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

#typescript #webdev #javascript

Steve Belovarich Oct 30, 2020 ・Updated on Nov 2, 2020 ・2 min read

I spent 48 hours with Nova, a new native IDE for MacOS released by Panic on September 14th.

Two days ago I downloaded the free trial of Nova, installed the TypeScript extension, snagged a theme, opened a TypeScript project and started coding.

Nova is fast. Files open with haste. Find in Project... delivers search results fast. There's no visible slowdown editing large files. When I open multiple text editor panes and terminals Nova doesn't skip a beat. The native IDE just works. Not everything is straight out of MacOS. According to Panic, their engineers coded the text editor from scratch after discovering some bugs in Apple’s text layout engine and ended up with a more performant experience.

Nova's text editor is delightful. There’s multiline editing, intuitive autocompletion, code hints. The TypeScript extension features some refactoring functionality for all those code smells. Panic found some novel uses for the MacBook Pro Touch Bar including running your npm script at the press of a button, as if typing npm run start took too long.

The design is clean and intuitive, very familiar to anyone using MacOS. Finding stuff is easy. When I click on the whimsical iconography there’s subtle user feedback. I open a dialog and find myself staring into the depths of outer space. Nova is honestly a little weird. Panic is the same company that released a handheld game device with a hand crank... because they could. It's part of the charm.

Nova has all the things you've come to expect from a modern IDE for JavaScript development. There’s extensions for TypeScript, Prettier and ESLint, Git integration, integrated terminal and development server. You can connect to a variety of servers including Amazon S3, Azure, and Rackspace, or via protocols like SSH, FTP, WebDAV HTTPS. I appreciate this feature for small projects. Panic syncs your server configurations across workstations. The nova command line tool opens files and workspaces from the MacOS Terminal.

VS Code definitely has some advantages over Nova including better Git integration, a robust debugging experience, large extension ecosystem. Despite all those wonderful features, VS Code pauses briefly before opening some files. VS Code doesn't tokenize large files because it bogs down the application. VS Code feels out of place on MacOS. Nova UI is snappy in comparison. Nova is a very capable JavaScript IDE. The performance of a native app alone is worth it, but the MacOS feel prompted me to switch.

At $99 ($49 yearly subscription after the first year), Nova is reasonably priced. If you have a serial number from Panic’s legacy IDE Coda, the initial price drops to $79. Nova is a ground up rewrite of Coda.

If you’re looking for an alternative to VS Code, download the free trial of Nova. You may be surprised how a native IDE can really improve developer experience.

Disclaimer: I’m not paid by or affiliated with Panic.

Discussion (26)

Fernando B 🚀 • Oct 30 '20

Steep price imo. Especially being yearly subscription based. Good luck getting people to switch from free vscode.

Steve Belovarich • Oct 31 '20 • Edited

What would you pay for an app distributed by a small company? Just curious.

Fernando B 🚀 • Oct 31 '20 • Edited

Edit: Unsure if you were asking for engineers salaries or the app price.

I am not a fan of subscription based apps at all, but that's just me. I've paid for sublime txt, sketch and other cool tools one payment. As soon as they do subscription I'm out. I want to own the software. If I see an app I like most of the time I'm willing to pay whatever, but one time. If the app is fully functional I don't see why you need constant updates just to get people on subscription updates. Personally imo is better to sell X version one payment provide N amount of updates or updates at reduced price, than perpetual subscription. I'm not saying people won't pay for Nova just saying there are tons of free options.

Steve Belovarich • Oct 31 '20 • 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.

Fernando B 🚀 • Oct 31 '20 • 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.

Tom Hayes • Nov 2 '20

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.

Jan Peterka (he/him) • Nov 9 '20

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.

Calebe Aires • Oct 30 '20

Amazing IDE but no VIM, no move!

Steve Belovarich • Oct 31 '20

Perfect opportunity for an extension.

Steve Belovarich • Nov 1 '20 • Edited

From some of the comments in this thread and on Twitter I think Microsoft has done web engineers an amazing service by providing an IDE that is free and ubiquitous, but also possibly set an unreasonable expectation that software should be free.

