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The way that VS Code is spreading, and the stranglehold Microsoft has on development and direction of the product, give me very strong IE4/5/6 vibes. I really h

The way that VS Code is spreading, and the stranglehold Microsoft has on development and direction of the product, give me very strong IE4/5/6 vibes. I really hope some of the open source alternatives that aren't corporation-controlled gain traction over the next year.

mminer237 4y ago
Unlike IE, VS Code is open source though. If Microsoft does some terrible thing with VS Code, the community can just switch to VSCodium: https://vscodium.com/ https://vscodium.com/
- djbusby 4y ago
  Can? The time to support FOSS is now.
  - thiht 4y ago
    Which Visual Studio Code is.
    - pionar 4y ago
      It's not. VSC is a packaged version of the open-source code with proprietary bits added. Integration with the plugin marketplace, telemetry, etc. VSCodium does not have that. In addition, a lot of the good language plugins are proprietary, like PyLance and the C# plugin.
      - joshmanders 4y ago
        You're just being pedantic now. VSCodium exists because VSCode is FOSS. Your complaint is with the binary that Microsoft ships, not with the codebase.
        morelisp 4y ago
        Sounds to me like they've got sufficient fanboy mindshare to move fully into "extinguish" soon!
        jmnicolas 4y ago
        Except Atom that is already dead, which IDE / editor are they going to extinguish?
        dijit 4y ago
        Parents complaint is that paying lip service to FOSS is exactly the "extend" part of "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish". A mantra that was famously internally coined at Microsoft[0], and was found during anti-monopoly proceedings. As such they will always be looked at skeptically when adding proprietary things to open source things. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
        shkkmo 4y ago
        This doesn't really match since the "Embrace" part is different. The classic formula was "embracing" an established standard, making proprietary extensions to that standard, then using the adoption of those proprietary extensions to extinguish the original standard's market share. In this case, Microsoft didn't embrace an existing code base or standard, they made one and open sourced it. What would the analagous "extinction" bere here? That they eventually stop releasing updates to VSCode as open source? While I agree that there is good reason to doubt Microsoft's intention to be a good steward of an open source project, this seems less like another iteration of that playbook and more like what a lot of "open source" for-profit companies do where they have an open core but keep many features proprietary so they can't be easily forked.
        otabdeveloper4 4y ago
        > What would the analagous "extinction" bere here? Look at Android and how it is almost impossible to de-Google it for a live demonstration. (I don't think there is a market for developer tools, though.)
      - andrew_ 4y ago
        And vscode core isn't without its issues, it's not straightforward to fork and build without running into userspace issues: https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues
      - LordDragonfang 4y ago
        > Integration with the plugin marketplace This is a big one. A lot of the value of VSCode comes from its plugins, and M$ doesn't allow VSCodium to access them.
        thiht 4y ago
        https://open-vsx.org https://open-vsx.org https://open-vsx.org/extension/sugatoray/vscode-remotework-extension-pack https://open-vsx.org/extension/sugatoray/vscode-remotework-e... https://open-vsx.org/extension/ms-python/python https://open-vsx.org/extension/ms-python/python
      - cstejerean 4y ago
        So it's time for the community to step up and write good (or even better) versions of those plugins? On the one hand sure I wish Microsoft open sourced more, at the same time what they already open sourced is a fantastic foundation for building upon. Instead of having to write an open source IDE from scratch we can leverage this one and then implement a few plugins for popular languages.
RunSet 4y ago
> I really hope some of the open source alternatives that aren't corporation-controlled gain traction over the next year. Shout out to CodeLite. https://codelite.org/ https://codelite.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CodeLite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CodeLite
- I_complete_me 4y ago
  I randomly typed in the word "lines" into a pacman search and discovered the existence of the lines IDE [0]. Never heard it mentioned anywhere before. I know nothing about it, I was just experimenting with pacman search out of boredom. [0] https://www.creatixbih.com/lines/ https://www.creatixbih.com/lines/
tlonny 4y ago
I moved from vim to VS code as I found the vim IDE experience slightly lacking. Recently I've found myself getting more and more fed up with how sluggish VS code feels. With the push from a friend, I tried neovim with the requisite LS plugins and I'm never going back. It's lightning fast and has feature parity (at least the ones I use) with VS Code. Its a bit of a bitch to setup, but there are preconfigured solutions out there (NVChad, LunarVim, AstroVim) if you want to skip all that bullshit and just get coding... Definitely recommend giving it a go!
- sebular 4y ago
  NvChad is excellent. I recently finished converting my older .vimrc-based configuration to an entirely lua-based one on top of the base NvChad setup and it‘s just perfect.
- dvko 4y ago
  Seconded. Neovim with their built-in LSP is so good! Was a happy VSCode user for years but not very comfortable with how they’re starting to push more and more proprietary pieces, so started looking for alternatives. Neovim fits the bill perfectly. Helix is another one to watch. Not quite at Neovim’s level and may need some reprogramming of the vim muscle memory but definitely promising!
tomjen3 4y ago
There is a difference, and that is that you can use something like Jetbrains and your coworker can use VSCode with issues, but if 99% of people use a browser that renders HTML/CSS differently (and I will argue better than the competition at the time) then you are forced to acquiesce to it.
- 8ytecoder 4y ago
  What’s happening is teams will prioritize and prefer only VSCode. So while technically you can, may be, get Jetbrains to work, it’ll be subpar. After a while you just give up and switch to what everyone in the team uses. It’s already happening to me - my team uses VSCode and it comes with a nice devcontainer that’s fully configured. With Jetbrains I’m doing it all myself.

