5 ms·

I don't want to support this company. What are good alternatives to GitHub, TypeScript, npm, and Visual Studio Code (besides Atom)?

FridgeSeal 6y ago
>GitHub Github I guess? > TypeScript, npm, I don't know if you'll be able to avoid NPM, but _maybe_ you could try ReasonML if you're doing frontend stuff with TS? Don't really know tbh > Visual Studio Code (besides Atom)? Sublime Text 3 with plugins for general stuff, one of the JetBrains IDE's for more language specific work if so desired.
- willcipriano 6y ago
  +1 for jetbrains. I prefer webstorm to visual studio myself and the licensing scheme is very fair.
- leonidasv 6y ago
  ReasonML is a pretty decent choice. Small learning curve, JS interop, fast compilation, functional goodies. Plus a thing called "Structural typing" that gives you the flexibility of dynamic typing without losing the guarantees from static typing.
  - FridgeSeal 6y ago
    Plus, if they are doing front-end stuff, it's my understanding that ReasonML will also output native code, which should theoretically go a long way to making a OS-native app significantly easier right?
    - leonidasv 6y ago
      Not really, most of the time you're probably interacting with the DOM, which is bound to the browser environment. Unless you use some framework that also works with native widgets or similar components, you're not getting much advantage.
endgame 6y ago
GitHub -> Sourcehut VSCode -> GNU Emacs
- doctorwhat 6y ago
  You mispelled vim.
  - endgame 6y ago
    No, I didn't, because emacs is what I use and like. Pick an editor that's over 40 years old and not built out of a web browser. I'm not that fussed which one.
    - rzzzt 6y ago
      ed?
      - endgame 6y ago
        a Sure, if you want. I learned it as a party trick and it's been useful here and there (mostly when a remote system gets so confused that ncurses doesn't work properly). Certainly, it starts quickly and is more responsive than editors built out of web browsers. . wq
BetaDeltaAlpha 6y ago
Gitlab is a contender for sure. I use it at my dayjob. I don't know if any of the other big editors have caught up to VSCode in terms of ecosystem though.
- toyg 6y ago
  Are you kidding me? The Intellij ecosystem alone pre-dates vscode by decades and it’s likely much bigger already. And if you look at emacs and vim... well.
- marvinblum 6y ago
  Depending on the language take a look at the product range from JetBrains. I use GoLand for example and it's the best IDE I've ever used.
thayne 6y ago
> github Gitlab, many other lesser known alternatives (such as the aforementioned sourcehut, although that has a different paradigm than github) > Typescript Facebook's flow is probably the closest. There's also dart, and many, many other languages that can compile to JavaScript. > npm Yarn is the obvious one (although it still uses the npm repo). Or you could leave node altogether and use deno. There are probably other alternatives. > Visual Studio Code (Neo)vim and emacs are both good options, although they have a steep learning curve. There's sublime text if you don't mind something proprietary. Probably others I'm less familiar with.
donmcronald 6y ago
The smaller you are, the greater the risk of adopting SaaS like GitHub IMO, so I've used a lot of the alternatives. I try to run everything I can behind the firewall: - Gitea for a light weight Git GUI. I don't want pure GitHub SaaS and with GitLab you need to drink the Kool-Aid and marry your workflow to it. GitLab is also really stubborn about their business model and the pricing sucks once you get off the free version. Use the Enterprise Edition in unlicensed mode if you decide to try it. - Drone for CI. CI is my biggest concern in terms of vendor lock in and Drone has an extremely generous (free), no BS license for small developers. It can be self hosted and the plugin system looks pretty decent. IE: I don't have to rely on them to add functionality I desperately want / need. I don't trust GitHub to never screw us with Actions and I don't think it's possible to self host the server components of actions (for free). I don't trust GitLab to never screw us with feature tiers where new development goes into higher tiers only. - Nexus for repositories and packages. This is harder than firing up some SaaS service, but it's got pretty much anything you could ever want from a package store / repository / cache. It's also been around for 10+ years and Sonatype has never tried to play any pricing games or engaged in underhanded attempts to leverage it in an effort to shift everyone to SaaS. Warranted or not, I trust them more than Microsoft and GitLab. - Traefik as a sidecar proxy doing SSL termination for the above services. Once it's set up it just runs without any hassle. I've fallen off my fair share of bandwagons (hello Adobe Flex) and now whenever I choose technology to use, I always do a mental exercise where I consider the impact of having the vendor abandon me tomorrow. Don't trust anyone when it comes to promised features or promises of fair dealing, reasonable prices, etc.. Disconnect the internet and whatever you're left with are they only things you can truly rely on. You could keep using the current version of TypeScript even if Microsoft jumps the shark with it, so you might as well take advantage of it IMO. GitHub, Codespaces (VS Code), Actions, etc. are all going to work towards putting your development process onto Azure. Mark my words. It'll happen and everyone will be paying per CPU cycle for things we used to insist on having control of. JetBrains makes good editors. They give you a perpetual license for old, outdated, versions of the apps if you drop your subscription which is BS. It should be the current version. Besides that though, they're pretty decent. They have a nice, consistent release cadence and the personal license prices are really reasonable compared to the cost of SaaS. For example, I pay $150 USD / year for everything they make compared to Codespaces (VSCode Online) having an estimated monthly price of $23.30 per month for 100 hours / month of use (lol - maybe x2 that). Think about how it's going to work out if you're married to an online only workspace where your only options are to pay up or to lose the ability to work. Keep in mind though, the risk of being unproductive usually outweighs the risk of being price gouged and mistreated by SaaS vendors. If you're creating $2k+ / week of value, it makes a lot of sense to pay for everything. If you don't, the person down the street will and they'll probably out-compete you if they're writing code while you're being a sysadmin.
Conan_Kudo 6y ago
> GitHub Pagure[1] is a good option here. > TypeScript You could just use JavaScript? > npm There aren't any at this time, as far as I know. > Visual Studio Code (besides Atom) Sublime Text[2] is a favorite of many, though I use Emacs[3]. [1]: https://pagure.io/pagure https://pagure.io/pagure [2]: https://www.sublimetext.com/ https://www.sublimetext.com/ [3]: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
- throw_m239339 6y ago
  > npm / There aren't any at this time, as far as I know. yarn?
  - Conan_Kudo 6y ago
    Hmm, I assumed we were talking about the server-side aspect of npm, which there is no alternative for. Yarn uses it too. Client side has a couple of options, including Yarn.
benatkin 6y ago
Thanks for the responses. I was half kidding. I depend heavily on all of these and need to double down on them! Some of the alternatives are at Facebook, which I also don't trust, for different reasons. It's hard to boycott FAAMG completely. I avoid getting hired by one of them or being locked into their proprietary technologies though. For instance I use GitHub heavily (just like I'd use YouTube if I made video content) but am not buying into all their extra features like GitHub Actions and GitHub Discussions.