$99 is not an unreasonable price for a JavaScript IDE.
Sublime Text $80
WebStorm $129, second year $103, $77 yearly subscription after that
IntelliJ $499 / year, second year $399, $299 onwards
Dreamweaver $20.99 / month
Visual Studio $45 / month

There are plenty of free alternatives including VS Code, Atom, Netbeans, and Komodo. You get what you pay for in my opinion. I would like to support Panic over large corporations like Microsoft. I don't share the opinion that a subscription is merely a way to milk developers for more money. It doesn’t make sense from a business perspective to sell a one-time license and I’m honestly surprised Sublime Text can operate under that model.

If you like VS Code that’s fine, use what works for you. The only reason I compared the two was because VS Code has been my IDE for 3 years. Alternatives exist and Panic has done an amazing job with Nova so far.

Heiko Kanzler 🇪🇺 • Mar 18

It's a an old topic, but let me add my two cents.

I am (was) a long time Panic customer and to be honest, they lack in updating their apps. I had Coda from day one, they stopped doing it without further notice some years ago. Transmit is update perhaps once a year, if not every two years (it feels like this).

Happy to pay for a decent application (as I do for IntelliJ and Sublime, for example), but knowing about their release cycles and having some devent (more powerful) alternatives, doesn't work for me ... not even talking about a subscription.

Out of curiousity: are you still using nova?

l3lackheart • Oct 30 '20 • Edited

but vscode is free :3 and Im in love with stack vscode + wsl2
also I dont like the setup you have, Im kinda fan with simple layout, like this

NoMoreDeps • Oct 31 '20

Zen mode powaaaaa

l3lackheart • Nov 1 '20

really useful when I become panic and need to focus 😂😂

EDPRgit • Jan 7

$99 with one year of updates is basically $50 to become your customer and $50 bucks for a year of updates.

Not being a cheapskate but during these hard times every penny counts. Many of us lost their jobs and are now trying to move to freelancing. Licenses - and definitely subscription based ones - can pile up.

Victoria Rodriguez • Jan 26

I just started to use Nova and I love how well integrated it is. Visual Studio Code is great, but it's so clunky in MacOS (tbh, I haven't use it in other OS, I use Sublime in Linux). Nova is smooth as silk.

Besides, I think people sometimes ignore the fact that some of their favorite features of VSCode are actually extensions. I'm actually thinking about translating my favorite ones to Nova.

Anyway, thanks for the recommendation.

Raunchy Butts • Mar 30 • Edited

I bought Coda and got stuff done with it, but it suffered from some truly brain-dead defects that Panic never fixed. If I remember correctly, one of them was that it didn't switch to the local working directory when you opened up a project; so you could spend hours looking at baffling bugs you swore you'd fixed, only to find that the local-file browser was pointed at the wrong source tree. Panic was aware of this and blew it off. Not very encouraging.

There was also something incredibly dumb about the editor navigation when you had the editing pane split... it's been so long that I don't remember what the problem was, but it defied sense.

And I also think there was a problem copying projects between computers... again this is half-remembered, but it was as if Panic failed to comprehend the necessity for this; and its iCloud syncing simply did not work.

I think the price is actually fair, but Panic's track record is not excellent and the design gaffes in Coda were off-putting. Then again, there's a free trial of Nova so I guess we can examine it.

As far as it being "Mac-like:" This is such a lame approbation. Using a shitty text file to set preferences isn't "Windows-like" either. VS Code's preferences are an obscure mess, a straight-up lazy abandonment of any design effort.

But you know what IS Mac-like? Misusing the Window menu, stuffing it full of things that belong in the View menu. Another Mac-like UI hallmark is a shitload of floating windows, the clumsiness of which it took DECADES for Mac developers to realize. So yeah, it's time to stop using "Mac-like" as a positive evaluation.

Steve Belovarich • Mar 31

There’s definitely some aspects to Nova that still feel new, but Panic responded to at least one of my feature requests / bug reports and I suppose it has been prioritized, so there’s that. I really like the tight integration with MacOS. Nova keeps getting better and better.