Products · Broad category
Code editors
Raised as a usability problem by 38 people on Hacker News over 17 years (2009–2025), in 35 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Auto-inserted brackets and quotes are often wrong and need fixingUnreviewed
20092026- Auto-inserted closing brackets and quotes get in the way when adding delimiters, forcing constant deletion2025-07-04
- Auto-inserted closing brackets and quotes are often wrong, forcing users to waste time correcting them2025-07-04
- Typing past an auto-inserted closing bracket needs a clumsy workaround or defeats the auto-insertion2022-07-24
Tabs and spaces look alike, so alignment breaks between collaboratorsUnreviewed
20092026- Editors don't convert tabs and spaces easily, forcing a manual process2019-07-08
- Editors lacking per-project settings make it hard to get everyone to the same indentation2017-06-15
- Editors lack tab/space distinction, so collaborators can't keep alignment consistent and code gets messy2013-05-22
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 38 complaints
- Developers edit code by clicking, selecting and moving character by character, which is painful for refactoring2025-08-29
- Auto-inserted closing brackets and quotes get in the way when adding delimiters, forcing constant deletion2025-07-04
- Auto-inserted closing brackets and quotes are often wrong, forcing users to waste time correcting them2025-07-04
- Autocomplete popups and auto-closed parentheses distract and can't be turned off2024-12-24
- Search and replace uses cramped dialog boxes and single-line fields, jumping only to next result2024-11-14
- Editor panel is too big and scrolls when user wants to scroll the page2024-09-05
- Hard to follow calls through deeply modular code without an IDE2024-01-06
- Switching buffers requires grabbing the mouse to find and click small tabs2023-11-25
- Folded code gets forgotten and burns people; fold shortcuts are hard to discover2023-10-12
- Deleting one quote also deletes a second, unpredictable behaviour for key inputs2023-03-20
- Editors strip indentation from empty lines, so the cursor lands at the wrong indentation level2023-01-03
- Switching editors requires relearning many shortcuts and reconfiguring plugins2022-12-16
- Custom module system breaks go-to-definition, and similar file names make code hard to track down2022-08-24
- Typing past an auto-inserted closing bracket needs a clumsy workaround or defeats the auto-insertion2022-07-24
- Auto-inserted closing brackets and quotes end up in wrong places, forcing cleanup2021-12-21
- Auto-inserted closing brackets interrupt thought flow and must be disabled2021-11-26
- Backspace removes whole tab stops, so fixing alignment by one space takes many keypresses2021-07-28
- Writing code with touch controls is frustrating and tedious on iPad2021-05-11
- Software is laggy to interact with and uses excessive memory and CPU2019-08-13
- Editors don't convert tabs and spaces easily, forcing a manual process2019-07-08
- Must click tabs and dialogs and navigate manually to switch or find files2019-07-05
- Compile errors show no indication of where or what went wrong2019-01-19
- Extensions require constant finding, configuring, upgrading and fixing breakages, distracting from work2018-12-09
- Forced to grab the keyboard for single characters when working mainly by mouse2018-11-09
- Finding a symbol opens a modal dialog instead of a simple search2018-09-24
- Autosave collides with manual save muscle memory and interrupts flow when editors pause2018-09-11
- Editors mis-highlight edge-case syntax and show parens as unbalanced when they're not2018-01-15
- Editors lacking per-project settings make it hard to get everyone to the same indentation2017-06-15
- Low-contrast grey-on-grey code themes are hard to read, especially for dyslexics2016-12-19
- Options are buried in modal windows and tabs, hard to find and hidden behind magic2016-09-20
- No simple mouse way to exit a section; must use keyboard shortcuts or menus2014-10-05
- Accidental Ctrl-B keypress opens a useless dialog that keeps reappearing2014-02-21
- Backspace deletes one space at a time, so indents take 3-4 presses2014-01-02
- Editors lack tab/space distinction, so collaborators can't keep alignment consistent and code gets messy2013-05-22
- Constantly switching between keyboard and mouse is tedious2010-03-11
- Every operation requires repeated mouse clicks, with no keyboard alternative for text editing2010-03-11
- Constant switching between keyboard and mouse is annoying2010-03-11
- Folding expands unrelated code blocks when typing a string, and sometimes loses correct fold points2009-04-13