Github Rolls Out New Text Editor Atom 82
hypnosec writes "Github has introduced Atom, its new 'web native' code editor which has been in development for more than six years. Atom is available as a part of an invite-only beta program. GitHub describes Atom as an attempt to create an editor 'that will be welcoming to an elementary school student on their first day learning to code, but also a tool they won't outgrow as they develop into seasoned hackers.'"
You can request an invite on atom.io. The source to supporting libraries has already been released, but it looks like Atom itself might not be released (although it is a "specialized variant of Chromium designed to be a text editor rather than a web browser."). The editor is extensible in Javascript instead of "special-purpose scripting languages" like Emacs and VIM (is Javascript really any less messy than Emacs-Lisp though?). A preliminary user guide and customization guide are available to all.
It is cross-platform (Score:3, Informative)
It is going to be supported on OS X, Linux, and Windows. It is in beta right now so only the OS X binaries are available.
I'm always amazed that someone will take the time to type in a comment telling us they don't know something and how they didn't use the same amount of time to look for it instead...
Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
...instead of "special-purpose scripting languages" like Emacs ...
One of the least informed statements I've ever read on /.
Ignoring the fact that Emacs is an editor, not a scripting language, one can do just about anything in LISP (and Emacs LISP), and LISP itself has been around since 1958. I even got paid as a research assistant in college in 1985 to work in LISP on a Xerox 1108 graphical workstation using InterLISP-D (still have the manual). The whole OS was written in LISP and the system had ethernet, mouse and 19" gray-scale monitor. It was fucking awesome.