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I wish they wouldn't attach themselves to the sublime brand. It's not theirs, and it's pretty shady to ride another project's coattails when their intent is essentially to cannibalize it by being sublime-but-free. You can discuss the merits of open source and paying for tools all you want, but basically their goal is to put a man out of business who's made something that a lot of people love, because he has the gall to charge $60. Anyway. I'm all for competition, but do it under your own banner with your own ideas.

Also, I think it's weird that the fact that it's made in Go is part of the pitch. I mean, unless I'm contributing... I don't care. You could write it in brainfuck if it does the job.

> I wish they wouldn't attach themselves to the sublime brand

They aren't claiming to be associated with Sublime - they're saying that they're trying to make something _like_ Sublime. And that is actually a pretty good way to explain it. When I first found LimeText (about a year ago) I was searching for an "open source ST2 clone". I already knew that I wanted something like Sublime, I just wanted it to be open source so I could contribute to it. Having to compare the features of LimeText to the ubiquitous features of Sublime would have just made it harder for me to "get" what LimeText is.

> because he has the gall to charge $60

I don't think that the 60USD was a big deal. I was fine with that, I just wanted something that's open-source.

> weird that the fact that it's made in Go is part of the pitch

I think that the reason why is because LimeText is marketed towards people who want to contribute to their editor. Sublime is probably a more stable solution for people looking for something like Sublime, so right now the big feature is that it's open-source.

* Also, I should note that I've never used LimeText... I ended up switching to Atom instead. My primary experience with it is just finding it and evaluating it as an alternative to Sublime.

I agree, but the main reason for most people (I can't comment on the author's intention) is that Sublime is lacking updates and transparency about the development.

They did announced something recently, like getting ready for ST 4. And 3 is not even a major upgrade from ST2, IMHO.

I don't think people care so much about how it's 60$. At work that makes little difference to me. The big thing is how this is open source.
Oddly enough, I've been using ST2 for a while and have been too lazy to actually buy a license for it (or Divvy).

I think I'll do so now for exactly this reason.

> I wish they wouldn't attach themselves to the sublime brand. It's not theirs

Its competition. Thats the market segment they are aiming to attract and serve. They aren't claiming to be Sublime Text, they are claiming they want to be better than it. Its the market leader in that area, and if that is the segment they are interested in serving, imho it wouldn't make sense to not compare themselves to Sublime Text.

> Also, I think it's weird that the fact that it's made in Go is part of the pitch. I mean, unless I'm contributing... I don't care.

Play the other side. You're interested in an open source alternative to Sublime Text, and you love working in Go. Is it relevant now? Because I'm willing to bet by its open source nature, they are as interested in attracting committers as they are users at this point.

I see your point of the not liking "sublime-but-free". But isn't that what basically everyone does with "it's like uber meets airb&b for x"?
I think it would be fair to say that it was inspired by sublime, I agree completely with your sentiment. It does seem that Sublime will end up open sourced most likely, unless author is willing to continue development with same intensity he did before.

As for price, I was happy to pay for the editor, even though I use vim most of the time, I am happy to support modern editors and use them.

Go is part of the pitch because the project is still is its relatively early stages (I believe it's about a year old). It's just as important for them to attract developers as it is users.
You've got to hand it to them for the clever name. They manage to imply that it's better than Sublime while using fewer letters.
If there is one app I've always been thrilled to pay for, it's Sublime Text. I've purchased and renewed the licence ever since v1 came out. While it may not be open sourced, you can see it was created with a lot of love for code and openness. Today there are thousands of amazing plugins to enhance it. And though I fully respect the open source initiative, I, for once, am very happy to support / give some money to a peer developer who has made our world much better.
I completely agree with what you say. Sublime is awesome and I don't mind paying money for closed-source software. What I do mind is, that the development seems to have stopped, and being closed-source nobody can move it forward but the original maintainer.

It once again brings attention to the most important "bus factor" [0]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor

The author is very unresponsive (both to mails and on its own forum), progress is extremely slow, to the point that there are always many threads asking if the project is dead. In these conditions, I don't mind seeing an open source project aiming to replace SublimeText.
I suppose being open source doesn't stop you from giving user licenses for money, though. True, people can just use your program by violating your license. From coder to coder that is way less likely than, for instance, between the movie industry and the movie viewers, though. And being open source, even the violating users might add value to your product by fixing bugs and adding features.
> there are thousands of amazing plugins

It would be excellent if they were compatible with Lime...

60 bucks for an editor is quite expensive I think. There are nice alternative to such an editor.

I wonder what features makes sublime text so much valuable...

Opensource is not about price. Its value is not in having $0 price. Never has been, never will be. How can people still be confused on this?

Also, you can and should support / give some money to open source developers as well.

Me too. Even though I'm an die hard fan of the Emacs ideas on extensiblity (which is more similar to Github's Atom) speed and good defaults have to come first, the this Sublime has excelled.
For many people, the opportunity costs of paperwork to get their employer to sign off and reimburse the purchase of a new tool exceeds the monetary costs of the tool. This is an oft under appreciated aspect of the free-as-in-beer distribution of Free-as-in-freedom software.
I used to pay for it, then it was nothing but crash for a while. Went to vim, forgot about it.
Great intentions, and huge shoes to fill. Already off on the right foot by going open source. Hope the authors have thick skin, this is one market that people are generally very particular about, and won't hold back on the details.

For me UI is almost as important as the engine. I'm a very clean/minimalist/organized person and if the software (or text editor in this case) does not, or cannot reflect that then there will be issues.

I don't like how it shamelessly piggybacks on Sublime's reputation by using its name left and right and doesn't hesitate to knock it down by calling itself a "successor". This comes across as disrespectful at least.
Lime has been around for a little while now, it seems to have a fairly functional backend but still awaiting a high quality frontend implementation. Part of what sets ST apart is the frontend.

