I don't think VS code would ever accept a change to native UI or switch off of electron, so it seems like a nonstarter for someone who wants to experiment with

I don't think VS code would ever accept a change to native UI or switch off of electron, so it seems like a nonstarter for someone who wants to experiment with native UI text editors. VS code is written almost 100% in JS and typescript, it will always be a nodejs app through and through without a complete rewrite. And even if they wanted to rearchitect VS code all of the extension APIs, extensions themselves, etc. would demand the existing nodejs runtime. So long story short... VS code is a good editor if you want to contribute to a nodejs and web tech based text editor, but not if you want to explore other architectures or ideas.