VSCode doesn't heavily rely on the file explorer, that is personal preference. I use its jump to file far more than the explorer, both by filename, by reference

VSCode doesn't heavily rely on the file explorer, that is personal preference. I use its jump to file far more than the explorer, both by filename, by reference jump and by "dumb" jump, a plugin that does simple reference jump with rg. That jump by reference just works now in VSCode for all the languages I use puts it ahead of neovim which requires a bit of fiddling to get going.