Hi all,
I'm new here. I hope I'm in the right place with my feedback.
Thank you very much for your excellent work with SlickEdit. I downloaded Beta 2 and gave it a try. Overall I very like the new features and improvements. However, in my opinion, there are still a set of critical things missing.
Node.js debuggerYou can argue pro and against Node.js. However, in my opinion, Node gets a significant role in today's software industry, and the support for its debugger is essential. I can't understand why you have excellent TypeScript and JavaScript support but don't provide a debugger integration. I found a way to go with lldb and the llnode plugin for lldb (
https://github.com/nodejs/llnode) until certain points. However, it is not the same as full integration.
DockerfileIn a way, it's a bit the same as with Node.js. You can argue pro and against Docker. However, it is a key tool in today's software industry. I would very much appreciate having syntax coloring support for Dockerfile or, even better, having a Docker integration in the manner of IntelliJ IDEA.
SchemastoreOne thing I really like with LSP servers is the use of schemas. For example, with LSP-yaml, I can configure schemas from schemastore.org as reference files for the allowed keywords and structure. Suppose I use
https://json.schemastore.org/ansible-role-2.9 for an ansible project in an editor that supports LSP-yaml. In that case, completion hints and linting point me to the correct usage of their specification. I don't want to say you have to integrate with LSP. However, a similar feature for schema validation of configuration files in YAML and JSON would be great!
Performance for large filesSomething that surprised me was that BBEdit, a tiny editor compared to SlickEdit, can handle some large files better than SlickEdit. Recently, I had the awful task of editing a 5.82 GB SQL file. In SlickEdit, it opens without syntax highlighting. However, BBEdit could open the file more or less as fast as SlickEdit but with the full support of syntax highlighting and without performance penalties in editing.
SummaryI work on several projects across several programming languages. I find myself mainly in Python, Java, Ruby, Perl, C, and a rapidly growing part of Node-based projects. Overall, I would say SlickEdit is still a very, very good tool that helps me be productive in an excellent manner. However, it hurts when I see the speed of my coworkers with "free" products like VSCode in some technologies, especially in the Node.js environment and the integration of browser development tools. The growing part of Node-based projects will force me to go with another editor at some point if SlickEdit doesn't provide integration for the Node.js debugger. To be honest: I don't want to change, but I need a tool supporting me in all major programming languages. Configuring multiple editors for multiple programming languages isn't a use case I can handle. So, I really hope the support for the Node.js debugger comes quickly to SlickEdit.
Thank you very much for reading my lines. I wish you a great day.