For the past 3 years, I’ve worked primarily in Sublime Text, and it’s a fantastic application. I use it for Ruby, HTML, CSS, Javascript, CoffeeScript, and more. Today, Github open sourced their in-house developed text editor, Atom. A quick day working with Atom reveals that it may be a worthy replacement.

The first thing I notice is how familiar it is to a Sublime user. When opening up the folder that I keep my Knoda projects in, I get a simple directory tree to navigate.

Next, I can use all of my familiar keyboard shortcuts. Press cmd-p in Atom and start typing.

Awesome (though, according to the Atom docs, I should be using cmd-t). Syntax coloring for ruby files is excellent out of the box. Same for LESS files, CoffeeScript files, and HTML. On my Macbook Air however, the font size is huge. Almost comically huge.

How easy is it to fix that? Super easy, apparently. cmd-, opens the config. Font size is set to 16. Change it to 12, and things are a little more manageable.

Configuration, key bindings, themes, and packages are all easily accessible in the cmd-, interface. This stands out for me a a superior out-of-the-box experience to Sublime Text. Incredibly intuitive.

Overall, its a great piece of software. Give it a download, and comment with your own review.