On Wednesday, March 23, 2005, at 04:17PM, H H hh@keensoft.com wrote:
I really like TextMate because its is not overly boated with features.
Be careful with the term "bloat", as it inspires religious fervor. Consider: Emacs includes a Tetris game and psychotherapist (albeit a poor one), among other things. Is Emacs "bloated"? Well it certainly increases the size of the download, but deleting eliza.el isn't likely to 1)radically speed that up or 2)make it perform better.
One man's bloat is another man's must-have feature.
For instance, the discussion on adding an SFTP client to it, is baffling -- I don't like TextWrangler because the program is trying to do everything for everybody -- even its preferences are too complicated for most users.
On the opposite side of the coin, think about the number of people who demand this feature. Just about every professional programmer's editor on Mac, Linux and Windows has it. This has become a bullet-point you *have* to add, no matter how nonsensical.
For my work I use Fugu to do my SFTP stuff, because it does a good job, it supports tunneling, which is something that an SFTP program should do. Leave the text editing work for TextMate, and let the focus stay there.
The point I'm trying to make here, is *your* work is not *my* work, and yet TextMate may be 100% applicable to *both* our jobs.
Or, phrased another way, "Software development is hard, let's go shopping."
If you're taking votes, though, my vote would be "no" on built-in S/FTP. Although "yes!" to a user-extensible plugin system for such gee-gaws, if you think the editor part is complete. :)
On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 17:29:50 -0500, Gregg Thomason threegee@mac.com wrote:
Be careful with the term "bloat", as it inspires religious fervor. Consider: Emacs includes a Tetris game and psychotherapist (albeit a poor one), among other things.
Poor one? All those late nights in the lab make Eliza's advice seem pretty good to me ;-)
On the opposite side of the coin, think about the number of people who demand this feature. Just about every professional programmer's editor on Mac, Linux and Windows has it. This has become a bullet-point you *have* to add, no matter how nonsensical.
I don't mind the program getting large, but I do mind UI bloat. IMO that's how most bloat is first noticed, if the UI for all the features somebody doesn't need is always intruding on their workflow, then it is "bloat". If the UI is well designed, the person who doesn't need said feature isn't affected by the bloat, but the person who does need the feature can still easily use it.
A plug-in system sounds like one implementation that satisfies this requirement. If a feature is not needed the plugin is not loaded and the program looks and behaves as if the feature isn't there at all. Tricky to do right. Especially when it comes down to changing keyboard shortcuts and UI layouts depending on what set of plugins/features are loaded.
On 23-03-2005 23:29, Gregg Thomason wrote:
Just about every professional programmer's editor on Mac, Linux and Windows has it. This has become a bullet-point you *have* to add, no matter how nonsensical.
I really don't agree there and I believe this is exactly opposite to the philosophy behind TextMate and where its power lies. The features of TextMate are all very useful. And new features are only added if Allan thinks it is good and useful.
I'd really go for the plugin architecture with workspaces, because then every user can decide what he wants in an editor and people can write their own plugins.
Jeroen.
On Thursday, March 24, 2005, at 08:33AM, Jeroen van der Ham jeroen@je-ju.net wrote:
On 23-03-2005 23:29, Gregg Thomason wrote:
Just about every professional programmer's editor on Mac, Linux and Windows has it. This has become a bullet-point you *have* to add, no matter how nonsensical.
I really don't agree there
BBEdit/TextWrangler: built in S/FTP Emacs: built in S/FTP (via Tramp) UltraEdit: built in S/FTP SlickEdit: built in S/FTP Codewright: built in S/FTP MS Visual Studio: plugins exist (yes it's 2005 and Microsoft isn't really network aware yet) Dreamweaver: FTP and probably S/FTP via plugins
There's more if you Google it. vim is the only editor with a religious following that doesn't natively support it, pretty much, but you can always ':e sftp://user@host:/blahblah/file.txt' or whatever if you're so inclined, as it's smart enough to be its own terminal.
The features of TextMate are all very useful. And new features are only added if Allan thinks it is good and useful.
So when this list is besieged by people who are switching from Ultraedit (for example), and have to now shell out for a new FTP app, "just spend another $30" is what we tell them? Or "here's some hack that isn't totally seamless"? If it's replacing an existing app, it has to replicate workflow /exactly/.
If that wasn't true, everyone would have switched to Macs by now if only to get away from viruses and spyware.
Consider that TextMate didn't have a bloody preferences window when it debuted, because it "wasn't need" and "against the philosophy" (sorry forgot the exact verbiage). It has one now. See my point?
