6 ms·

There is not much to see on a server that is down, so let me share some free advice instead. Visit Eclipse Theia in the mean time when you are serious about de

There is not much to see on a server that is down, so let me share some free advice instead. Visit Eclipse Theia in the mean time when you are serious about de-risking from VSCode. I think VSCodium is doing an uphill battle here, while Microsoft can't help them self being a sales company first. In Theia, everything is open and free of spyware. MS is under no obligation to provide an OSS editor, but playing tricks after luring people in is not nice. EDIT: 1. Eclipse Theia is a different platform than Eclipse the Java IDE. 2. link: https://theia-ide.org/#theiaidedownload https://theia-ide.org/#theiaidedownload

mdaniel 1y ago
https://theia-ide.org/docs/user_install_vscode_extensions/#compatibility https://theia-ide.org/docs/user_install_vscode_extensions/#c... (sigh) > Please note that a few parts of the VS Code extension API are only stubbed in Theia. Extensions will be installable, but some features might not work as expected. Also, I thought Theia was a cloud IDE, and it seems like I was mostly right in that 2/3rds of their offering is (localhost:3000 & docker) but they also now apparently bundle it in Electron which I haven't tried
- exceptione 1y ago
  Note they say that most extensions are compatible, and those not listed as compatible might still be. The API surface covers almost 100% that of vscode, I only see some AI integration API's that are stubbed, and that is because Theia has their own vision here and doesn't want to depend on MS. The complete API compatibility list is here, the stubbed API's are not core imho: https://eclipse-theia.github.io/vscode-theia-comparator/status.html https://eclipse-theia.github.io/vscode-theia-comparator/stat...
imcritic 1y ago
Why would I switch from vscodium to theia?
- bangaladore 1y ago
  Theia is not a fork of vscode (even though it looks like it). It uses VSCode's code editor (Monoco) and is written from the ground up. Presumably allowing it to support extensions, that for example, vscode does not. However, its early days.
  - mappu 1y ago
    > However, its early days. Theia has been out for eight years now,
    - bangaladore 1y ago
      Came out of beta less then a year ago. What I mean is adoption is slow (if even there), so I'm sure there is quite a lot missing. But that's probably fine, Theia seems to be focused more on the current audience of Eclipse which is vendor tooling (chipmakers, FPGA, custom toolchains) rather than being an editor you are supposed to use by itself.
  - TiredOfLife 1y ago
    Theia is not a fork except all the parts that are.
    - bangaladore 1y ago
      What parts are forked? Genuinely curious. Based on my quick reading they are just using Monaco code editor. That is 100% freely licensed as MIT. Monaco is just the line based text editor.
  - imcritic 1y ago
    This doesn't answer my question in the slightest. What does it offer so nice that vscodium doesn't have and that would push me to switch to theia?
    - exceptione 1y ago
bsder 1y ago
> MS is under no obligation to provide an OSS editor, but playing tricks after luring people in is not nice. Microsoft is partly to blame, but people have been warning about this over and over and over ad nauseam and people still choose to use VSCode. You couldn't even get people to not use the proprietary extensions for C/C++, Python and remote development. The problem is that Microsoft dedicates enough resource to development that everybody else looks like a rounding error. For example, anybody could have produced the Language Server Protocol, but nobody had the critical mass until Microsoft shoved it down everybody's throats. Until somebody puts a significant amount of money behind an alternative, Microsoft is going to continue to win this battle. (I was going to also say "or the OSS guys all unify behind a choice" but Hell will freeze over before that happens.)
- owebmaster 1y ago
  > (I was going to also say "or the OSS guys all unify behind a choice" but Hell will freeze over before that happens.) The editor war is going as strong as ever, emacs vs vim will still be here in 20 years. Compared to 10 years ago, the amount of people using emacs and vim only grew, although VSCode growth was 1000x faster.
  - skydhash 1y ago
    I was watching the "Simple Made Easy" talk by Rick Hickey, and while he was talking more about programming languages, the talk could extend easily to editors and other type of tooling. People are always going for easy, not simple. Vim is very simple (a composable language for editing, straightforward integration with cli tools, easily extendable,...). Emacs is simple (Major mode that dictates main operations and display, minor modes for additional features, integrations between them can be described more as a complex web than a simple graph...). VS Code is easy (helpful suggestion for plugins, Familiar IDE-like interface, default setup, ready to hack on projects,...), but scratch that surface and the complexity appears (behemoth web engine, settings all over the place, app store like marketplace, extension are full blown software project,...). All the cons of IDE with none of the pros.
    - 1y ago
j0e1 1y ago
From my experience having attempted to migrate away from VSCodium (in the attempts to de-VSCode) and build atop Theia as a platform, there are few things to consider: - The build system is finicky and can easily take hours to figure/fix. - The error-reporting is severely lacking. You can be lost why something internal isn't working and go on a rabbit-trail with your favorite AI-copilot, etc. - Documentation is lacking. You have to dive into the platform code to actually figure things out. - This can be seen positively but there are quite a few new things being introduced regularly (especially AI-related) which, for a platform, isn't always ideal.
sergiotapia 1y ago
Why in earth would they stain their efforts with the "eclipse" name. Screenshots look great!
- mdaniel 1y ago
  I in some sense empathize with you, in that Eclipse have a minor branding problem, a major discoverability problem for all of their projects of subprojects of projects to track the projects. That said, Eclipse the editor was all in on building a platform[1] upon which other people could build their own editors. It was quite popular before Electron arrived and sucked all the oxygen out of the rich text delivery space Eclipse the IDE also sat on their laurels and got their lunch eaten by JetBrains on the functionality front and VSCode on the extensible platform front 1: <https://wiki.eclipse.org/Rich_Client_Platform/ https://wiki.eclipse.org/Rich_Client_Platform/> or <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(software)#Rich_client_platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(software)#Rich_client...>
- exceptione 1y ago
  I have to somewhat defend Eclipse as the Java platform too. Twenty years ago people had hardly any RAM in their machines, and Eclipse definitely suffered for that, because without RAM you run into lots of disk i/o. The JRE was born in a time of scarce cpu power and low RAM capacities. It has put tremendous optimization pressure on the project. I develop on .net nowadays, but I have the utmost respect of what they pulled off. I dare you to install an Eclipse product these days. It will run circles around any Electron offering, while offering real parsers (not treesitter), and reliable code intelligence across vast source projects.
  - zdimension 1y ago
    > while offering real parsers (not treesitter) Honest question, what's wrong with treesitters?
    - exceptione 1y ago
      Very short answer: because a treesitter will do an approximately correct parsing, while a hand written parser will do a correct parsing (and if not, it is a bug). For a full, balanced overview, see: https://blog.jez.io/tree-sitter-limitations/ https://blog.jez.io/tree-sitter-limitations/
blackoil 1y ago
They use vscode extensions and the repository in discussion, so not sure how much derisking it is than vscodium .
0rzech 1y ago
Each time I try to use Theia IDE I have such a bad experience: * On each start, Ada & SPARK extension pops up a dialog that I have to close by clicking 12 times (I counted it) on its "Cancel" button. * I can't permanently remove items from the left sidebar. It looks like Theia is unable to persist some things between runs. * The IDE notifies me about bad tasks.json config and proposes to open it to fix, but the "Open" button doesn't do anything. * Open VSX extensions do not update automatically. [1] I have to manually switch their versions to the newer ones. * Just now I've manually updated Ada & SPARK extension. Not only was I presented with several options with exactly the same version (perhaps each was meant for different CPU arch or operating system?), but after choosing the first one and reloading editor as the IDE asked me to, the extension disappeared completely. None of these happen with VSCodium, or with VS Code of course. [1] https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia/issues/9295 https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia/issues/9295

