This week I focused on reaching out to people through connecting and sending a message on Linkedin and applying for a few jobs I thought I was a good fit for. No call backs yet, but hoping some of these will land an interview. This week for my blog I’d like to write about source code editors.
While programming, coders spend the most amount of time in their editors, where all the code writing happens! It took me a while to find one that best fit my needs and allowed me custom control to create a coding environment I felt most comfortable in. This blog will compare the code editors I tried out and hopefully help you decide on which one is best for you.
The first one I tried was Atom. This is a free code editor that has a simple and intuitive UI. Atom is created by GitHub so it allows for easy integration with your GitHub. It was quick to set-up and start coding right away. Some users complained about it taking too long to start-up and load, but I did not find that problem on my machine. You can download it here:
The next one I tried was VS code. This editor is built by Microsoft and is also free. One of the first things that popped out at me was the seemingly limitless customization options. The first thing I did was get a new theme and then add extensions for Rails and React, the two languages I code in the most! Get a copy by following this link:
https://code.visualstudio.com/
The next and final one I tried was a preview for Sublime Text. Unlike the first two, this one is priced at $80, though you can download and try it for free (though there was no time-limit for the free trial, it spammed you with pop-ups to buy). Like VS code this one also allowed a lot of customization with the ability to download themes and additional plug-ins. It also had add-ons for Git which made uploading and downloading code to your GitHub a breeze. You can try it out here:
In the end, I found Atom, while easy to use, lacking of features and customization like VS code and Sublime, it seemed like a great lightweight editor for simple projects, but I sensed I would quickly become disorganized and lost if I tried to tackle larger projects with it. I found VS Code and Sublime fairly similar and in the end went with VS Code due to having the most robust features and the sweet price of free. Hope this helps you pick what editor to use when starting on your coding journey!