One of the most impressive goals on the roadmap is to implement a terminal frontend as well as a QT frontend, which I'm quite excited to see.

Arch users can install Lime from AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/lime-git/

Oh goodness, I'm sorry, but I can't get past that chunky window toolbar. I use editors like sublime instead of an IDE so my screen real estate isn't taken up by buttons to leave as much room as possible for my code.

If that isn't right, there must be untold frustrations in the path of using this editor for me that I don't care to discover.

Sublime Text is a sublime textbook example for small shops/single devs wishing to make a dent in the status quo.

Love the problem space. Look around. Listen to input from good counsellors, ignore the negative "it already exists your reinventing the wheel" and the "i'll try it when it has x".

Here's what the author got as initial feedback. If he had let that negativity get to him we wouldn't have sublime. http://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/anatomy-of-a-next-g...

I suggest a high pass filter on comments on your current project: smart people with helpful comments know how to give valuable feedback to even the worst idea without negativity.

Cheers, and march on! GLTA F

I'm not opposed to an open-source text editor that aims to replicate features of a closed-source application. But "Lime Text" is clearly riding on the success of "Sublime Text", and it irks me because "Sublime Text" isn't owned by a big large company or someone with a lot of money - it's a project that started as someone's side-project and has just recently started as a full-time job.

John, the author, has been clear in the past that if for some reason he no longer wants to continue developing Sublime Text, he'd open-source it so it wouldn't rot in the bit graveyard.

Yes, GIMP rides the coattails of Photoshop, and LibreOffice rides the coattails of Microsoft Office; but these are commercial applications that are supported and paid for by consumers. Sublime Text is optional. Sublime Text is free, but you can pay for it - if you like.

Change the tag-line and keep the name.

Am I the only one who immediately wondered how Atom was doing when seeing this article? :D
I applaud the open approach, but I don't see the need to reference Sublime Text to increase traction. Why not market this as a cool new feature rich editor implemented in Go (with the bonus of having all the ST / TextMate compatibility to go?)

In fact, why does Lime reference Sublime Text at all?

Love the fact that the backend is in GoLang. And just like all of you, Sublime Text is one of those few apps where you actually feel like contributing to the developers. The only thing to do now is get on the IRC and check it out.
If this can print, I'll move over when it's read. I adore Sublime Text but having to c&p out of it to print is a bit of an annoyance for me. Otherwise it's a perfect app, I adore it.
Sublime is great but I must admit it is going the way of textmate in lack of support. Developer should open source it and get contributors working on it. Like someone suggested he can raise money on kickstarter to take it to next level and maybe charge for a pro version which he can add extra features to if he wants.

Personally I am using Sublime still but the next time I have to pay for a license won't be for sublime. Most likely going the IntelliJ Idea route.

Name for Lime Text is shameless :-) Come on you could have come up with something original !

Just for information. I was using sublimeText 3. I updated two weeks ago the last release (Build 3059) and even (Build 3062) and it crashes.. since I don't want to bother using a close thing that crashes. I switched to atom.io And so far It's way better than three months ago (It's now fast enough) And It's really getting traction on the plugin side also.. I don't think I'll ever come back to sublimetext. I even went back to emacs for one week.
I have seen peasant art students shell out insane amount of cash for photoshop, etc. Hell a calculus textbook for first year college is cheaper than sublime text.

You know software developers are dirt poor ( or really cheap ) when they cannot shell out 60 dollars for a piece of software they use everyday. Sublime puts so many expensive IDEs to shame and it costs a fraction ( as a donation ) and people still are up in arms about it.

If there is One project where a lot of developers would want to hack is definitely their own editor! It's a big dilemma, I love the idea of seeing an open alternative but I also love the possibility to support developers working on what they love!

One problem that raise here is that we haven't find a way to ensure that open source projects can bring an incomes to their maintainers, even if there is many users.

Does it support Code completion akin to SublimeClang? That plugin is pretty much the reason I'm sticking to Sublime Text 2 (can't get it to work with 3). I know it's from the same author as lime, but according to the github description he lost interest in C/C++, so I'm wondering if this feature is to be implemented still? Or is lime compatible with the old ST2 plugin?
Isn't Atom the open source Sublime Text clone?
Few months ago I moved from ST but I would come back to a similar open source solution if it implemented IDE features on packages. So I can have two shortcuts, one opens with everything IDE-like, the second one would only load a few packages and be very Sublime-ish. Fast and simple.
Always great with more competition, hopefully it will result in better editors for everyone. I wish someone would make SourceInsight for OSX, it's by far the best editor I've ever used but it's only available for Windows.
Is there a binary somewhere?
One of the things I like most about Sublime over Atom or Light Table, is the chosen colors for highlights. I think Lime needs a little more improvement in that area to make me switch.
Cool! I hope the community of SublimeText/Emacs/Vim/ will not tear you a new one. As editor wars always tend to get quite heated..
I wander why SlickEdit is not as popular as Sublime Text? Is this due to price? Otherwise, SE is quite powerful and extensible as well.
Why don't you make a package to install, instead of requiring people install from source?
I like that it's being developed with separate front ends (QML and Console).
Always good with more editors. But i think that Atom will be the next sublime.
IMHO there's no need for an OS version of sublime. Sublime is working fine, stable, has a free unlimited trial. It makes no sense to make a verbatim "copy". Maybe he can prepare a release into OS if the proverbial bus hits him?
Interesting take on the GUI.
I'm sure it's taken a load of work and is still in early stages, but describing yourself as the successor of Sublime Text when it looks as shit as that.. that's some brass!