8 ms·

I wasn't sure what to expect from VSC, especially going into it I was worried that it would just be a MS-branded, bloated version of an already-slow Atom. My e

by kup0 11y ago

I wasn't sure what to expect from VSC, especially going into it I was worried that it would just be a MS-branded, bloated version of an already-slow Atom. My expectations were completely wrong, though. VSC is not bloated or slow. It's well-made. There aren't really any negative MS-flavored conventions as far as I can tell. This isn't MS Office (which I guess has its place but has gone off the deep end, IMHO). It looks like it's on a path towards becoming a pretty powerful tool, more than just a text editor, and more than just a clone of Atom. The MS branding will unfortunately keep people away that like to judge books by their cover. But that says more about their own problems and unwillingness than it does about MS. I don't understand why we have to throw ourselves into brand "camps" and defend them to the death. It's dumb. I like Linux, I use an assortment of operating systems depending on my needs, and I don't see any reason why a decent effort/product can't be appreciated, no matter what company produces it.

jqm 11y ago
Possibly after being bitten by a brand people are leery of products under that brand name? Disclaimer: no hate for MS nor VS. I'm sure its a fine tool. I just don't need it and probably won't use it.
mahyarm 11y ago
Bloat and jankyness seems to be a function of project age. This is a relatively greenfield project, so it's pretty nice for now. MS Office is ancient as far as software projects go. The only things that are older at this point is UNIX, Oracle bank/govt mainframes.
- MaxKK 11y ago
  You checked the latest Office 2015? I think it improved quite a bit, at least on OSX.
  - Cyph0n 11y ago
    Office 2016. It's absolutely awesome. As native as it gets IMO. It's clear MS is treating OS X with respect. I used to have Office 2013 installed on a Windows VM because 2011 on Mac was garbage.
  - mahyarm 11y ago
    How nice the surface doesn't say anything about the internals, developer experience or the crazy shit they do for backwards compatibility.
- Scuds 11y ago
  By going to VS Code they're jettisoning themselves from the .sln (solution file), .csproj (C# project file), MS Build world. Project management and build files are being pushed into external utilities. This is kind of the way a lot of the rest the world (ruby/node/python) is going. IDEs are fine, but when you remove the need for an integrated debugger in favor of TDD the need for an IDE diminishes.
  - endgame 11y ago
    I would hardly say that TDD removes the need for an integrated debugger. Being able to inspect the state of a system the instant a test fails sounds mighty useful to me. Also, software builds being driven by an external tool has been common since at least make(1), so it's hardly a ruby/node/python thing.
    - marktangotango 11y ago
      I've been the new guy on teams that did not use the ide for debugging (insanity in the Java world, right?) and was perceived to be a super star because of my ability to trouble shoot and drill straight down to root causes. Learn and use your tools people!
  - pbz 11y ago
    But VS Code does have integrated debugging...
- coldtea 11y ago
  >Bloat and jankyness seems to be a function of project age. Atom, that he mentioned, as well as lots of other projects, were slow and bloated from the start.
  - mahyarm 11y ago
    That's why I worry about atom in 10 years from now...
- btilly 11y ago
  Ancient?? I think you don't know the history. MS Office started in 1990. Current technologies that are older include... - Unix and most of its tool system (including emacs, vi, grep, awk, tar, X-windows, etc) - Most fundamental networking technologies (tcp-ip, ftp, email, etc) - Several game franchises including Mario, Final Fantasy, Frogger, SimCity, Wolfenstein (you'll be more likely to recognize its descendants Doom and Quake) - Many popular relational databases. Whether you use MS SQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, those are built on code bases that have been continuously developed from before 1990. (Albeit with name changes. MS SQL started with Sybase's code, PostgreSQL was developed from Ingress.) - Around half of the top 20 programming languages in use today, including languages such as C, C++, Python and Objective-C. There is a LOT more history to the software you use every day than you recognize!
