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Atom vs Vim: What are the differences?
Introduction
In this Markdown, we will discuss the key differences between Atom and Vim, two popular text editors used by developers.
User Interface and Customization Options: Atom offers a modern and intuitive user interface with a highly customizable layout. Users can easily modify themes, colors, and other visual aspects to fit their preferences. On the other hand, Vim has a more minimalist and efficient user interface, with a heavy emphasis on keyboard shortcuts. While Vim allows customization, it is typically done by editing configuration files, making it less user-friendly for beginners.
Plugins and Extensions: Atom has a vast library of plugins and extensions that enhance its functionality. These plugins can be easily installed and managed through the integrated package manager. Vim also supports plugins, but its plugin ecosystem is not as extensive as Atom's. However, Vim's built-in functionality, such as macros and the ability to run external commands, often compensates for the lack of specific plugins.
Learning Curve and Efficiency: Atom provides a more gentle learning curve for newcomers to programming and text editors. It offers a user-friendly interface and numerous features that can be easily discovered and used. On the other hand, Vim has a steep learning curve. It requires memorization of various keyboard commands and Vim-specific concepts, such as modes and registers. Once mastered, Vim's efficiency and speed are unparalleled due to its keybinding-centric design.
Availability and Portability: Atom is available for all major operating systems (Windows, macOS, and Linux), making it highly accessible to a wide range of users. Moreover, Atom's configuration and installed packages can be synchronized across devices using a GitHub account. Vim, on the other hand, is a terminal-based text editor that comes pre-installed on most Unix-based systems, making it highly portable and accessible without any additional installations.
Integration with other Tools and Languages: Atom offers seamless integration with various tools, languages, and development workflows. It provides support for numerous programming languages, syntax highlighting, and linting. Atom is also well-integrated with Git version control, making it effortless to manage repositories. Vim, although it lacks out-of-the-box language support, has an extensive ecosystem of plugins that enable integration with different languages, tools, and workflows. This allows users to customize Vim to fit their specific needs.
Community and Support: Atom has a large and active community of developers who contribute to its development and maintenance. The community provides support through forums, GitHub issues, and a rich documentation repository. Vim also has a strong and dedicated community, although it may be less beginner-friendly compared to Atom's community. Resources for Vim, such as tutorials, forums, and plugins, are abundant, enabling users to find assistance and solutions for their needs.
In Summary, Atom and Vim differ in terms of user interface, customization options, plugin support, learning curve, availability, integration with other tools, and community support.
For a Visual Studio Code/Atom developer that works mostly with Node.js/TypeScript/Ruby/Go and wants to get rid of graphic-text-editors-IDE-like at once, which one is worthy of investing time to pick up?
I'm a total n00b on the subject, but I've read good things about Neovim's Lua support, and I wonder what would be the VIM response/approach for it?
Neovim can basically do everything Vim can with one major advantage - the number of contributors to the code base is just so much wider (Vim is ~100% maintained only by B. Mooleanaar). Whatever you learn for Neovim you can also apply to Vim and vice versa. And of course there is the never ending Vim vs Emacs controversy - but better not get into that war.
Actually, the biggest advantage with Neovim (as a VS user) is that you can embed REAL Neovim as the editor UI, rather than using a "Vim emulation", you're using actual NVIM, embedded in VS!
"asvetliakov.vscode-neovim" is the extension you are looking for:
- Install the 'vscode-neovim; extension (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=asvetliakov.vscode-neovim)
- Install Neovim version 0.5+ nightly
- Start winning.
(You can install neovim-nightly separately for just vscode, I usually build and install it to /opt/nvim - it's enough enough to do - let me know if you need help).
Works wonderfully. It might not work out of the box if you have some 100K epic nvim initialization file, but the plugin documents a workaround for having an embedding/VS specific configuration.
I don't actually notice much of a difference between the two, as the end result looks identical. If you use Vim and are switch to Neovim it's an extremely easy 1-minute process. I switched from Vim to Neovim. I can't say I found much of a difference, but the key points where Neovim could be better than just vim is that first, there are much more people maintaining Neovim compared to vim, which means fewer bugs and a modern code base. It also has a smaller code base which might result in a small speed improvement. Another thing is that it's basically just a fork of vim, so what harm can it do? ;)
I recommend using vim 8+
it has native plugin support
if you need language supports you can install the package vim-nox which will come with support for python, lua, ruby, etc
The hints on the codebase's contributors and the VSCode integration helped me make up my mind.
I really appreciate all comments, though.
Thanks a bunch!
It truly depends on whether you want to completely avoid GUI and stick to TUI and command lines. If you want to edit all of your codes within a terminal, then Vim or neovim would be the choice. Emacs can be run in a terminal, but the functionality is limited. Most people use Emacs using GUI and emacs-client not to use too much memory.
My general preference is to use an independent text editor, which is better if it is highly customizable and programmable. So, I have used Emacs for several years. For beginners, I guess Emacs requires significant time to learn to fully enjoy its wonderful functionalities. In that sense, using atom would be a recommendable option.
Regardless of all the situations, learning basic vim in the terminal will help you in any case. In summary, I recommend 1. vim as a default editor in the terminal 2. atom if you are a beginner, or 3. Emacs if you have a long-term plan to master a programmable editor
Other editors like sublime text, VS code, and so forth are also worth learning and using. But, no matter which editor you choose, stick to one or two until you become an advanced user. Being able to use most text editors at an intermediate level is waste of time.
I hope it helps.
Since communication with Github is not necessary, the Atom is less convenient in working with text and code. Sublim's support and understanding of projects is best for us. Notepad for us is a completely outdated solution with an unacceptable interface. We use a good theme for Sublim ayu-dark
I use Visual Studio Code every day, it was very refreshing coming from Atom to get a lightweight, all i need setup right out of the box.
After working with Atom for around 2 years I switch to VSCode.
Here is why:
- Color display of variables in code. This may now sound much, but it improve the display of scss variables and its a core feature.
- Out of the box features.
- Automation! VSCode suggests usefull things to you.
- Integraded console. I love the console in VSCode. It is faster than my 'default' cmd on Windows. For Atom you would have to install a package, that doesn't work so well on Windows.
- Output logging per Plugin.
- Setup time. In VSCode I can set up my workspace in under 5 minutes. For Atom I need
- Plugins work perfect out of the box. This is a mayor one for me. For example: In order to set up Editorconfig you have to adjust mutliple values and plugins to get it work. Plugin creators of Editorconfig for Atom are not to blame: They include a linter, that verifies whether the settings are correct or not.
- Git implementation. VSCode ships with Git and even if the git packet of vscode doesn't look like much, theres a lot to it. For example you can watch changes inline.
- Minimap and vertical scrollbar. This feature is much better implementet in VSCode and you don't need an extra plugin.
- Auto completion. Sass mixins example:
@includeand you press CTRL+SPACE and VSCode shows you every Sass mixin. - Copy paths from open file tab. In VSCode you can copy the path of an file directly when you have it open. In atom you need to select 'show in tree view' and than copy the path or relative path.
- Tree view. The tree view VSCode automaticly brings you to the current open file by default. This helps when working with components.
- File search. The file search supports the asterisk so you can search for eg
molecule-*.ts. - Tasks support. Tasks are integrated in VSCode so eg. for Typescript you can
CTRL + SHIFT + Band selecttsc: watch - tsconfig.ts. - Short waiting time. For example when deleting files or beautifying 20.000 lines of json (Atom hangs up).
- More releases. Faster feature implementation. Active community.