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Atom Editor is 859.8 MB on Disk (This is Ridiculous!)

Open nelsonic opened this issue 7 years ago • 9 comments

I know that "all software is optional" #3 but on a computer that doesn't have a built-in editor, people have to start somewhere ...

I just downloaded the latest version of Atom from https://atom.io as recommended by this README.md it took ages to download because the App archive is 278 MB: downloading-atom-second-attempt

While it was downloading I thought: "278Mb for a Text Editor ... that feels large...!" But That was only the tip of the hard drive hogging iceberg! 🙄

Once unzipped the Atom App is 859.8 MB "on disk": image

That is bigger than many Linux Distributions (Operating System)!!!!!! 😮

It might not be a problem for people who have a brand new Mac, but for people who don't have a particularly generous hard drive, it might be too high a "cost"! not to mention downloading the App on a lower connection speed might be bandwidth-prohibitive!

I think we might need to encourage people to use a more lightweight Text Editor. 💡 Or even consider going full in-browser! 🤔

What are the alternatives? Vim? Emacs?

nelsonic avatar Nov 11 '18 07:11 nelsonic

Apparently other people are incensed by this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18503942 🙄

nelsonic avatar Nov 22 '18 04:11 nelsonic

I would suggest using vscode as it is widely adopted and praised by dev community and fast and lightweight too. https://code.visualstudio.com/

2018-11-22-104236_1366x768_scrot

pavanjadhaw avatar Nov 22 '18 05:11 pavanjadhaw

@pavanjadhaw thanks for sharing. ❤️ I use VSCode as my "third editor" when I want to edit something quickly that isn't my "main" project. I agree that it's a really good editor; there is no question that it's a good product. My only "gripe" with VSCode is that it sends "telemetry data" to Microsoft by default. see: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/80d8wu/just_realised_that_visual_studio_code_sends/

This means Microsoft knows what code you are writing at all times. While I have "nothing to hide", I feel that on principal, a for-profit company should not do this. And having it enabled by default is a "Dark UX" pattern. i.e. it's "sneaky" and not transparent.

nelsonic avatar Nov 22 '18 07:11 nelsonic

@nelsonic Vscodium exists if you are worried about that!

pavanagrawal123 avatar Jan 06 '19 21:01 pavanagrawal123

Also, Atom burns through battery: atom-editor-battery-hog

We need a much better way!

nelsonic avatar Jan 13 '19 00:01 nelsonic

https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/20772 image

nelsonic avatar May 21 '20 08:05 nelsonic

See: #37

nelsonic avatar Jul 27 '22 08:07 nelsonic

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010065

nelsonic avatar Dec 16 '22 07:12 nelsonic

https://medium.com/commitlog/electron-is-cancer-b066108e6c32

nelsonic avatar Dec 16 '22 07:12 nelsonic