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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 t
by 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 agoVScode is a glorified text editor. It pales in comparison to a real IDE like Visual Studio
- this_user 7y agoThank you. I honestly get the sense that people calling something like VS Code an "IDE" have never worked with an actual IDE.
- michaelgrafl 7y agoI 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 agoI 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 agoYeah. But, I mean, what development tool doesn't pale in comparison to Visual Studio, right?
- thrower123 7y agoBasically 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.