mdaniel 1y ago

https://theia-ide.org/docs/user_install_vscode_extensions/#compatibility https://theia-ide.org/docs/user_install_vscode_extensions/#c... (sigh) > Please note that a few parts of the VS Code extension API are only stubbed in Theia. Extensions will be installable, but some features might not work as expected. Also, I thought Theia was a cloud IDE, and it seems like I was mostly right in that 2/3rds of their offering is (localhost:3000 & docker) but they also now apparently bundle it in Electron which I haven't tried

exceptione 1y ago
Note they say that most extensions are compatible, and those not listed as compatible might still be. The API surface covers almost 100% that of vscode, I only see some AI integration API's that are stubbed, and that is because Theia has their own vision here and doesn't want to depend on MS. The complete API compatibility list is here, the stubbed API's are not core imho: https://eclipse-theia.github.io/vscode-theia-comparator/status.html https://eclipse-theia.github.io/vscode-theia-comparator/stat...

imcritic 1y ago

Why would I switch from vscodium to theia?

bangaladore 1y ago
Theia is not a fork of vscode (even though it looks like it). It uses VSCode's code editor (Monoco) and is written from the ground up. Presumably allowing it to support extensions, that for example, vscode does not. However, its early days.
- mappu 1y ago
  > However, its early days. Theia has been out for eight years now,
  - bangaladore 1y ago
    Came out of beta less then a year ago. What I mean is adoption is slow (if even there), so I'm sure there is quite a lot missing. But that's probably fine, Theia seems to be focused more on the current audience of Eclipse which is vendor tooling (chipmakers, FPGA, custom toolchains) rather than being an editor you are supposed to use by itself.
- TiredOfLife 1y ago
  Theia is not a fork except all the parts that are.
  - bangaladore 1y ago
    What parts are forked? Genuinely curious. Based on my quick reading they are just using Monaco code editor. That is 100% freely licensed as MIT. Monaco is just the line based text editor.
- imcritic 1y ago
  This doesn't answer my question in the slightest. What does it offer so nice that vscodium doesn't have and that would push me to switch to theia?
  - exceptione 1y ago

bsder 1y ago

> MS is under no obligation to provide an OSS editor, but playing tricks after luring people in is not nice. Microsoft is partly to blame, but people have been warning about this over and over and over ad nauseam and people still choose to use VSCode. You couldn't even get people to not use the proprietary extensions for C/C++, Python and remote development. The problem is that Microsoft dedicates enough resource to development that everybody else looks like a rounding error. For example, anybody could have produced the Language Server Protocol, but nobody had the critical mass until Microsoft shoved it down everybody's throats. Until somebody puts a significant amount of money behind an alternative, Microsoft is going to continue to win this battle. (I was going to also say "or the OSS guys all unify behind a choice" but Hell will freeze over before that happens.)