FridgeSeal 6y ago

>GitHub Github I guess? > TypeScript, npm, I don't know if you'll be able to avoid NPM, but _maybe_ you could try ReasonML if you're doing frontend stuff with TS? Don't really know tbh > Visual Studio Code (besides Atom)? Sublime Text 3 with plugins for general stuff, one of the JetBrains IDE's for more language specific work if so desired.

willcipriano 6y ago
+1 for jetbrains. I prefer webstorm to visual studio myself and the licensing scheme is very fair.
leonidasv 6y ago
ReasonML is a pretty decent choice. Small learning curve, JS interop, fast compilation, functional goodies. Plus a thing called "Structural typing" that gives you the flexibility of dynamic typing without losing the guarantees from static typing.
- FridgeSeal 6y ago
  Plus, if they are doing front-end stuff, it's my understanding that ReasonML will also output native code, which should theoretically go a long way to making a OS-native app significantly easier right?
  - leonidasv 6y ago
    Not really, most of the time you're probably interacting with the DOM, which is bound to the browser environment. Unless you use some framework that also works with native widgets or similar components, you're not getting much advantage.

endgame 6y ago

GitHub -> Sourcehut VSCode -> GNU Emacs

doctorwhat 6y ago
You mispelled vim.
- endgame 6y ago
  No, I didn't, because emacs is what I use and like. Pick an editor that's over 40 years old and not built out of a web browser. I'm not that fussed which one.
  - rzzzt 6y ago
    ed?
    - endgame 6y ago
      a Sure, if you want. I learned it as a party trick and it's been useful here and there (mostly when a remote system gets so confused that ncurses doesn't work properly). Certainly, it starts quickly and is more responsive than editors built out of web browsers. . wq

BetaDeltaAlpha 6y ago

Gitlab is a contender for sure. I use it at my dayjob. I don't know if any of the other big editors have caught up to VSCode in terms of ecosystem though.

toyg 6y ago
Are you kidding me? The Intellij ecosystem alone pre-dates vscode by decades and it’s likely much bigger already. And if you look at emacs and vim... well.
marvinblum 6y ago
Depending on the language take a look at the product range from JetBrains. I use GoLand for example and it's the best IDE I've ever used.

