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Over year ago JetBrains released a post showing they don't understand why VSCode eats their market: > Still, we don’t deny the information could be a bit skew

by agilob 5y ago

Over year ago JetBrains released a post showing they don't understand why VSCode eats their market: > Still, we don’t deny the information could be a bit skewed – even with the weighting we give to our survey results – given that this is from the JetBrains State of Developer Ecosystem survey, and one of JetBrains main products is IntelliJ IDEA. However, that is not to say that this is not totally unreasonable, as if we look at other surveys, IntelliJ IDEA is usually one the most used IDEs, and usually has around a 55-60% share of users. VS Code is growing which is concerning, not from a competitive point of view but actually from the point of view that there is clearly a lack of understanding of what an IDE gives you. VS Code is a code editor with some features that you’d find in an IDE, and extensions that can provide additional functionality – so if people are turning to VS Code for developing it may imply that developers don’t know what a fully-featured IDE can give them. In the web space it is understandable to use an editor as web developers are typically working with dynamic languages, and often use other tools like browser plugins to give them what they need. But in Java, especially professional Java, you really get a lot out of a good tool that has integration with the application server and you can really use the analysis and refactoring and everything. Specifically this part: > VS Code is growing which is concerning, not from a competitive point of view but actually from the point of view that there is clearly a lack of understanding of what an IDE gives you. https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2020/09/a-picture-of-java-in-2020/ https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2020/09/a-picture-of-java-in... People moved from IntelliJ to VSC because it was faster, simpler and language-agnostic, instead JetBrains blamed users for not using advanced features like CPU profiling which most people don't use daily. They are jumping on simple-editor train now. Better late than never