  - mahyarm 11y ago
    I'm talking more codebase wise, not protocols, languages, specifications and franchises. For example, Wii U mario games aren't using code from the original 8bit mario games. Same with most SMTP servers today. SMTP is old, the current implementations in use most of the time are not that old. I think many unix tools in use today like grep are probably not using the original grep implementations either. So I covered most of the list with UNIX (OSes), Oracle (DBs) and mainframes. I did miss compilers, vim & emacs but even that is being replaced by guys like LLVM.
ploxiln 11y ago
Only losing market share and power has made Microsoft produce software with reasonable quality, flexibility, and interoperability. A lot of the credit for that goes to Apple's crazy climb in popularity. But at least some of it also goes to technologists involved in networking, the internet, and the web, many of whom decided never to deal with any Microsoft stuff ever again. If you knew the frustration of Microsoft's combination of lock-in and incompetence, back in 1995 - 2006 (my entire computing life at the time!) you wouldn't blame them.
- ckozlowski 11y ago
  >Only losing market share and power has made Microsoft produce software with reasonable quality, flexibility, and interoperability. And that, in my opinion, is the way it's supposed to work. Vendor's products gettin' ya down? Not being responsive to your needs and lacking in quality? Move elsewhere! Money talks. A good kick in the ass can be a humbling experience, and a good opportunity for the open-minded. It was a long time in coming, but I'm glad to see MS is starting to take some of these lessons to heart. If they keep it up with actions such as these, there's a good chance they'll stand to be rewarded for it.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    > If they keep it up with actions such as these, there's a good chance they'll stand to be rewarded for it. And -quickly enough- they'll go back to being the old MSFT we all knew and loathed from top to bottom, and these olive branches will vanish quicker than a pile of shaved ice on a summer day. For many of us, this isn't our first rodeo. :)
    - th0waway 11y ago
      Embrace Extend Extinguish - many of us have seen that happen over the years. MS will not garner my personal support until the release code under the GPL.
    - thebaer 11y ago
      At least now we'll have a decent editor we can continue to run ourselves when that happens. :)
duaneb 11y ago
I'm not sure about the branding angle. For the longest time, MS was its own worst enemy brand-wise. They appear to be doing the necessary changes to win about people who like good tools, though. I'm not complaining.
yoklov 11y ago
> But that says more about their own problems and unwillingness than it does about MS. Not sure I agree. In a lot of cases they earned this reputation by leaving developers SOL when they abandoned software or APIs. Personally I don't really have a problem with MS, but they're unpopular around where I work for this reason.
harisamin 11y ago
whole heartedly agree
m1sta_ 11y ago
Incidental to your point but I wouldn't characterise Office as bloated or slow. Word, Excel, and PPT 2016 are all super snappy.
- int_handler 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure kup0 was referring to how Office has generally been in past versions. The latest version of Office are much better made and performant for the same reasons why VSC is well-made and performant: Microsoft has started taking these user experience issues a lot more seriously.
- erichurkman 11y ago
  The Mac versions are still pretty terrible and are missing loads of features.

