I just read the end of this searching for something else, but it is pretty common for people to want software to do everything (have current moment most wanted features – even if in 2 days they won’t care) for yesterday.
Is Sublime Text a one man show or what? (educate me on this, and yes I could search/RTFM, I’m just being a little selfish there with my time right right now!)
If so, I totally agree with he rathers work on his product than begin to do excessive customer service.
As for me, even if I am not a very long time Sublime user, I think Sublime Text is succesful because it is up to his name mostly. It is special compared to most thing I have saw so far. Fast, etc. There are people at my job who will wish to talk each 15 minutes, but disturbing a developer or similar creative job so much, is counter-productive.
Look a lot of real big company, and you will find they make it very hard to get in contact with them, making you pass through endless faq, etc. before reaching email or telephone (think eBay for example). There are reason for this.
Lot of company waste a lot of money with basic question support, that won’t make the product better anyway, just satisfy some people in the very moment, but not necessary in the long run… it is nice, but you cannot always hold hand of everyone (just like I could be less lazy and find the answer myself about ST being a one man show or not – but there I am being social on a social platform let’s say).
Do every software have a lot of releases? No.
Do every software require a lot of releases? No. Sublime is quite mature even if there are problem (I am there to post one very major problem that really piss me off in term of impact, but still I cannot deny Sublime has been more than positive if I put those emotion aside).
And Sublime is very customizable, plugins are created, etc. – so this can be done to add features you want badly.
I have an idea of the tone here, I have saw this social pattern happen often, and if he is a good guy, chance are it affects him a little. But if he is pragmatic, he has learned, just like a surgeon learn to not go nuts with blood or death, to not invest all his effort there, else the product won’t advance at all. It is called a choice, and even if it does not satisfy some or even lot of people, it does not mean it is a bad choice.
Also, it looks like some commenst were made like “I have never see a company/software that was so poor on X…” – but then for a lot of people, they have not seen another text editor as good as Sublime. Maybe he is doing something different or investing his effort at the right place?