The co-founders of Zed discuss the technological decisions behind their lightweight editor. They migrated to Rust for better performance, flexibility, and the ability to own the entire tech stack. Antonio shared challenges with JavaScript performance in Atom, while Max highlighted the trade-offs of full-stack ownership. Nathan emphasized understanding lower-level programming fundamentals for better control over technology. The team values minimal dependencies to customize features, learned from past experiences with jQuery. They acknowledge the slow learning curve and complexity of their approach, but appreciate the freedom and creative control it provides. The conversation reveals insights into Zed’s innovative development journey.
https://zed.dev/blog/we-have-to-start-over