myself. I’ve also made my own color themes that I tweak when desired as well as snippets and a number of keybindings for making things easier (my favourite right now being the space bar while in vim Normal mode as the beginning of a sequence for doing all the LSP things).

Python is a great language for the plugin API as so many “batteries are included” to supplement whatever the API (docs here) may be missing.

I describe it as a well worn and comfortable shoe that I just don’t need to change/update until it completely falls apart (which will hopefully not happen!!).

Should sublime start having problems, VS Code always felt too bloated to me too and neovim/emacs would have to provide real selling points for me to (re)learn working with them (though I do use vim bindings in sublime).

[AdamWysokinski]

ST4 (previously ST3) has been my daily driver for years. I do almost all my writing (Julia – excellent LanguageServer support and Send code to Terminus plugins, Markdown, zsh scripts, config files, CSV data) in ST. I use Pandoc to export Markdown to ODT/ODP/DOCX/PPTX and do some final tweaks in LibreOffice. One of my favorite pieces of software. A keeper.

[pu239]

Hello
I have used ST as my primary editor for 5 years now, I have also used VSCode, eclipse and intelliJ (for significant durations) and many other editors (for smaller durations) before this. I also use micro as a lite editor inside the terminal (working through ssh sometimes).

I find the sublime text experience to be… sublime.
I code primarily in python and to a smaller extent in C/C++/CUDA, javascript(+html/css), and golang.
For these languages, I find myself having no regrets.
I also use it for making rst documentation, latex documents (mostly papers), and markdown.

My projects are mainly ML-related, with a slight hint of web-app development and random open source stuff.
I use LSPs heavily, mainly pyright + ruff and copilot sometimes, and the experience is better than you can ever have in vscode (mainly talking about lag and snappines, compared on the same machine).
The git integration with sublime merge is also amazing, and (for complex git ops) I find merge to be orders of magnitude more intuitive than using git solely on the cli or using other apps.

Adding to all this, sublime is perfect even for looking through random files - json, XML, binary - and supports very large files much better than any other editor I’ve seen. (excluding cli/tui editors)

I love that it is so memory efficient that I can have ~7/8 windows open of different projects together, along with a browser (you know how bad the memory situation is there) and not have to worry about memory being hogged like vscode (who thought electron for a text editor is a good idea?). (16GB of ram on a laptop, for details).
The customization is also clearly amazing, and more importantly easy - including making custom plugins!

Take a look at the new Zed editor, whose “talking points” are it’s speed. They compare with sublime, which beats out zed!

For these reasons, I think sublime is a very competitive choice for a main IDE.

[Juandev]

Ive been using mostly Rstudio for writing code in Python, because I was lazy to learn new interface. But meanwhile I did the investigation on code editors, and I found Sublime text to be the one, which fits to my needs and comfort. For example traditional code editors have some legacy behaviours, which you have to learn and yes, it was wierd to me so I have decided not to do that. Now I am having problems to run my code in Rstudio, since in fact you are running it in R via library, so instead of repering the R infrustructure I have decide to finally move to Sublime Text.

[whensean]

I once used Sublime as my only IDE. I also tried using Sublime for remote code debugging (sshfs to my laptop). Mainly for machine learning-related tasks: Python and C++.
However, after recently trying out Cursor, I believe Sublime should consider moving towards a direction that has a syntax tree and an understanding of the entire project. LLM Coder can indeed significantly improve actual development efficiency. This efficiency surpasses the speed of the tool itself.

[Lozminda]

I’ve been ‘forced’ into windows and Visual Studio for work, and though I have very mixed feelings on Windows, coming from Linux, VS isn’t a bad bit of kit. But it’s a terrible text editor, ST to the rescue.
I use VS as IDE and ST for a lot of text editing. We’re upgrading software so some changes are impossible using VS and can be done in a few key presses with ST.

[okisan]

@pu239 Can you elaborate on your Copilot experience in ST please? Especially when compared to VSCode? ST is a fantastic tool but I have been eyeing VSCode lately just for the Copilot experience.

[DrJasonPolak]

I recently bought Sublime because I could no longer stand the incredible push of AI from Microsoft. I hate AI. Additionally, I found Sublime to be snappier and nicer than VS Code anyway, except for VS Code’s split screen superiority. Though, I’m happy to give that up to use one less Microsoft product.

I use Sublime for Python and text and it’s very nice.

[Juandev]

Please make no changes. I am quite happy with what we have now, and you are free to change if you find something that fits you.