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I don't understand why people like VS Code. Are they coming from Eclipse, or writing code in Notepad? It's light for an Electron app, but that still makes it a

I don't understand why people like VS Code. Are they coming from Eclipse, or writing code in Notepad? It's light for an Electron app, but that still makes it a bloated pig compared to Sublime or Geany or any of the older Scintilla/SciTE editors. It can't do multi-window at all, which is a disqualifying mark in my books.

zelly 7y ago
It is very well designed. Probably the most well designed editor/IDE ever created. (This is coming from a long-time Emacs enthusiast who still uses it most of the time.) Everything is modular and pluggable, like the extension system, tasks, the formatter, the debugger, language server. It offers a consistent API for any language or build system to tool against, so one improvement in the core editor can improve the experience of every language/build system. It is heavy because it pulls in Chromium, but this is also one of its strengths. User extensions run on the same V8 that the entire editor does, so when you make an extension, it runs as fast as it would if it were part of the core editor. (This is a huge downside of Elisp's and Vim's interpreters.)
- jcdentonunatco 7y ago
  VScode is a glorified text editor. It pales in comparison to a real IDE like Visual Studio
  - this_user 7y ago
    Thank you. I honestly get the sense that people calling something like VS Code an "IDE" have never worked with an actual IDE.
    - michaelgrafl 7y ago
      I have used IDEs. I get how some might refer to VSCode as an IDE, although I don't use it in that way (or do I?). If you read about the typical features of an IDE on Wikipedia, VSCode checks most boxes. So I don't see any point in complaining about it being called one, unless you're trying to be a snob about it.
    - zelly 7y ago
      I have barely used Visual Studio, so maybe you're right. I did use it a few times for C++, and the version of it from circa 2006 is what I learned with. Visual Studio is very good, especially the debugger, but honestly VS Code with the C++ language server is good enough (80%, Pareto equivalent). Emacs with clangd is also decent while being lightweight. What does an IDE do? VS Code can refactor, rename symbols, run a graphical debugger, parse a semantic outline of code, do version control with the mouse. A pure editor is like vi/ex/notepad.exe. VS Code is definitely closer to IDE than it is to an editor on that continuum. Obviously for .NET, it's another story. Hands down the best way to make Windows desktop applications. You can build entire worlds without ever leaving the IDE. Thanks to Unity and Xbox, you can even do professional game dev with it. Personally, for me it doesn't matter how good Visual Studio is or becomes because it'll take too long for me to learn Windows. I'm (happily) vendor locked in to the GNU ecosystem.
  - michaelgrafl 7y ago
    Yeah. But, I mean, what development tool doesn't pale in comparison to Visual Studio, right?
    - thrower123 7y ago
      Basically IntelliJ and its variations. That's it, that's the list. And they've only got one kitchen sink, not the triple commercial sink of features VS lugs along.
michaelgrafl 7y ago
I come from Vim, Sublime Text, Jetbrains IDEs, and have tried a lot of other stuff as well, but not as thoroughly. At some point VSCode became snappy enough for me to use as my main editor, and Sublime Text really spoiled me in that regard. What pulled me over was that VSCode implements a lot of features from bigger IDEs without installing extensions, and they also seem to work better in VSCode than in Sublime Text, let alone Vim. The ecosystem is amazingly alive and well, and the pace of development is really impressive. The user interface is in my opinion the best of any editor I've ever used. While I was transitioning I still used Sublime Text for quick edits to text files, but now I am using VSCode for that as well. Also, it can do multiple windows, as well as vertical and horizontal splits. If you're not using VSCode because of some missing feature, check back every month. It might very well have been implemented in the latest version.

zelly 7y ago

It is very well designed. Probably the most well designed editor/IDE ever created. (This is coming from a long-time Emacs enthusiast who still uses it most of the time.) Everything is modular and pluggable, like the extension system, tasks, the formatter, the debugger, language server. It offers a consistent API for any language or build system to tool against, so one improvement in the core editor can improve the experience of every language/build system. It is heavy because it pulls in Chromium, but this is also one of its strengths. User extensions run on the same V8 that the entire editor does, so when you make an extension, it runs as fast as it would if it were part of the core editor. (This is a huge downside of Elisp's and Vim's interpreters.)

jcdentonunatco 7y ago
VScode is a glorified text editor. It pales in comparison to a real IDE like Visual Studio
- this_user 7y ago
  Thank you. I honestly get the sense that people calling something like VS Code an "IDE" have never worked with an actual IDE.
  - michaelgrafl 7y ago
    I have used IDEs. I get how some might refer to VSCode as an IDE, although I don't use it in that way (or do I?). If you read about the typical features of an IDE on Wikipedia, VSCode checks most boxes. So I don't see any point in complaining about it being called one, unless you're trying to be a snob about it.
  - zelly 7y ago
    I have barely used Visual Studio, so maybe you're right. I did use it a few times for C++, and the version of it from circa 2006 is what I learned with. Visual Studio is very good, especially the debugger, but honestly VS Code with the C++ language server is good enough (80%, Pareto equivalent). Emacs with clangd is also decent while being lightweight. What does an IDE do? VS Code can refactor, rename symbols, run a graphical debugger, parse a semantic outline of code, do version control with the mouse. A pure editor is like vi/ex/notepad.exe. VS Code is definitely closer to IDE than it is to an editor on that continuum. Obviously for .NET, it's another story. Hands down the best way to make Windows desktop applications. You can build entire worlds without ever leaving the IDE. Thanks to Unity and Xbox, you can even do professional game dev with it. Personally, for me it doesn't matter how good Visual Studio is or becomes because it'll take too long for me to learn Windows. I'm (happily) vendor locked in to the GNU ecosystem.
- michaelgrafl 7y ago
  Yeah. But, I mean, what development tool doesn't pale in comparison to Visual Studio, right?
  - thrower123 7y ago
    Basically IntelliJ and its variations. That's it, that's the list. And they've only got one kitchen sink, not the triple commercial sink of features VS lugs along.

michaelgrafl 7y ago

I come from Vim, Sublime Text, Jetbrains IDEs, and have tried a lot of other stuff as well, but not as thoroughly. At some point VSCode became snappy enough for me to use as my main editor, and Sublime Text really spoiled me in that regard. What pulled me over was that VSCode implements a lot of features from bigger IDEs without installing extensions, and they also seem to work better in VSCode than in Sublime Text, let alone Vim. The ecosystem is amazingly alive and well, and the pace of development is really impressive. The user interface is in my opinion the best of any editor I've ever used. While I was transitioning I still used Sublime Text for quick edits to text files, but now I am using VSCode for that as well. Also, it can do multiple windows, as well as vertical and horizontal splits. If you're not using VSCode because of some missing feature, check back every month. It might very well have been implemented in the latest version.