Sublime Forum

**eharris** · August 9, 2019, 3:05pm

I was wondering if there has been any indication of when Sublime 4 may be released. I am currently enjoying Sublime 3 as a free product and have strongly considered registering. I think the authors deserve that. However I have read that even registered v. 3 users will need to pay an upgrade fee to have v. 4. So it seems to make sense to wait for the release of v. 4 and just purchase it then rather than making 2 payments. Any thoughts about when v. 4 will be released?

**Orlmente** · August 9, 2019, 4:01pm

Every now and then someone ask for it, here the last thread:

…anyway, there is no such thing as “Sublime 3 as a free product”, if you read the disclaimer in the download page:

Sublime Text may be downloaded and evaluated for free, however a license must be purchased for continued use. There is currently no enforced time limit for the evaluation.

**kosmo** · August 13, 2019, 8:10pm

I say this with due respect but I believe your reply missed the spirit of the question. You took the opportunity to remind someone if they are using a product they should be paying per the license regardless of the version and therefore the question of dubious value. However, the clear point of the question is to ascertain the development path for the product and whether an investment in ST as it stands now will have any value as there has been “crap” for official communication about any future of ST via ST4 or beyond. There’s an elephant sitting in the room and ST continues to ignore an official development timeline which would mitigate the trepidation users have in continuing to invest in a platform that may or may not be dead. Anyway, for all of you out there that can read between the lines here. If it walks like a duck quacks like a duck. It’s a duck. Lack of attention to answering these questions should tell you all there is to know. Likely time you start heading over to VScode.

**nutjob2** · August 13, 2019, 10:17pm

Did you come here just to whine? No-one knows when v4 will be out, even the developers. No one cares if you use ST or VSCode or a piece of paper.

**facelessuser** · August 14, 2019, 3:23am

ST is not dead. It is a very small team that works on ST, and whenever they have their head down on complex features or issues, there is a long quite period before a release. ST2 had years before ST3 popped up, and during ST2 development there were quiet times just as there are in ST3. Throughout that period of time, people would do the same thing as now and question whether ST was dead.

ST has moments where there are frequent releases, and moments of long silences. This has always been the development cycle. ST does not move as fast as some products with much larger teams, but I still find it better.

As far as a roadmap, there has never really been an open roadmap. They are pretty good though about extending a previous license to a license for a new version if one was purchased close to when a release for the new version is announced.

If you are worried about ST4, if history holds true, you will see dev builds for ST4 for at least a year (if not more) being released, which the ST3 license will also cover. Upgrades are only required when the official non beta is finally released. So there will be clear warning well before a new license is required.

**kosmo** · August 14, 2019, 3:36am

That’s the problem with ST. you have an apologist on every corner. This is a commercial product as noted by the original reply to the op. As such, commercial development teams are expected to apprise their “investors” in this case, “us” the consumers of estimated development cycles. It’s the way of commercial IT. This is not a “homegrown” not for profit shareware project. It’s 2019 yet no indication of ST 4 or even if ST is going to be a “thing” or not. It’s the very definition of a dead platform unless the development cycle is published to indicate something differently. Development software is a small investment of money but a HUGE investment in time by the consumer. There are bugs to work through and learning curves to move beyond so while you apologize for a lack of clearly identified, even if estimated, milestones, I see it for what it is. Every few months, VScode is closing the gap and more developers are jumping the ST ship to embrace a platform where there hundreds, no, thousands of development hours are supported through upgrades and maintenance. Should the ST developers simply publish a chart of estimated milestone dates, most of the concern goes away. At least until the dates become more fantasy than reality.

**kosmo** · August 14, 2019, 3:50am

You are right. There has never really been a roadmap but ST never really had competition worth looking at until now. I always shrug when I hear - I’m paraphrasing here, “we’ve always done it this way so that’s why we won’t change” because I’ve found it near impossible to introduce needed changes when confronting this argument.

Just keep in mind the OP had a valid question that deserves to be answered by the development team and since they won’t answer with any clarity their confidence in the investment is at risk.

I use ST, I don’t use VScode nor do I plan on using it moving forward but I do teach classes comprising hundreds of students who have found it HIP to suddenly embrace Microsoft and VScode. Just 4-5 years ago, ST was the HIP answer to all things code. Students nowadays want to know the hours they spend in school are never at risk of being wasted. Every risk mitigation course worth its salt teaches the art of running away from development platforms that do not maintain a robust calendar.

Ultimately, ST3 is not dead but until someone proves otherwise, ST4 is dead before it even begins.

**facelessuser** · August 14, 2019, 4:27am

Sure, I guess the existence of a future ST4 is an unknown quantity until you start seeing releases. Nothing is 100% known. Even if they offered a rough roadmap to appease those asking, there is no guarantee it will hold.

As far as the OP’s question is concerned, this should be a non-issue if they like Sublime Text. ST3 is still actively being developed. And if/when ST4 comes into reality, you will get development builds for quite a long time that your ST3 license license will cover.

Looking at the historical life cycle of Sublime, I imagine they would get years (at least 2, but likely more) out of the current license. If we look at the ST3 development history, the first build came out on 29 January 2013. The 3.0 release was on 13 September 2017. That’s a long time. Even if they cut that time in half for the ST4 dev cycle, I think you’d get some good use out of your license.

