I can open Google Docs much faster than Gedit...

trusktr · 2011-03-19 00:46:00

I find myself using Google Docs instead of Gedit if I want to take quick, textual notes. Gedit takes too long to load (with all the plugins I have enabled) just for a quick textual notation.

Something doesn't seem right about this... Perhaps applications like Gedit should be re-written in HTML/CSS/Javascript? I would think that native applications should load much faster versus web apps. What do you think?

Then again, this is not considering the fact that I always have Chrome open, so if you include the load time for Chrome, then it's a more fair comparison.

This makes me wonder... Perhaps Google's Chrome OS will actually be good, considering it is basically just a browser, so it will seem super fast when you load HTML/Javascript apps. Imagine writing a HTML/Javascript version of Libre Office (you don't need to, you have Google Docs); it'd be much faster to open it up and begin working immediately. You'd only need special native apps for things like 3D games, flash, etc. But if everything else can be written in javascript, then it'd run super fast inside Chrome OS! hmmmm....

Currently one might load the OS, then load chrome and open a web page, then load Gedit to make edits to the web page.... Instead it could be like this: load OS and open the web page, start Javascript version of Gedit almost instantly to make edits... Essentially, the load time would be about 1/3.

Many of us hate the idea of computing "in the cloud" because we like to control our information... Well, just because you have an OS like Chrome doesn't mean everything has to be in the cloud... Chrome OS could easily give you access to all your computer peripherals through javascript... essentially your personal computing experience (non-cloud, private) would be like browsing the web, and If developers make an effort to code everything in Javascript, that could introduce big opportunities for a very quick OS.

However, there should always remain the ability for one to use fully compiled apps that are made in C++, etc, etc; apps like Reason, Photoshop, Premiere, etc. For the most part, any app that uses GUI widgets and text could be ported to HTML/Javascript, while the apps I just mentioned in the previous sentence would still need native support with fully compiled languages.

Last edited by trusktr (2011-03-19 01:03:19)

tomk · 2011-03-19 00:53:29

I think you need a blog.

trusktr · 2011-03-19 01:02:39

hahaha. Yes I do. I'm making one but it's not done yet so if I post it there I'll get no traffic. By "making one" i mean designing and implementing it's functionality. Posting will come thereafter.

Actually... It's linked under my avatar. It's totally not done; its ugly!

Last edited by trusktr (2011-03-19 01:04:59)

scorpyn · 2011-03-19 01:50:48

tomk wrote:

I think you need a blog.

Lol.

@op : Rewriting stuff like gedit in javascript makes no sense. If you complain about the plugins taking too much time to load, then remove the plugins, or use another program for quick notes.

trusktr · 2011-03-19 06:25:58

Well, that's true scorpyn. However, notepad++ with more plugins still loads faster from a thumb drive even. Oh well. These are things I can only hope for, as i don't have time to rewrite Gedit, but it's still my favorite editor!

Awebb · 2011-03-19 10:18:21

I experience the opposite. I click on a shortcut and the window opens. The exceptions are the browser, mail client and JDownloader (and maybe Libreoffice/Openoffice/Abiword, but I don't use such things more than once a month). On the other hand, activating web based software gives me brain cramps. It takes too long to load and annoys with errors and bugs. You might be lucky using google applications with the google browser, they might have put some work in optimization there, but I don't want to use a browser I don't like to use applications that work very well otherwise.

Use whatever works best for you. That's what we have variety for. Nothing needs to be rewritten, just find the tools that suite your style.

And so on.

Pank · 2011-03-19 16:20:07

Emacs has a daemon

dolby · 2011-03-19 16:45:20

Pank wrote:

Emacs has a daemon

The chrome browser is also the OS's bootloader.

Emacs lacks one so far.

pataphysician · 2011-03-19 18:29:24

I'm not seeing it,

I don't usually use gedit, so opened it and I can't image it opening any faster, except if it could read my mind, I then turned on all the plugins, since only some were on, but this didn't slow down the opening any. Maybe you have added some really horribly inefficient plugin that isn't part of the standard plugins?

Opening google docs takes forever, I have to open a browser, then wait for it to load the page. What's that? you say you keep your browser open all the time? then why not keep gedit open all the time too, it's the whole point of having a multitasking os.

trusktr · 2011-03-19 22:49:42

@awebb Good point aout the variety. Perhaps I ned to optimize my system. I only have 2 gigs of memory on a 64bit computer.

@pank So if you run the emacs daemon at startup then that means that emacs is essentially loaded and waiting for you to request a new window, thus appearing to start fast (although it adds to the OS startup-time)?

@pataphysician Well I've noticed that If i load Gedit, then close it, then re-open it, it will start instantly the second time since everything is still in memory. So, in your case, Gedit was still in memory and when you loaded it it again with extra plugins, it was only doing work to load the plugins, but not gedit+plugins. If you reboot and start fresh then load gedit+plugins it'll be more noticeable.

But yeah, i'm interested to see how Chrome OS develops. If Chrome OS can support standard applications like Adobe products, Reason, or games, then it might be a valid new competitor in the world of operating systems. But if I'm stuck with cloud computing, then no way jose, I'm not getting Chrome OS.