owebmaster 1y ago
> (I was going to also say "or the OSS guys all unify behind a choice" but Hell will freeze over before that happens.) The editor war is going as strong as ever, emacs vs vim will still be here in 20 years. Compared to 10 years ago, the amount of people using emacs and vim only grew, although VSCode growth was 1000x faster.
- skydhash 1y ago
  I was watching the "Simple Made Easy" talk by Rick Hickey, and while he was talking more about programming languages, the talk could extend easily to editors and other type of tooling. People are always going for easy, not simple. Vim is very simple (a composable language for editing, straightforward integration with cli tools, easily extendable,...). Emacs is simple (Major mode that dictates main operations and display, minor modes for additional features, integrations between them can be described more as a complex web than a simple graph...). VS Code is easy (helpful suggestion for plugins, Familiar IDE-like interface, default setup, ready to hack on projects,...), but scratch that surface and the complexity appears (behemoth web engine, settings all over the place, app store like marketplace, extension are full blown software project,...). All the cons of IDE with none of the pros.
  - 1y ago

j0e1 1y ago

From my experience having attempted to migrate away from VSCodium (in the attempts to de-VSCode) and build atop Theia as a platform, there are few things to consider: - The build system is finicky and can easily take hours to figure/fix. - The error-reporting is severely lacking. You can be lost why something internal isn't working and go on a rabbit-trail with your favorite AI-copilot, etc. - Documentation is lacking. You have to dive into the platform code to actually figure things out. - This can be seen positively but there are quite a few new things being introduced regularly (especially AI-related) which, for a platform, isn't always ideal.

sergiotapia 1y ago

Why in earth would they stain their efforts with the "eclipse" name. Screenshots look great!

mdaniel 1y ago
I in some sense empathize with you, in that Eclipse have a minor branding problem, a major discoverability problem for all of their projects of subprojects of projects to track the projects. That said, Eclipse the editor was all in on building a platform[1] upon which other people could build their own editors. It was quite popular before Electron arrived and sucked all the oxygen out of the rich text delivery space Eclipse the IDE also sat on their laurels and got their lunch eaten by JetBrains on the functionality front and VSCode on the extensible platform front 1: <https://wiki.eclipse.org/Rich_Client_Platform/ https://wiki.eclipse.org/Rich_Client_Platform/> or <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(software)#Rich_client_platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(software)#Rich_client...>
exceptione 1y ago
I have to somewhat defend Eclipse as the Java platform too. Twenty years ago people had hardly any RAM in their machines, and Eclipse definitely suffered for that, because without RAM you run into lots of disk i/o. The JRE was born in a time of scarce cpu power and low RAM capacities. It has put tremendous optimization pressure on the project. I develop on .net nowadays, but I have the utmost respect of what they pulled off. I dare you to install an Eclipse product these days. It will run circles around any Electron offering, while offering real parsers (not treesitter), and reliable code intelligence across vast source projects.
- zdimension 1y ago
  > while offering real parsers (not treesitter) Honest question, what's wrong with treesitters?
  - exceptione 1y ago
    Very short answer: because a treesitter will do an approximately correct parsing, while a hand written parser will do a correct parsing (and if not, it is a bug). For a full, balanced overview, see: https://blog.jez.io/tree-sitter-limitations/ https://blog.jez.io/tree-sitter-limitations/

blackoil 1y ago

They use vscode extensions and the repository in discussion, so not sure how much derisking it is than vscodium .

0rzech 1y ago

Each time I try to use Theia IDE I have such a bad experience: * On each start, Ada & SPARK extension pops up a dialog that I have to close by clicking 12 times (I counted it) on its "Cancel" button. * I can't permanently remove items from the left sidebar. It looks like Theia is unable to persist some things between runs. * The IDE notifies me about bad tasks.json config and proposes to open it to fix, but the "Open" button doesn't do anything. * Open VSX extensions do not update automatically. [1] I have to manually switch their versions to the newer ones. * Just now I've manually updated Ada & SPARK extension. Not only was I presented with several options with exactly the same version (perhaps each was meant for different CPU arch or operating system?), but after choosing the first one and reloading editor as the IDE asked me to, the extension disappeared completely. None of these happen with VSCodium, or with VS Code of course. [1] https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia/issues/9295 https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia/issues/9295