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I genuinely don't get this argument. If it was that, if Sublime were to cease updates everything stopped, I'd get it - but in the 4/5 years that I've been using it, I've only ever once had an issue (with a dev build) that stopped me from working. I just downgraded.

Just because something could stop being maintained, doesn't mean it instantly becomes worthless.

I don't know, maybe I'm missing something?



I don't know you, so it's hard to tell, but it's possible you are missing something. An editor is an integral part of a programmer. You don't want to be thinking about the editor when you edit. You want to have a thought and have it appear in your editor.

Very good editors have a crazy number of features. Many of these features cover small corner cases that only show up once in a while. A programmer who really knows their editor can use all of these features without thinking about them. It can save you an hour when you really, really need that hour. It can also save you brain cycles when you really, really need brain cycles.

Switching editors is not impossible (I've done it twice in 30 years, though I'm moving my way back to my original editor, emacs). If you are a real expert in your editor you will lose productivity for however long it takes you to acquire the equivalent features of your original editor. My experience is that it takes months, if not years to get really, really good -- depending on how much time you have to fiddle with your editor.

Choosing an open source editor that works on a variety of different platforms and is supported by a large community of people gives you insurance that you won't have to change editors unless you have some really compelling reason to do so.

If Sublime were stop being maintained, sure you could continue to use it for a few years, but would you (could you) be using it 10 years from now? That seems unlikely without an active community making builds for the new platforms you are going to be working on.

I know a lot of the younger people I work with don't understand the benefits of learning your editor to the extent I'm talking about, so they don't understand the cost of switching. Pair programming with someone who is a true expert with their editor can be very illuminating.




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