Comprehensive Evaluation: Ten JavaScript editors (1)

Comprehensive Evaluation: Ten JavaScript editors (1)

JavaScript programmers already have a large number of excellent tool solutions to choose from-or have been able to describe them with a large volume of data, and it is even hard to describe them one by one. In today's chapter, we will learn about ten text editors that provide excellent development support for JavaScript, HTML 5, and CSS and provide Markdown functions in text records. Why use such an editor instead of a complete IDE for JavaScript programming? In a word: speed.

The essential difference between the editor and IDE is that the latter can debug and even test the code in some cases. IDE also supports the application lifecycle management (ALM) system. Most of the editors I mentioned here support at least one version control system, which is generally Git. Therefore, the core difference between IDE and editor is no longer as significant as it was in the past.

As you can see in the score table, Sublime Text is still in the competition list in the JavaScript editor field, mainly because of its outstanding speed performance and convenient editing functions. Brackets and TextMate are almost at the second place, but it should be noted that TextMate is a product dedicated to Mac devices, while Brackets is completely free. All three Editors support the ALM system, Node. js, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, and other code analysis tools that are native or implemented through plug-ins. It is worth mentioning that Brackets even contains JavaScript debugging mechanisms.

Currently, the other seven tools cannot compete with the top three in the list, and I will not evaluate them in all aspects for the time being. Of course, they also have their own characteristics, so it is worth a try. Based on the details of your work, you may find that one of them has a better performance.

Let's take a look at these options, and I will compare them horizontally at the end of the article.

Atom

Atom is a free, open-source and modifiable programming editor from GitHub. It is based on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux systems, it can also be integrated with GitHub applications and provides nearly 1800 software packages and 600 topics. In actual use, I only use 9 community software packages, 73 core software packages and 12 core themes.

As expected, Atom decided that its source code was hosted by GitHub. Atom is compiled by CoffeeScript and integrated with Node. js. Atom is a special derivative version of Chromium. Its design is more inclined to text editors than Web browsers. every window in Atom is essentially a rendered local network page. The Atom development team is developing Atom in Atom-it sounds a bit like a tongue twister.

Atom performs very well-as long as it does not update itself. Atom has rich functions and is ready for use out of the box, it includes simulated search, quick search and replacement within the project, multi-cursor and selection, multi-form display, fragment, code cascade, and ability to import TextMate syntax and topic. Atom can install two command line tools, use shell to enable the editor and use Apm to manage software packages under Atom-similar to Npm in Node. js. I found that Atom is frequently used when I browse the resource library cloned from GitHub, because GitHub applications often contain related menu options that direct to Atom.