mminer237 4y ago

Unlike IE, VS Code is open source though. If Microsoft does some terrible thing with VS Code, the community can just switch to VSCodium: https://vscodium.com/ https://vscodium.com/

djbusby 4y ago
Can? The time to support FOSS is now.
- thiht 4y ago
  Which Visual Studio Code is.
  - pionar 4y ago
    It's not. VSC is a packaged version of the open-source code with proprietary bits added. Integration with the plugin marketplace, telemetry, etc. VSCodium does not have that. In addition, a lot of the good language plugins are proprietary, like PyLance and the C# plugin.
    - joshmanders 4y ago
      You're just being pedantic now. VSCodium exists because VSCode is FOSS. Your complaint is with the binary that Microsoft ships, not with the codebase.
      - morelisp 4y ago
        Sounds to me like they've got sufficient fanboy mindshare to move fully into "extinguish" soon!
        jmnicolas 4y ago
        Except Atom that is already dead, which IDE / editor are they going to extinguish?
      - dijit 4y ago
        Parents complaint is that paying lip service to FOSS is exactly the "extend" part of "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish". A mantra that was famously internally coined at Microsoft[0], and was found during anti-monopoly proceedings. As such they will always be looked at skeptically when adding proprietary things to open source things. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
        shkkmo 4y ago
        This doesn't really match since the "Embrace" part is different. The classic formula was "embracing" an established standard, making proprietary extensions to that standard, then using the adoption of those proprietary extensions to extinguish the original standard's market share. In this case, Microsoft didn't embrace an existing code base or standard, they made one and open sourced it. What would the analagous "extinction" bere here? That they eventually stop releasing updates to VSCode as open source? While I agree that there is good reason to doubt Microsoft's intention to be a good steward of an open source project, this seems less like another iteration of that playbook and more like what a lot of "open source" for-profit companies do where they have an open core but keep many features proprietary so they can't be easily forked.
        otabdeveloper4 4y ago
        > What would the analagous "extinction" bere here? Look at Android and how it is almost impossible to de-Google it for a live demonstration. (I don't think there is a market for developer tools, though.)
    - andrew_ 4y ago
      And vscode core isn't without its issues, it's not straightforward to fork and build without running into userspace issues: https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues
    - LordDragonfang 4y ago
      > Integration with the plugin marketplace This is a big one. A lot of the value of VSCode comes from its plugins, and M$ doesn't allow VSCodium to access them.
      - thiht 4y ago
        https://open-vsx.org https://open-vsx.org https://open-vsx.org/extension/sugatoray/vscode-remotework-extension-pack https://open-vsx.org/extension/sugatoray/vscode-remotework-e... https://open-vsx.org/extension/ms-python/python https://open-vsx.org/extension/ms-python/python
    - cstejerean 4y ago
      So it's time for the community to step up and write good (or even better) versions of those plugins? On the one hand sure I wish Microsoft open sourced more, at the same time what they already open sourced is a fantastic foundation for building upon. Instead of having to write an open source IDE from scratch we can leverage this one and then implement a few plugins for popular languages.

RunSet 4y ago

> I really hope some of the open source alternatives that aren't corporation-controlled gain traction over the next year. Shout out to CodeLite. https://codelite.org/ https://codelite.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CodeLite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CodeLite

I_complete_me 4y ago
I randomly typed in the word "lines" into a pacman search and discovered the existence of the lines IDE [0]. Never heard it mentioned anywhere before. I know nothing about it, I was just experimenting with pacman search out of boredom. [0] https://www.creatixbih.com/lines/ https://www.creatixbih.com/lines/

tlonny 4y ago

I moved from vim to VS code as I found the vim IDE experience slightly lacking. Recently I've found myself getting more and more fed up with how sluggish VS code feels. With the push from a friend, I tried neovim with the requisite LS plugins and I'm never going back. It's lightning fast and has feature parity (at least the ones I use) with VS Code. Its a bit of a bitch to setup, but there are preconfigured solutions out there (NVChad, LunarVim, AstroVim) if you want to skip all that bullshit and just get coding... Definitely recommend giving it a go!

sebular 4y ago
NvChad is excellent. I recently finished converting my older .vimrc-based configuration to an entirely lua-based one on top of the base NvChad setup and it‘s just perfect.
dvko 4y ago
Seconded. Neovim with their built-in LSP is so good! Was a happy VSCode user for years but not very comfortable with how they’re starting to push more and more proprietary pieces, so started looking for alternatives. Neovim fits the bill perfectly. Helix is another one to watch. Not quite at Neovim’s level and may need some reprogramming of the vim muscle memory but definitely promising!

tomjen3 4y ago

There is a difference, and that is that you can use something like Jetbrains and your coworker can use VSCode with issues, but if 99% of people use a browser that renders HTML/CSS differently (and I will argue better than the competition at the time) then you are forced to acquiesce to it.

8ytecoder 4y ago
What’s happening is teams will prioritize and prefer only VSCode. So while technically you can, may be, get Jetbrains to work, it’ll be subpar. After a while you just give up and switch to what everyone in the team uses. It’s already happening to me - my team uses VSCode and it comes with a nice devcontainer that’s fully configured. With Jetbrains I’m doing it all myself.