Sublime Text as an Emacs Replacement

I've been an Emacs guy for a while, for the following reasons:

  1. You should pick one editor, and learn it deeply.
  2. Emacs works on my OS X desktops and on the Linux/Unix computers I SSH to. This means I can use the same keyboard commands to edit text locally and over an SSH connection to another computer -- giving me added benefits from learning Emacs deeply.
  3. Emacs can be modified using Emacs-Lisp (a dialect of Lisp). This creates a virtuous circle where your use of Emacs allows you to tailor Emacs to you better, which allows you to better use Emacs to tailor Emacs to you better, until the end result is that you've got an editor perfectly adapted to you and your use case.

However, there's one big problem -- I haven't learned Emacs Lisp to the point where I can actually do interesting work with it. I started by copying and pasting snippets of other people's Emacs config files, and graduated to making changes and troubleshooting my own -- but I never got deeply enough into Emacs that I was able to reap the benefits of its customization.

When I heard about Sublime Text I was interested -- some people I respect seem to like it -- and when I heard it was customizable like Emacs, but in the Python language, I was hooked. I use Python daily, so the barrier to entry for me hacking into Sublime Text is much lower.

There are a few major downsides to Sublime Text, though. First, it's not free in any sense -- it's not open source, like Emacs, [and it costs \\(59](http://www.sublimetext.com/buy). The \\)59 cost isn't much of an issue (especially since it allows you to test it out thoroughly before buying it) but the lack of open source is. Emacs will never die. If Richard Stallman, the original author of Emacs, is hit by a bus, Emacs will be almost completely unaffected. Other people have the source code and will continue updating Emacs. If Jon Skinner, the author of Sublime Text, is hit by a bus, all development on Sublime Text may stop. A program that isn't actively developed will soon cease to be useful -- programs are like sharks; when they stop moving they die.

Since the whole point of learning an editor is so that you can invest time in it to build skill and knowledge, and then have that investment pay off over time, the lack of open source for Sublime Text is a significant stumbling block. There's lots of other reasons Sublime Text may go away, even discounting buses -- the company could be bought by Google and the product shelved; the author may stop putting effort into it; it may be that editors are a bad business and sales can't support the author and his family -- there's a variety of reasons Sublime Text may go away. Still, I'm drawn enough by the idea of modifying Sublime Text in Python that I'm giving it a try. Here's my current setup:

  1. Install Sublime Text
  2. Use DropBox to store your Sublime Text config. (Except that I used one symlink to the "Sublime Text 2" folder rather than 3 symlinks.)
  3. Install Sublime Package Control using the installation instructions for the CTRL-` shortcut.
  4. Install git and subversion packages using Sublime Package Control
  5. Install SublimeLinter via Sublime Package Control
  6. Commit your Sublime Text 2 config files to github.

This still leaves me with one problem I haven't resolved yet -- replicating Emacs' tab behavior.In Emacs, I can do the following:

  1. If I hit TAB with the cursor placed anywhere on a line in Emacs, the whole line will indent. If I hit TAB with the cursor placed in the middle of a line in Sublime Text, it will insert a tab (or spaces) in the middle of the line.
  2. If I hit TAB repeatedly on a line in Emacs, it will cycle through the possible legal Python indentations for that spot in the code. If I hit TAB repeatedly on a line in Sublime Text, it will repeatedly indent the line.

Thus far, I haven't been able to reproduce that behavior in Sublime Text. This may be a deal-breaker. I'm going to work with it for a little longer to see if there's any other deal-breakers, or if I can get used to doing indentation Sublime Text's way.

UPDATE: Solved. At least, partially. With Shift-TAB and TAB I can cycle through possible indentations (including illegal ones). It's enough to keep me in Sublime Text. I've added my Sublime Text config to Github, so feel free to take a look.