4 ms·

> If you are a VSCode hater (like me) What are some reasons to hate VSCode?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
skydhash 1y ago
It’s clumsy as hell. It’s neither a good editor, which focus on being fast when doing things with text, nor a good IDE, which is more about the tooling and getting a project done. It’s trying to be both at the same time. And the result is bad at both.
- lvl155 1y ago
  I don’t know, others might be better out of the box. But once you start adding features they all become a mess. I rather just deal with a known mess and not waste time with tools.
  - 57473m3n7Fur7h3 1y ago
    I have nothing against VSCode but I don’t use it. For small files and quick edits i use neovim with no customisation at all. Back when I first started using vim I had a pretty long config and some plugins installed and so on. But now that I no longer try to use it as an IDE, neovim is perfect for small edits. For development work I use JetBrains suite of tools. Very minimal amount of customisation there also, only a couple of extra plugins installed by me and a couple of changes in the settings. It works well enough that I don’t have any desire to spend time customising it a whole bunch.
    - lvl155 1y ago
      Don’t get me wrong, I loved neovim and other tools but tbh I just nano for simple edits now. AI tab complete is just too good. Basically it’s barebones or VSCode (or its variants). I could probably use vanilla neovim instead of nano but I've not used vim all that much recently to be in that "flow".
      - pyman 1y ago
        This is like saying: I can write Swift code using Vim instead of Xcode. Yeah, you can, but that doesn’t mean you should. Note: I use nano/vim daily to read and edit files on my servers. Just not to build complex apps.
        rescripting 1y ago
        Your point is good, I don't mean to undermine it, but because I work in this area I feel compelled to point out that depending on the type of Swift you're writing using NeoVim to write Swift is actually quite pleasant: https://www.swift.org/documentation/articles/zero-to-swift-nvim.html https://www.swift.org/documentation/articles/zero-to-swift-n...
        pyman 1y ago
        I'm hoping one day to move from a GUI to a VUI (Voice User Interface), though I still have a soft spot for TUIs. Thanks for the link :)
  - skydhash 1y ago
    I'd waste time with tools. I have my vim config, my git config, my emacs config, my bash config,... that I copy over to any development environment I have. And every now and then, I go into the manual or other people config to check if there's any new trick I can apply. Comfort is something invaluable when doing a task. I can accept discomfort when I'm in an unfamiliar environment, but not when it's going to be something I will be in for days.
    - daxfohl 1y ago
      Perhaps the difference is that VSCode and plugins change too often and requires too much maintenance?
4gotunameagain 1y ago
Microsoft ? Through the use of amazing PR they have made people forget about their Embrace, extend, and extinguish strategy with open source.
- adastra22 1y ago
  GP went on to recommend Microsoft devcontainers, so I presume that's not the reason.
CGamesPlay 1y ago
Ultimately, they're about as trite as reasons to hate Vim or Emacs. It boils down to preference, and I'm outlining a path to using another editor and getting access to some of the same features.
pxc 1y ago
It's proprietary software masquerading as open-source, for one, and intentionally fosters dependence on its vendor for the plugins that support the most popular languages as well as key features (remote editing, WSL support, integration with the mainline plugin repos), for one.
- dymk 1y ago
  But Cursor, a fork not developed by Microsoft, ships with remote editing, wsl support, etc
  - frainfreeze 1y ago
    It's their reimplementation.
    - dymk 1y ago
      That’s not what that word means
      - pxc 1y ago
        They do indeed use a different implementation of these features than the one that ships with VSCode, though they're not the original authors of it. They used to host their version separately here: https://github.com/anysphere/open-remote-ssh https://github.com/anysphere/open-remote-ssh But I guess they've just rolled it into the Cursor repo? Idk, because Cursor itself is proprietary. There's a similar extension for WSL integration, though I'm not 100% sure if Cursor's implementation of this feature is based on it: https://github.com/jeanp413/open-remote-wsl https://github.com/jeanp413/open-remote-wsl You can sideload proprietary VSCode extensions to add them to VSCodium or some downstream fork, but you may also have to patch the extensions themselves because some of them refuse to run if they aren't being used with Microsoft's VSCode: https://github.com/OliverKeefe/vscode-extensions-in-vscodium https://github.com/OliverKeefe/vscode-extensions-in-vscodium
      - frainfreeze 1y ago
        Care to elaborate? I was under impression they built cursor-server themself
weberer 1y ago
Microsoft injects proprietary spyware into the official builds that you can't see from the source code. You can get unofficial builds of just the source code from the VsCodium project, but Microsoft blocks your ability to install a lot of extensions if you don't use the official build.
timeon 1y ago
I do not hate it when others are using it (none of my business). But I do not like to use bloatware. Text editor that eats RAM (even excluding LSP) like 3d editing software.
__MatrixMan__ 1y ago
Each time I try to use it, I find myself distracted by the impulse to fix the bugs that I notice. There's always this moment when I find a comment from myself, several years earlier, in an issue that's still open because it's unclear whether it's a VSCode problem or a plugin problem, and it's like: "oh, here I am again, doing this instead of working". That's not to say it's especially buggy, it's just so large, there are a lot of places for bugs to hide. I get distracted by the impulse to contribute to other editors also, but those are contributions that I'm happy about. They don't always result in bugs fixed or features added, sometimes somebody says "no" but at least it resolves in some way. With VSCode it feels like I'm going in circles.
vovavili 1y ago
I personally feel some inner sense of dissonance when I use software written in Electron when alternatives are available. Software targeted to the technical audience has no valid reason not to aim higher in terms of performance and fundamentals.
princevegeta89 1y ago
I will give you one reason why I don't like it much: - The push to use Github Copilot and no option to disable that crap. I wish there was a fork of VSCode with all the telemetry and all of the proprietary crap disabled with 100% extension support...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