All of this is of course based on the current license scheme.

**kosmo** · August 14, 2019, 5:03am

It’s all about the barbarians at the gate and running around the serf farms outside the moat. They are regular Sasquatches, razing and scatting all over the place. The civilians are getting restless and the masses need something to throw in their cook pots but Bigfoot has eaten everything in sight.

Your method of loosely examining past development is literally the only method we have to hang on to the hope of an ST4. The only problem with it is the longer it takes the larger the mountain that must be climbed when the release drops in order to keep pace with the feasting barbarians.

**nutjob2** · August 14, 2019, 5:59am

Where am I apologizing for the developer? I’m just stating the facts. I’ll break it down for you:

(1) No one can tell when ST4 will be available because that is the nature of software development. True for any software not just ST4. Any prediction would be useless, then you’d be back here complaining that they lied when they miss the deadline by several years.

(2) No one cares what your choice of editors is. You, like certain other people who come here, make dark threats about how ST is going to be destroyed by the competition if they don’t this or that. Of course you’re not saying that because you’d like to help them, it’s because you’ve got your own agenda and you’re making some sort of lame attempt to “motivate” the developers. It’s as pathetic coming from you as it is coming from everyone else. See the “Printing Feature” threads for more examples.

Development software is a small investment of money but a HUGE investment in time by the consumer.

This bit cracks me up the most. You have the people exactly the wrong way about. You’ve obviously never written a complex application before. Good luck.

**deathaxe** · August 14, 2019, 9:01am

This is the most important and powerful argument. The image of the tools. This statement is proved by the stackoverflow survey 2019 about used develompent tools. (Visual Studio and) VS Code seem to get more and more popular, while ST falls behind. Even the old Notepad++ is used more often.

I don’t like the feeling of VS Code and the idea of using a browser based editor at all. Is crashing very frequently, terrible. But its overall package/plugin infrastructure feels much more complete from the end users perspective - no deeper look behind the scenes.

And things like the new online streaming of content and live discussions of code… Not sure how useful it is, but I guess it will find its friends.

VS Code is the most active and most contributed to project on GitHub! … based on (stolen) ideas and concepts invented by sublimehq! So Microsoft should pay license fees for using the gui concepts.

Not sure what strategy for a small dev team can be to compete with a global player like Microsoft with its dedicated promotion and public relationship departments.

**FHTheron** · August 14, 2019, 9:02am

If you want to buy it, just buy it. It works way better than sending $2 to Happy Dude.
Asking the question here just destroys any joy you might have had from paying for a good product that will last for years.

**kosmo** · August 14, 2019, 2:20pm

Asking here may result in the development team realizing a slipping market and changing the narrative by embracing a public development life cycle schedule.

**kosmo** · August 14, 2019, 2:23pm

I spent 25 years writing complex application code for Siemens and Apple before teaching, nutjob.

**jfcherng** · August 14, 2019, 4:54pm

I believe the dev team has known those either suggestions or threats since VSC has thrived. They just have their way to work. Assuming they have known these kind of posts on forum, there is nothing more we can do I guess (uh, writing more powerful/useful plugins)? You will not be the first one and will not be the last one who posts concerns about ST. The real player in the war is the dev team. I am just a unarmed (or half-armed since I can still write plugins, lol) citizen. I do not think I am more insightful than the commander.

**gj1118** · August 14, 2019, 3:18pm

That is not exactly true. I work in the security industry where I have to write complex code. The management has given us dates when the product ought to be released. As is the case with agile , the release might be preponed or postponed, but atleast we have tentative dates in sight. Without any tentative release date in sight is not how software releases are done.

**gj1118** · August 14, 2019, 2:50pm

That is true for each and every popular product. You have Apple Fanboys as well. I dont disgree to the fact that people love the product so much that they are willing to overlook any problem that they might experience with the “product”. I myself have been using ST for almost >7 years now overlooking numerous ST issues that I encountered during my day to day to work with ST. I just sent this message to our corporate slack today

The problem only starts to compound itself, if these fanboys, start impeding the course of active development turning down almost any new feature request for something that is inferior just because they dont want the core product to change.

**eharris** · August 14, 2019, 3:06pm

Gentlemen All,
When I started this post with what I thought was a simple question I never thought that it would turn into so much bickering. I would encourage this post to be ended as of now. I am going to look around and see if there is any way that the originator of a post can delete it.
This is a very good editor, and I’m sure that the next version will come along in due time. Enough said, and thank you.
I hope that this post does not seem arrogant in any way. Have a good day all.

**kosmo** · August 14, 2019, 3:18pm

Hi eharris

This is not bickering. This is enjoyable and productive debate. I love every response here. I for one appreciate different ways of looking at things as variance tunes my own point of view. I think healthy debate, whether heated, respectful or soft is good for a community. The debate empowers personal thought and external opinion. Without this dialog, we are simply “consumers” expected to consume whatever we are fed. Our opinions give us voice and this voice translates into “things getting done”.

**kosmo** · August 14, 2019, 3:21pm

I think you are correct. This discussion is nothing new to the dev team. It’s my hope this discussion encourages them to post something positive in terms of future development goals.

Sublime v4