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Discussion on: I spent 48 Hours coding in Nova and forgot about VS Code

 
steveblue profile image
Stephen Belovarich • Edited

Corrected for clarity.

I don't mind subscriptions as long as the software is continuously improved. Other IDEs are subscription based. Jetbrains reduces the subscription price for Webstorm after so many years.

I am curious what do others consider to be a fair price for an IDE? Software pricing is all over the place.

Web engineers are fortunate there are free options. The barrier to entry should be low for web development, in my opinion.

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thefern profile image
Fernando B 🚀 • Edited

To me subscription based seems like milking the cow lol. Just sell me something good one time payment, if I can write, run, debug code I am happy. If vscode was subscription based I am sure you and I wouldn't be talking about it. At this point I don't think any text editor or ide can compete with vscode and visual studio market places.

Payment models are all over the place, i.e. stuff I've purchased:

  • sublime text 3 OTP
  • sketch OTP plus one year free updates ( At least the old version was, I think they switched to milking the cow)
  • scrivener OTP per version free updates until a new major version is out and then you can purchase for a discounted price if you own previous. I own a few other software with this same model.
  • I don't have any pay forever subscription unless I can't live without, and I've yet to find that software.
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tomhayes profile image
Tom Hayes

Nova is the same as the Sketch plan you mention, the subscription is optional. You can pay $99 and not subscribe but you don't get the updates after the first year. It's not forever subscription.

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janmpeterka profile image
Jan Peterka

To me, a subscription means continuous improvements and support for the product I use. Which, in the fast moving genre like development, is really important for me. I don't want to find out that software I'm used to (and invested hours and hours into customizing, learning shortcuts and so) suddenly is not supported by my OS/hardware/is based on deprecated packages/is full of security holes/.. and I have to find a new one.

If I know my IDEs developer/s are getting money every month for this software, there's a better chance of them continuing development. If it's OTP, someday they will probably hit some maximum of users, and then what? No income. So, they either start working on something different completely (and abandoning this software), or they announce a new version I have to pay for - which is basically the same as a subscription, but with longer intervals and less security.