I'm not saying built-in S/FTP is the best idea, ever. I have already said I prefer a user-extensible plugin system. I *am* saying that "it's coming at some point" and/or "it's against the philosophy" are really bad answers to questions WRT advocacy.
Sorry, my previous argument was not too clear:
I am *not* against (S)FTP support in TextMate. I'd love to have it, as some kind of extension/plugin or whatever.
But I strongly disagree with the reason given for it in your original mail. TM should not implement an SFTP plugin because every other editor has it. TM's doing things it's own way and I like it so far.
There was no preference window in the beginning, but back then it wasn't needed that badly. Now it has a lot of new features it did not have in the beginning and a preference window was added. Why? Not because every other editor has it, but simply because it would make things work easier in TextMate.
Jeroen.
At 10:05 AM -0500 3/24/05, Gregg Thomason wrote:
So when this list is besieged by people who are switching from Ultraedit (for example), and have to now shell out for a new FTP app, "just spend another $30" is what we tell them?
Well, there are a number of excellent free SFTP programs.
Or "here's some hack that isn't totally seamless"? If it's replacing an existing app, it has to replicate workflow /exactly/.
I think if we are talking about individuals and not companies, then it doesn't have to replicate exactly. It has to make it possible and maybe even better. I'm already working with TM differently than I worked with BBEdit, Pepper, Alpha, vi and ed.
But on the topic of workflow. I'm still trying to visualize the important aspects of, say, using BBEdit's SFTP in your workflow. What are the particular things that are handy? I seem to remember that if you SFTP'ed a file, then it would be remembered in your recent items with its full location. That was handy.
best wishes, Eric
On Thursday, March 24, 2005, at 12:25PM, Eric Hsu erichsu@math.sfsu.edu wrote:
Well, there are a number of excellent free SFTP programs.
Very true.
I think if we are talking about individuals and not companies, then it doesn't have to replicate exactly.
I can regale you with numerous tales of otherwise intelligent people who refuse to do anything different, ever, because of some minor detail. (one man's useless bloat is another man's must-have feature)
I can regale you with numerous tales of otherwise intelligent people who refuse to do anything different, ever, because of some minor detail. (one man's useless bloat is another man's must-have feature)
Yikes!!!! Please, Allan, keep these people away from your excellent editor! I beg anyone who thinks any non-editor feature is a "must-have" in a text editor to please use another text editor. there are plenty out there with that philisophy. TextMate is GREAT because it does not cater to other editors workflows. It does not try to be other editors. It tries to get the job done in the best and smartest was possible. I'm looking for an editor that includes features because they belong, and includes extensibility so that I can create the functionality I need, not because it's trying to cater to every man, or become some "market leader" that doesn't turn anyone off. The minute that TextMate includes an editor because it's "another man's" must-have feature, or because every other editor has it, it becomes indistinguishable from...every other editor.
$.02
ben
On Thursday, March 24, 2005, at 12:25PM, Eric Hsu erichsu@math.sfsu.edu wrote:
But on the topic of workflow. I'm still trying to visualize the important aspects of, say, using BBEdit's SFTP in your workflow. What are the particular things that are handy? I seem to remember that if you SFTP'ed a file, then it would be remembered in your recent items with its full location. That was handy.
This topic is getting better coverage in the other FTP client thread; maybe we should unify the two?
On Mar 24, 2005, at 16:05, Gregg Thomason wrote:
[...] If it's replacing an existing app, it has to replicate workflow /exactly/.
ehm... I'm pretty sure that all TextMate users did use a text editor previous to october 2004, and I doubt it replicate the workflow from any of these editors /exactly/! :)
If that wasn't true, everyone would have switched to Macs by now if only to get away from viruses and spyware.
I don't follow that line of reasoning. So if OS X replicated the workflow of XP exactly, everybody would switch to OS X? People switch to OS X because it's _different_, and people stay with XP because they are conservative, don't know what they're missing, want the games, the hardware is cheaper, all their friends have it, etc.
Consider that TextMate didn't have a bloody preferences window when it debuted, because it "wasn't need" and "against the philosophy" (sorry forgot the exact verbiage). It has one now. See my point?
No, it wasn't the philosophy not to have a preferences window. David put in the blog that it was “a testament to it's simplicity”, although in reality it was just me thinking that 1.0 didn't need it, but I did indeed plan to add one (David like to use these dramatic idioms ;) ).
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Allan Odgaard -
Ben Protas -
Corey O'Connor -
Eric Hsu -
Gregg Thomason -
Jeroen van der Ham