atraac 5y ago
> People moved from IntelliJ to VSC because it was faster, simpler and language-agnostic, instead JetBrains blamed users for not using advanced features like CPU profiling which most people don't use daily. They are jumping on simple-editor train now. Better late than never From my experience, most people who nowadays start programming, flock to vscode because it's free, used in most tutorials and then they simply do not understand why a certain paid IDE could be better, because they never tried it. Which is right with their statement. People keep parroting about greatness of vscode because it gets them through the day of making hello world apps and never have to actually debug more complex code or work with bigger codebases. Does it work in big projects for some(usually experienced) poeple? Sure. Is it the best way of working? Usually no(in my opinion at least).
- RyEgswuCsn 5y ago
  I tend to agree. It's a bit like the dynamic vs. static typing situation. New comers often prefer languages like Python at first for their simplicity, only to "rediscover" that static typing is so much more manageable later in their career.
  - BackBlast 5y ago
    My career has been the opposite. I grew up on C, C++, then Java. Now I'm on dynamically typed languages and appreciate their advantages and prefer them.
    - RyEgswuCsn 5y ago
      I also grew up on C then Java. Now I mostly work with Python but when things get serious I usually turn to JVM languages. The feeling knowing I can relentlessly refactor my code without breaking a thing and not having to worry about typos is just wonderful!
      - smrtinsert 5y ago
        Yeah context is required for these discussions. Anyone will love coding small digestible functions in python in a jupyter notebook. It's really fast. You might make a lot of mistakes (wrong import, wrong type, incorrect variable reference etc) but since the edit/refresh cycle is instant, it's not a big deal. Let's see how you feel about Python trying to application that has to be industrial strength and grown quickly for a business.
- ricardobeat 5y ago
  VSCode has debugging built in and can connect to various runtimes. Not that I ever use that - I prefer sticking with the language native tools, and I rarely require anything beyond inspecting runtime values and simple benchmarking. Maybe this comes from the perspective of Java, where you need an IDE to do proper debugging, building/starting an application requires a gazillion command line arguments, and you have layers upon layers of abstraction to drill through? Those are pains worth taking away, but don't apply to all languages or platforms.
KronisLV 5y ago
I wouldn't go as far as to say that they don't understand, merely that a different viewpoint was expressed: > ...there is clearly a lack of understanding of what an IDE gives you. This is most definitely true for many people who have largely gotten used to dynamic languages and have only used text editors or have only experienced VS Code with plugins, because it's wonderfully easy to run and use, even if its feature set is lesser than that of many of JetBrains' products. Where it all gets a bit muddier is finding the distinction between "not knowing" and "not caring/needing". For many use cases out there, VS Code with plugins will be more than enough! But for working on an enterprise Java/.NET/... codebase and applying refactoring across dozens if not hundreds of files, something a bit more might be necessary. When working with the Eldritch abomination that the Spring framework and its many integrations are, you better have tooling that provides you with smart hints, fixes and autocomplete suggestions, as well as context sensitive parsing of your dozens of XML/YAML configuration files and their values. When you're trying to trace down a race condition across hundreds of proxied Java classes, where the framework rewrites and calls your code with reflection so it's really hard to actually debug anything outside of your code, you better have a good debugger and the possibility to use conditional breakpoints, otherwise if you can only catch any type of exception, you'll be sitting there for half an hour just to get to the specific state that you're looking for. Edit: i'd say that all of the autocompletes and suggestions (e.g. "you can use a lambda here", or "you don't need all of this cruft for implementing a functional interface") can actually be beneficial to getting to know a language or a framework better.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  I tend to agree with the sentiment, but when you have Red-Hat and Microsoft collaborating into bringing all possible IDE features that matters for Java BE development into VSCode, that really hurts into JetBrains pocket. They are turning VSCode into a first class experience when coding mainframe style across OpenShift, IBM Cloud and Azure.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    That's a very fair point to make, but as a consumer, that's probably a good thing - having a healthy competition in the industry, it seems that even the likes of Eclipse are attempting to branch out somewhat: https://theia-ide.org/ https://theia-ide.org/ The next decade in tooling will hopefully be promising!
bachmeier 5y ago
> clearly a lack of understanding of what an IDE gives you That might not be a point in their favor. Once VS Code came out, a lot of programmers that were simply following their earlier training and using an IDE, learned how much you can do in a text editor. I've seen lots of "Why would anyone write code with Notepad?" over the years. This was largely rooted in Java, where the only option was to use an IDE. VS Code dispelled the myth that real programming has to happen in an IDE.
wpietri 5y ago
> People moved from IntelliJ to VSC because it was faster, simpler and language-agnostic, Did many people move from IntelliJ to VSC? From what I've seen, VSC is mainly used by people who previously haven't used a full IDE. It's also not clear to me that they're "a jumping on a simple-editor train". Given that with one click you can turn on "fully functional IDE bringing smart completion, refactorings, navigation, debugging, and everything else that you’re used to having in an IDE" I don't think it's actually simple. It's just a quick-to-open IDE where the user in in control of when to pay the extra startup cost for the fancier features.
- davidjytang 5y ago
  Yeah my company canceled JB Toolbox subscriptions because there was no noticeable team productivity gain for using JB after we tested out and compared with vscode for a year. We used CLion and Webstorm. At the time, CLion did not have remote debug but VScode did, which triggered the trial. Switching from webstorm to vscode for webdev was trivial. From our team perspective, using JB didn't produce noticeably faster turnaround or less bug. It was no brainer to forgo the subscriptions and just use VScode. For a while, the only thing affected was developer comfort. But everyone adapted very fast and surprisingly, new members to the team are also most likely familiar with vscode already.
david422 5y ago
Gonna draw a comparison here. People loooove dynamic langues, no-sql etc. But from all my experience, once you start getting into bigger projects, maintenance etc. they become a detriment. So they start with a simple IDE and avoid the IDE with the kitchen sink. Because ultimately they don't know what they are losing/going to lose.

by agilob 5y ago

atraac 5y ago

> People moved from IntelliJ to VSC because it was faster, simpler and language-agnostic, instead JetBrains blamed users for not using advanced features like CPU profiling which most people don't use daily. They are jumping on simple-editor train now. Better late than never From my experience, most people who nowadays start programming, flock to vscode because it's free, used in most tutorials and then they simply do not understand why a certain paid IDE could be better, because they never tried it. Which is right with their statement. People keep parroting about greatness of vscode because it gets them through the day of making hello world apps and never have to actually debug more complex code or work with bigger codebases. Does it work in big projects for some(usually experienced) poeple? Sure. Is it the best way of working? Usually no(in my opinion at least).

RyEgswuCsn 5y ago
I tend to agree. It's a bit like the dynamic vs. static typing situation. New comers often prefer languages like Python at first for their simplicity, only to "rediscover" that static typing is so much more manageable later in their career.
- BackBlast 5y ago
  My career has been the opposite. I grew up on C, C++, then Java. Now I'm on dynamically typed languages and appreciate their advantages and prefer them.
  - RyEgswuCsn 5y ago
    I also grew up on C then Java. Now I mostly work with Python but when things get serious I usually turn to JVM languages. The feeling knowing I can relentlessly refactor my code without breaking a thing and not having to worry about typos is just wonderful!
    - smrtinsert 5y ago
      Yeah context is required for these discussions. Anyone will love coding small digestible functions in python in a jupyter notebook. It's really fast. You might make a lot of mistakes (wrong import, wrong type, incorrect variable reference etc) but since the edit/refresh cycle is instant, it's not a big deal. Let's see how you feel about Python trying to application that has to be industrial strength and grown quickly for a business.
ricardobeat 5y ago
VSCode has debugging built in and can connect to various runtimes. Not that I ever use that - I prefer sticking with the language native tools, and I rarely require anything beyond inspecting runtime values and simple benchmarking. Maybe this comes from the perspective of Java, where you need an IDE to do proper debugging, building/starting an application requires a gazillion command line arguments, and you have layers upon layers of abstraction to drill through? Those are pains worth taking away, but don't apply to all languages or platforms.