thayne 6y ago

> github Gitlab, many other lesser known alternatives (such as the aforementioned sourcehut, although that has a different paradigm than github) > Typescript Facebook's flow is probably the closest. There's also dart, and many, many other languages that can compile to JavaScript. > npm Yarn is the obvious one (although it still uses the npm repo). Or you could leave node altogether and use deno. There are probably other alternatives. > Visual Studio Code (Neo)vim and emacs are both good options, although they have a steep learning curve. There's sublime text if you don't mind something proprietary. Probably others I'm less familiar with.

donmcronald 6y ago

The smaller you are, the greater the risk of adopting SaaS like GitHub IMO, so I've used a lot of the alternatives. I try to run everything I can behind the firewall: - Gitea for a light weight Git GUI. I don't want pure GitHub SaaS and with GitLab you need to drink the Kool-Aid and marry your workflow to it. GitLab is also really stubborn about their business model and the pricing sucks once you get off the free version. Use the Enterprise Edition in unlicensed mode if you decide to try it. - Drone for CI. CI is my biggest concern in terms of vendor lock in and Drone has an extremely generous (free), no BS license for small developers. It can be self hosted and the plugin system looks pretty decent. IE: I don't have to rely on them to add functionality I desperately want / need. I don't trust GitHub to never screw us with Actions and I don't think it's possible to self host the server components of actions (for free). I don't trust GitLab to never screw us with feature tiers where new development goes into higher tiers only. - Nexus for repositories and packages. This is harder than firing up some SaaS service, but it's got pretty much anything you could ever want from a package store / repository / cache. It's also been around for 10+ years and Sonatype has never tried to play any pricing games or engaged in underhanded attempts to leverage it in an effort to shift everyone to SaaS. Warranted or not, I trust them more than Microsoft and GitLab. - Traefik as a sidecar proxy doing SSL termination for the above services. Once it's set up it just runs without any hassle. I've fallen off my fair share of bandwagons (hello Adobe Flex) and now whenever I choose technology to use, I always do a mental exercise where I consider the impact of having the vendor abandon me tomorrow. Don't trust anyone when it comes to promised features or promises of fair dealing, reasonable prices, etc.. Disconnect the internet and whatever you're left with are they only things you can truly rely on. You could keep using the current version of TypeScript even if Microsoft jumps the shark with it, so you might as well take advantage of it IMO. GitHub, Codespaces (VS Code), Actions, etc. are all going to work towards putting your development process onto Azure. Mark my words. It'll happen and everyone will be paying per CPU cycle for things we used to insist on having control of. JetBrains makes good editors. They give you a perpetual license for old, outdated, versions of the apps if you drop your subscription which is BS. It should be the current version. Besides that though, they're pretty decent. They have a nice, consistent release cadence and the personal license prices are really reasonable compared to the cost of SaaS. For example, I pay $150 USD / year for everything they make compared to Codespaces (VSCode Online) having an estimated monthly price of $23.30 per month for 100 hours / month of use (lol - maybe x2 that). Think about how it's going to work out if you're married to an online only workspace where your only options are to pay up or to lose the ability to work. Keep in mind though, the risk of being unproductive usually outweighs the risk of being price gouged and mistreated by SaaS vendors. If you're creating $2k+ / week of value, it makes a lot of sense to pay for everything. If you don't, the person down the street will and they'll probably out-compete you if they're writing code while you're being a sysadmin.

Conan_Kudo 6y ago

> GitHub Pagure[1] is a good option here. > TypeScript You could just use JavaScript? > npm There aren't any at this time, as far as I know. > Visual Studio Code (besides Atom) Sublime Text[2] is a favorite of many, though I use Emacs[3]. [1]: https://pagure.io/pagure https://pagure.io/pagure [2]: https://www.sublimetext.com/ https://www.sublimetext.com/ [3]: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

throw_m239339 6y ago
> npm / There aren't any at this time, as far as I know. yarn?
- Conan_Kudo 6y ago
  Hmm, I assumed we were talking about the server-side aspect of npm, which there is no alternative for. Yarn uses it too. Client side has a couple of options, including Yarn.

benatkin 6y ago

Thanks for the responses. I was half kidding. I depend heavily on all of these and need to double down on them! Some of the alternatives are at Facebook, which I also don't trust, for different reasons. It's hard to boycott FAAMG completely. I avoid getting hired by one of them or being locked into their proprietary technologies though. For instance I use GitHub heavily (just like I'd use YouTube if I made video content) but am not buying into all their extra features like GitHub Actions and GitHub Discussions.