3 ms·

> But I certainly don’t mind my developer tools taking more power since that’s what I’m using my computer for If you are okay with being chained to a power out

> But I certainly don’t mind my developer tools taking more power since that’s what I’m using my computer for If you are okay with being chained to a power outlet, sure. I often find myself needing to be on battery power, and applications gulping electricity is frustrating at best. (I don't use the visual design tools you listed regularly, just writing / editing code and poking API endpoints, so maybe that has much to do as well).

dijit 5y ago
Guess you don’t compile while on battery either then? Not trying to be flippant; but our jobs necessitate a lot of power consumption.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  Not from scratch if I can help it. Incremental compilation is fantastic. As with complexity, there is necessary and accidental (or lazy) power consumption. I stick to tools that are lighter on power when I am able to. Running unit / integration tests is probably my biggest drain right now, and unfortunately (to collect coverage and ensure no unintended consequences) I end up running the entire suite probably more than is ideal.
kaba0 5y ago
And how is running an electron instance better than running the JVM? Also, intellij does actually have a battery saver mode which provides less intelligent autocomplete. And just for your information, the JVM is the most power efficient managed language out there. With a somewhat saner heap size than the default the GC is very seldom run.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  VSCode isn't the only alternative to Intellij. Sublime and VIM and emacs are also options, though I suspect emacs is probably a power hog- I haven't really invested a lot of time in learning to use it, though.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    None of them are IDEs. Of course putting out a terminal text buffer doesn’t take much resources. And yeah I know there are countless plugins for vim, emacs, etc. but when you are at even half of what intellij can do, it will be instable and full of bugs. Also, resource consumption does go up considerably even then.
matwood 5y ago
> If you are okay with being chained to a power outlet, sure. Maybe you need to get an M1 ;) I can easily go a full day off power developing in Intellij.

dijit 5y ago

Guess you don’t compile while on battery either then? Not trying to be flippant; but our jobs necessitate a lot of power consumption.

zdragnar 5y ago
Not from scratch if I can help it. Incremental compilation is fantastic. As with complexity, there is necessary and accidental (or lazy) power consumption. I stick to tools that are lighter on power when I am able to. Running unit / integration tests is probably my biggest drain right now, and unfortunately (to collect coverage and ensure no unintended consequences) I end up running the entire suite probably more than is ideal.

kaba0 5y ago

And how is running an electron instance better than running the JVM? Also, intellij does actually have a battery saver mode which provides less intelligent autocomplete. And just for your information, the JVM is the most power efficient managed language out there. With a somewhat saner heap size than the default the GC is very seldom run.

zdragnar 5y ago
VSCode isn't the only alternative to Intellij. Sublime and VIM and emacs are also options, though I suspect emacs is probably a power hog- I haven't really invested a lot of time in learning to use it, though.
- kaba0 5y ago
  None of them are IDEs. Of course putting out a terminal text buffer doesn’t take much resources. And yeah I know there are countless plugins for vim, emacs, etc. but when you are at even half of what intellij can do, it will be instable and full of bugs. Also, resource consumption does go up considerably even then.

matwood 5y ago

> If you are okay with being chained to a power outlet, sure. Maybe you need to get an M1 ;) I can easily go a full day off power developing in Intellij.