Komodo X has released on May 17, 2016. I’ve been using it much earlier though. Once the first public alpha came out, I switched from Komodo 9 to Komodo 10.

At this date, my main stack of technologies were Ruby + Middleman. It took 2 years to complete a short path: PHP → Python → Ruby. For these 2 years, I’ve been using Komodo. From 8 to 10. And finally I want to write my opinion about Komodo.

As you may know, I’ve contributed a lot to Komodo (I can call myself the biggest contributor from the community :P), and since I’m still doing that, it means that I still love Komodo. Why? There are some reasons!

UI

I used Sublime Text before switching to Komodo. I really liked Submile’s simple interface and I was very enjoyed to see the same in Komodo 8. It was not that simple, but I’ve adapted to it very fast.

Komodo 9 looked the same as Komodo 8 if we’re talking about UI layout. However, I’ve started creating UI add-ons or skins, such as Atomik, Oceanmodo, Spacemodo (it’s not created by me but by Nathan, I was a Collaborator for it). The last skin was TabulaRasa, developed by Nathan. I liked it a lot and assumed it will be the next default for Komodo 10.

I’ve an experience of developing Java Android applications, so I’ve used Android Studio for it. After switching back to Komodo, I was very happy with the things in Komodo - it looks much native and better than Android Studio. The problem is that the most IDE’s written in Java, which makes them loading slower, looks bad and it’s hard to change it. Komodo is always providing a lot of ways to configure and change its UI and colors. With the new SDK, it makes everything easier for add-on developers.

Komodo IDE has a very intuitive and nice interface for an IDE. That’s one of the reasons why I’m using it.

Performance

As I said, Komodo IDE is fast. Most IDE’s for Linux written in Java, which makes them slow. Komodo IDE is written in C++, Python and JavaScript. These languages are pretty fast to provide great performance experience in Komodo. In Komodo 8 and 9, there were some memory leaks related to file opening, closing, saving and typing. Komodo 10 has fixed all of them and now it’s the fastest IDE I’ve ever seen. I didn’t test Komodo Edit, but I sure it’s much faster than the IDE.

Debugging

Forgot about those puts, print, echo and the rest! Komodo IDE provides powerful debugging tools to find bugs in your software. It supports PHP, Python, Ruby, Node.js, JavaScript (Chrome Remote Debugging), Tcl and Perl (don’t use Tcl and Perl, screw that Satan’s languages).

I’ve tried PHP and Python debugging I can say it’s pretty good! I don’t remember any issues with that.

At the time when I’ve switched to Ruby, Komodo didn’t support Ruby 2.x debugging. But now it does it pretty damn good! I use it regularly for debugging my CLI tools, bots, etc.

Commando

Commando is a beast! You can close any panes, go into Focus Mode and use your keyboard only for all the actions! Opening files, searching for them, installing gems, navigating in symbols (functions, classes, etc.) in your code - you name it! Commando provides a lot of features to you. I was so inspired by this tool so I’ve implemented the search on the web-site in the same way.

Source Code Control

When I’m working on a project, I was used to have a terminal window opened somewhere. Once I was done with writing code, I was switching to the terminal, writing git add -A && git commit -m "message goes here" && git push origin master. Now I can do it inside Komodo!

I can use Source Code Control keybindings for committing, pulling and pushing my changes and viewing diffs for files or for the whole project. I do that when I want to commit only specific files. In other cases, I just open Commando Shell and type the same command I was typing in the terminal.

Community

I don’t know how the community looks like around other editors, but I can say that Komodo’s community is awesome! I can ask the devs about anything - starting from questions related to Komodo and ending by questions about the meaning of life (not exactly, 42). I’m trying to make the community more awesome by providing support on the forums. I’ve been doing that for 1 year and 8 months by far, that’s why I’m Volunteer Moderator :P

Feel free to ask about anything related to Komodo on the forums or start a great discussion in the Discussions category! I personally like to talking about different things.

That’s it?

I’ve mentioned only 6 things and someone may think that it’s too few for a guy who’s using this software for 2 years. Well, there are a lot of other things that I found very useful and I like, but if I’ll go to mention all of them, this page will be rendering too long :D

If you’re a Komodo user, feel free to share your opinion in the comments or on the forums, if not - at least you could try to become part of it!