KronisLV 5y ago

I wouldn't go as far as to say that they don't understand, merely that a different viewpoint was expressed: > ...there is clearly a lack of understanding of what an IDE gives you. This is most definitely true for many people who have largely gotten used to dynamic languages and have only used text editors or have only experienced VS Code with plugins, because it's wonderfully easy to run and use, even if its feature set is lesser than that of many of JetBrains' products. Where it all gets a bit muddier is finding the distinction between "not knowing" and "not caring/needing". For many use cases out there, VS Code with plugins will be more than enough! But for working on an enterprise Java/.NET/... codebase and applying refactoring across dozens if not hundreds of files, something a bit more might be necessary. When working with the Eldritch abomination that the Spring framework and its many integrations are, you better have tooling that provides you with smart hints, fixes and autocomplete suggestions, as well as context sensitive parsing of your dozens of XML/YAML configuration files and their values. When you're trying to trace down a race condition across hundreds of proxied Java classes, where the framework rewrites and calls your code with reflection so it's really hard to actually debug anything outside of your code, you better have a good debugger and the possibility to use conditional breakpoints, otherwise if you can only catch any type of exception, you'll be sitting there for half an hour just to get to the specific state that you're looking for. Edit: i'd say that all of the autocompletes and suggestions (e.g. "you can use a lambda here", or "you don't need all of this cruft for implementing a functional interface") can actually be beneficial to getting to know a language or a framework better.

pjmlp 5y ago
I tend to agree with the sentiment, but when you have Red-Hat and Microsoft collaborating into bringing all possible IDE features that matters for Java BE development into VSCode, that really hurts into JetBrains pocket. They are turning VSCode into a first class experience when coding mainframe style across OpenShift, IBM Cloud and Azure.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  That's a very fair point to make, but as a consumer, that's probably a good thing - having a healthy competition in the industry, it seems that even the likes of Eclipse are attempting to branch out somewhat: https://theia-ide.org/ https://theia-ide.org/ The next decade in tooling will hopefully be promising!

bachmeier 5y ago

> clearly a lack of understanding of what an IDE gives you That might not be a point in their favor. Once VS Code came out, a lot of programmers that were simply following their earlier training and using an IDE, learned how much you can do in a text editor. I've seen lots of "Why would anyone write code with Notepad?" over the years. This was largely rooted in Java, where the only option was to use an IDE. VS Code dispelled the myth that real programming has to happen in an IDE.

wpietri 5y ago

> People moved from IntelliJ to VSC because it was faster, simpler and language-agnostic, Did many people move from IntelliJ to VSC? From what I've seen, VSC is mainly used by people who previously haven't used a full IDE. It's also not clear to me that they're "a jumping on a simple-editor train". Given that with one click you can turn on "fully functional IDE bringing smart completion, refactorings, navigation, debugging, and everything else that you’re used to having in an IDE" I don't think it's actually simple. It's just a quick-to-open IDE where the user in in control of when to pay the extra startup cost for the fancier features.

davidjytang 5y ago
Yeah my company canceled JB Toolbox subscriptions because there was no noticeable team productivity gain for using JB after we tested out and compared with vscode for a year. We used CLion and Webstorm. At the time, CLion did not have remote debug but VScode did, which triggered the trial. Switching from webstorm to vscode for webdev was trivial. From our team perspective, using JB didn't produce noticeably faster turnaround or less bug. It was no brainer to forgo the subscriptions and just use VScode. For a while, the only thing affected was developer comfort. But everyone adapted very fast and surprisingly, new members to the team are also most likely familiar with vscode already.

david422 5y ago

Gonna draw a comparison here. People loooove dynamic langues, no-sql etc. But from all my experience, once you start getting into bigger projects, maintenance etc. they become a detriment. So they start with a simple IDE and avoid the IDE with the kitchen sink. Because ultimately they don't know what they are losing/going to lose.