Last edited by trusktr (2011-03-19 22:50:52)

Awebb · 2011-03-20 00:38:17

Every single time I read about all those emacs plugins, I wonder why there is no EmacsOS...

EDIT: Brrrrrr woah what the...

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?EmacsAsOperatingSystem

Last edited by Awebb (2011-03-20 00:39:01)

trusktr · 2011-03-20 00:52:38

That's interesting. The article says it could be done, but that no one has done it yet. haha.

falconindy · 2011-03-20 01:43:02

Awebb wrote:

Every single time I read about all those emacs plugins, I wonder why there is no EmacsOS...
EDIT: Brrrrrr woah what the...
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?EmacsAsOperatingSystem

That's a start, but....

http://www.informatimago.com/linux/emac … linux.html

trusktr · 2011-03-20 02:52:22

Cool, good find. i don't think you or I have the time to figure out how to make things like Chrome or Photoshop work inside an Emacs shell though. haha

Awebb · 2011-03-20 10:47:01

^ Who needs that with links and imagemagick? :-D

biniou · 2011-03-20 10:48:06

Maybe you should try Joli OS (Jolicloud), it might fits yours needs

Pank · 2011-03-20 13:18:16

trusktr wrote:

@pank So if you run the emacs daemon at startup then that means that emacs is essentially loaded and waiting for you to request a new window, thus appearing to start fast (although it adds to the OS startup-time)?

I wouldn't want to start it with the OS. Startup is "slow" enough as it is. When I call Emacs it check whether a daemon is running, if so a frame is spawned in less than a second. If not the daemon is started and a frame is spawned. 5 sec maybe for my humongous Emacs-setup. It is simple:

emacsclient -ca ""

a file argument can be added.

W3M works nicely within Emacs. And you wouldn't want to go back to inferior Photoshop after having tried Artist-mode

pataphysician · 2011-03-20 14:37:27

trusktr wrote:

@pataphysician Well I've noticed that If i load Gedit, then close it, then re-open it, it will start instantly the second time since everything is still in memory. So, in your case, Gedit was still in memory and when you loaded it it again with extra plugins, it was only doing work to load the plugins, but not gedit+plugins. If you reboot and start fresh then load gedit+plugins it'll be more noticeable.

Actually I echo 3 to drop_caches and then logged out and in, as to clear gedit but not give myself a huge performance hit with not having anything cached. So my test was fine. I have since rebooted after an update, and again same result with gedit, I have to think maybe something is wrong somewhere in your gedit plugins. Though I am running this in KDE 4.6, but I also have full gnome desktop installed, I wouldn't think that would give any performance advantages.

To start google docs faster than gedit, I would have to already have google docs open in a browser tab, and just switch tabs, though it would only be slightly faster(and no faster than just keeping gedit open, which you still haven't explained why you are adverse to that). If I actually had to open a new tab and load google docs, it is slower, and that's taking for granted that I allow my login to be remembered, which I don't. Over all your original premise doesn't seem very convincing to me.

trusktr · 2011-03-20 19:32:11

@biniou Wow that looks pretty cool! I'mma see if I can get that launching through GRUB.

@pank HAHAHA wow, that artist mode is nice!! That would have came so much in handy in class writing command line apps!

@pataphysician Actually, once I open Gedit, i indeed do leave it open. But even if I close it, it's still fast the second time due to the cache. Indeed I have many more plugins than the default ones that come with Gedit... My Gedit works almost like Notepad++! Only thing I'd like to have is the highlighted indentation lines for hunting down closing/opening tags and also HTML tag highlighting. But anyways, the speed doesn't really bother me that much. It sure beats opening up applications like Dreamweaver (i <3 javascript & php) or a full fledged IDE (c++, java, etc).

DoctorSamulus · 2011-03-23 04:55:47

I suggest you try Beaver or Geany. I prefer the latter because It has more features. They both have syntax highlighting though.

hauzer · 2011-03-23 13:55:30

Beaver has been buggy with me and Geany is not so 'light'. I just use leafpad to do quick edits.

Odaer · 2011-03-23 19:51:43

Vim is light and has most of the features I use. I don't see the point with different editors for different occasions. If you use only one editor, you learn it faster.

trusktr · 2011-03-23 23:32:45

Yeah, Geany loads blitzyingly fast (compared to Gedit), almost instantly on my system even though it seems to have many prebuilt features that one would think would slow it down. In general though, the speed of Gedit is not slow enough for me to consider other editors. it's merely from a pure optimization viewpoint that I was making the thread. Almost one full second more of load time doesn't compare to the awesome functionality of Gedit.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-03-19 00:46:00

I can open Google Docs much faster than Gedit...

#2 2011-03-19 00:53:29

Re: I can open Google Docs much faster than Gedit...

#3 2011-03-19 01:02:39

Re: I can open Google Docs much faster than Gedit...

#4 2011-03-19 01:50:48

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#5 2011-03-19 06:25:58

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#6 2011-03-19 10:18:21

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#7 2011-03-19 16:20:07

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#10 2011-03-19 22:49:42

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#23 2011-03-23 23:32:45

Re: I can open Google Docs much faster than Gedit...

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