by kup0 11y ago

jqm 11y ago

Possibly after being bitten by a brand people are leery of products under that brand name? Disclaimer: no hate for MS nor VS. I'm sure its a fine tool. I just don't need it and probably won't use it.

mahyarm 11y ago

Bloat and jankyness seems to be a function of project age. This is a relatively greenfield project, so it's pretty nice for now. MS Office is ancient as far as software projects go. The only things that are older at this point is UNIX, Oracle bank/govt mainframes.

MaxKK 11y ago
You checked the latest Office 2015? I think it improved quite a bit, at least on OSX.
- Cyph0n 11y ago
  Office 2016. It's absolutely awesome. As native as it gets IMO. It's clear MS is treating OS X with respect. I used to have Office 2013 installed on a Windows VM because 2011 on Mac was garbage.
- mahyarm 11y ago
  How nice the surface doesn't say anything about the internals, developer experience or the crazy shit they do for backwards compatibility.
Scuds 11y ago
By going to VS Code they're jettisoning themselves from the .sln (solution file), .csproj (C# project file), MS Build world. Project management and build files are being pushed into external utilities. This is kind of the way a lot of the rest the world (ruby/node/python) is going. IDEs are fine, but when you remove the need for an integrated debugger in favor of TDD the need for an IDE diminishes.
- endgame 11y ago
  I would hardly say that TDD removes the need for an integrated debugger. Being able to inspect the state of a system the instant a test fails sounds mighty useful to me. Also, software builds being driven by an external tool has been common since at least make(1), so it's hardly a ruby/node/python thing.
  - marktangotango 11y ago
    I've been the new guy on teams that did not use the ide for debugging (insanity in the Java world, right?) and was perceived to be a super star because of my ability to trouble shoot and drill straight down to root causes. Learn and use your tools people!
- pbz 11y ago
  But VS Code does have integrated debugging...
coldtea 11y ago
>Bloat and jankyness seems to be a function of project age. Atom, that he mentioned, as well as lots of other projects, were slow and bloated from the start.
- mahyarm 11y ago
  That's why I worry about atom in 10 years from now...
btilly 11y ago
Ancient?? I think you don't know the history. MS Office started in 1990. Current technologies that are older include... - Unix and most of its tool system (including emacs, vi, grep, awk, tar, X-windows, etc) - Most fundamental networking technologies (tcp-ip, ftp, email, etc) - Several game franchises including Mario, Final Fantasy, Frogger, SimCity, Wolfenstein (you'll be more likely to recognize its descendants Doom and Quake) - Many popular relational databases. Whether you use MS SQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, those are built on code bases that have been continuously developed from before 1990. (Albeit with name changes. MS SQL started with Sybase's code, PostgreSQL was developed from Ingress.) - Around half of the top 20 programming languages in use today, including languages such as C, C++, Python and Objective-C. There is a LOT more history to the software you use every day than you recognize!
- mahyarm 11y ago
  I'm talking more codebase wise, not protocols, languages, specifications and franchises. For example, Wii U mario games aren't using code from the original 8bit mario games. Same with most SMTP servers today. SMTP is old, the current implementations in use most of the time are not that old. I think many unix tools in use today like grep are probably not using the original grep implementations either. So I covered most of the list with UNIX (OSes), Oracle (DBs) and mainframes. I did miss compilers, vim & emacs but even that is being replaced by guys like LLVM.

ploxiln 11y ago

Only losing market share and power has made Microsoft produce software with reasonable quality, flexibility, and interoperability. A lot of the credit for that goes to Apple's crazy climb in popularity. But at least some of it also goes to technologists involved in networking, the internet, and the web, many of whom decided never to deal with any Microsoft stuff ever again. If you knew the frustration of Microsoft's combination of lock-in and incompetence, back in 1995 - 2006 (my entire computing life at the time!) you wouldn't blame them.

ckozlowski 11y ago
>Only losing market share and power has made Microsoft produce software with reasonable quality, flexibility, and interoperability. And that, in my opinion, is the way it's supposed to work. Vendor's products gettin' ya down? Not being responsive to your needs and lacking in quality? Move elsewhere! Money talks. A good kick in the ass can be a humbling experience, and a good opportunity for the open-minded. It was a long time in coming, but I'm glad to see MS is starting to take some of these lessons to heart. If they keep it up with actions such as these, there's a good chance they'll stand to be rewarded for it.
- simoncion 11y ago
  > If they keep it up with actions such as these, there's a good chance they'll stand to be rewarded for it. And -quickly enough- they'll go back to being the old MSFT we all knew and loathed from top to bottom, and these olive branches will vanish quicker than a pile of shaved ice on a summer day. For many of us, this isn't our first rodeo. :)
  - th0waway 11y ago
    Embrace Extend Extinguish - many of us have seen that happen over the years. MS will not garner my personal support until the release code under the GPL.
  - thebaer 11y ago
    At least now we'll have a decent editor we can continue to run ourselves when that happens. :)

duaneb 11y ago

I'm not sure about the branding angle. For the longest time, MS was its own worst enemy brand-wise. They appear to be doing the necessary changes to win about people who like good tools, though. I'm not complaining.

yoklov 11y ago

> But that says more about their own problems and unwillingness than it does about MS. Not sure I agree. In a lot of cases they earned this reputation by leaving developers SOL when they abandoned software or APIs. Personally I don't really have a problem with MS, but they're unpopular around where I work for this reason.

harisamin 11y ago

whole heartedly agree

m1sta_ 11y ago

Incidental to your point but I wouldn't characterise Office as bloated or slow. Word, Excel, and PPT 2016 are all super snappy.

int_handler 11y ago
I'm pretty sure kup0 was referring to how Office has generally been in past versions. The latest version of Office are much better made and performant for the same reasons why VSC is well-made and performant: Microsoft has started taking these user experience issues a lot more seriously.
erichurkman 11y ago
The Mac versions are still pretty terrible and are missing loads of features.