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Antonio Scandurra - Atom, Zed and the Future of Text Editors
Mar 24, 2025
Antonio Scandurra, co-founder of Zed and former core contributor to Atom, shares his journey through text editor development. He highlights the evolution from Atom to the Rust-based Zed, emphasizing its performance and collaborative features. The conversation dives into Zed's innovative data structures, like the sum tree, and the significance of a custom UI framework. Scandurra also discusses integrating AI into text editors while maintaining simplicity, envisioning a future where collaboration and intelligent features redefine coding experiences.
53:59
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Quick takeaways
- Atom revolutionized text editors with its extensibility and plugin ecosystem, but also highlighted challenges with maintenance due to API dependencies.
- Zed focuses on performance and user experience by utilizing Rust and advanced data structures for better collaboration and AI integration in coding.
Deep dives
The Evolution of Text Editors
The discussion highlights the evolution of text editors, specifically focusing on the revolutionary influence of Atom, which laid foundational technologies like Electron. Atom's development emphasized extensibility, resulting in a vibrant ecosystem of plugins that both enhanced functionality and sometimes complicated maintenance due to API dependencies. This served as a pivotal learning experience for Antonio Scandora and his team when transitioning to develop Zed, where they aimed to control performance and maximize user experience. By utilizing a different technological stack and prioritizing performance, Zed seeks to provide a refined editing environment that improves upon the limitations faced by its predecessors.
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