It’s clumsy as hell. It’s neither a good editor, which focus on being fast when doing things with text, nor a good IDE, which is more about the tooling and getting a project done. It’s trying to be both at the same time. And the result is bad at both.

lvl155 1y ago
I don’t know, others might be better out of the box. But once you start adding features they all become a mess. I rather just deal with a known mess and not waste time with tools.
- 57473m3n7Fur7h3 1y ago
  I have nothing against VSCode but I don’t use it. For small files and quick edits i use neovim with no customisation at all. Back when I first started using vim I had a pretty long config and some plugins installed and so on. But now that I no longer try to use it as an IDE, neovim is perfect for small edits. For development work I use JetBrains suite of tools. Very minimal amount of customisation there also, only a couple of extra plugins installed by me and a couple of changes in the settings. It works well enough that I don’t have any desire to spend time customising it a whole bunch.
  - lvl155 1y ago
    Don’t get me wrong, I loved neovim and other tools but tbh I just nano for simple edits now. AI tab complete is just too good. Basically it’s barebones or VSCode (or its variants). I could probably use vanilla neovim instead of nano but I've not used vim all that much recently to be in that "flow".
    - pyman 1y ago
      This is like saying: I can write Swift code using Vim instead of Xcode. Yeah, you can, but that doesn’t mean you should. Note: I use nano/vim daily to read and edit files on my servers. Just not to build complex apps.
      - rescripting 1y ago
        Your point is good, I don't mean to undermine it, but because I work in this area I feel compelled to point out that depending on the type of Swift you're writing using NeoVim to write Swift is actually quite pleasant: https://www.swift.org/documentation/articles/zero-to-swift-nvim.html https://www.swift.org/documentation/articles/zero-to-swift-n...
        pyman 1y ago
        I'm hoping one day to move from a GUI to a VUI (Voice User Interface), though I still have a soft spot for TUIs. Thanks for the link :)
- skydhash 1y ago
  I'd waste time with tools. I have my vim config, my git config, my emacs config, my bash config,... that I copy over to any development environment I have. And every now and then, I go into the manual or other people config to check if there's any new trick I can apply. Comfort is something invaluable when doing a task. I can accept discomfort when I'm in an unfamiliar environment, but not when it's going to be something I will be in for days.
  - daxfohl 1y ago
    Perhaps the difference is that VSCode and plugins change too often and requires too much maintenance?

4gotunameagain 1y ago

Microsoft ? Through the use of amazing PR they have made people forget about their Embrace, extend, and extinguish strategy with open source.

adastra22 1y ago
GP went on to recommend Microsoft devcontainers, so I presume that's not the reason.

CGamesPlay 1y ago

Ultimately, they're about as trite as reasons to hate Vim or Emacs. It boils down to preference, and I'm outlining a path to using another editor and getting access to some of the same features.

pxc 1y ago

It's proprietary software masquerading as open-source, for one, and intentionally fosters dependence on its vendor for the plugins that support the most popular languages as well as key features (remote editing, WSL support, integration with the mainline plugin repos), for one.

dymk 1y ago
But Cursor, a fork not developed by Microsoft, ships with remote editing, wsl support, etc
- frainfreeze 1y ago
  It's their reimplementation.
  - dymk 1y ago
    That’s not what that word means
    - pxc 1y ago
      They do indeed use a different implementation of these features than the one that ships with VSCode, though they're not the original authors of it. They used to host their version separately here: https://github.com/anysphere/open-remote-ssh https://github.com/anysphere/open-remote-ssh But I guess they've just rolled it into the Cursor repo? Idk, because Cursor itself is proprietary. There's a similar extension for WSL integration, though I'm not 100% sure if Cursor's implementation of this feature is based on it: https://github.com/jeanp413/open-remote-wsl https://github.com/jeanp413/open-remote-wsl You can sideload proprietary VSCode extensions to add them to VSCodium or some downstream fork, but you may also have to patch the extensions themselves because some of them refuse to run if they aren't being used with Microsoft's VSCode: https://github.com/OliverKeefe/vscode-extensions-in-vscodium https://github.com/OliverKeefe/vscode-extensions-in-vscodium
    - frainfreeze 1y ago
      Care to elaborate? I was under impression they built cursor-server themself

weberer 1y ago

Microsoft injects proprietary spyware into the official builds that you can't see from the source code. You can get unofficial builds of just the source code from the VsCodium project, but Microsoft blocks your ability to install a lot of extensions if you don't use the official build.

timeon 1y ago

I do not hate it when others are using it (none of my business). But I do not like to use bloatware. Text editor that eats RAM (even excluding LSP) like 3d editing software.

__MatrixMan__ 1y ago

Each time I try to use it, I find myself distracted by the impulse to fix the bugs that I notice. There's always this moment when I find a comment from myself, several years earlier, in an issue that's still open because it's unclear whether it's a VSCode problem or a plugin problem, and it's like: "oh, here I am again, doing this instead of working". That's not to say it's especially buggy, it's just so large, there are a lot of places for bugs to hide. I get distracted by the impulse to contribute to other editors also, but those are contributions that I'm happy about. They don't always result in bugs fixed or features added, sometimes somebody says "no" but at least it resolves in some way. With VSCode it feels like I'm going in circles.

vovavili 1y ago

I personally feel some inner sense of dissonance when I use software written in Electron when alternatives are available. Software targeted to the technical audience has no valid reason not to aim higher in terms of performance and fundamentals.

princevegeta89 1y ago

I will give you one reason why I don't like it much: - The push to use Github Copilot and no option to disable that crap. I wish there was a fork of VSCode with all the telemetry and all of the proprietary crap disabled with 100% extension support...