Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

VS Code uses 13% CPU when idle due to blinking cursor rendering

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 801 posts

Re: VS Code uses 13% CPU when idle due to blinking cursor rendering

#621

Post by swah »

jblow wrote: post #561
rleigh wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motif and Xlib use expose events to handle drawing. Doesn't imply retained mode drawing; you could use either in the handler.

It is a little confusing because we are talking about both rendering and GUIs, but ... "retained mode" in this case refers to the GUI itself, not the method of drawing. Motif and Xlib are "retained mode" in the GUI sense because if you want there to be a button, you instantiate that button and register it with the library, and then if you want it to become visible or invisible or change color you call procedures that…

But can you imagine something like Word being written without the "retained-mode" abstraction?

Re: VS Code uses 13% CPU when idle due to blinking cursor rendering

#622

Post by psyc »

bitwize wrote: post #469

An internet points out that Hackernews' favorite text editor takes up more CPU than the average Hackernews would have had at their disposal 20 years ago just to make the cursor blink on and off. Hackernews circles the wagons to justify the stupid engineering design decisions behind said editor based solely on the fact that embedding a complete Web browser just to draw buttons and text fields "won" over any sensible G…

I mean, I couldn't agree with you more about the asininity of embedding a browser in a 'native' app (for anything other than web browsing). But I use VSCode all day, every day, and subjectively it feels zero-latency on my aging laptop.

Re: VS Code uses 13% CPU when idle due to blinking cursor rendering

#623

Post by bitwize »

kchoudhu wrote: post #516
Eiriksmal wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was really looking forward to that write up, as well. Unfortunately, the author must have some rule about not breaking the fourth wall. Or they avoid softballed summaries?

I think a recursive n-gate situation would be delightful. Someone should make this happen.

Some internets post weekly bitter satires of Hackernews to the internets. Hackernews finds it and misses the point entirely, of course: Hackernews is being laughed at, not with.

Re: VS Code uses 13% CPU when idle due to blinking cursor rendering

#624

Post by killin_dan »

audidude wrote: post #578
bitwize wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the GNOME style of development: as soon as a bug appears which takes effort to fix, mark it EWONTFIX, declare it to be a symptom of the inherent brokenness of the current stack, then burn the whole thing to the ground and start over. Don't even let that which was burned fertilize new growth; it is tainted and must be purged entirely.

How have you managed to make an argument about embedding a web browser about GNOME? As it were, GNOME's IDE (which I wrote) uses 0% CPU at idle.

Gedit is fantastic. Thanks for all the work on it. I used it for years before VS Code, and I still use it outside of work on my personal projects.

Amazing how much work you can get done by just typing the damn code into the editor, sometimes.

However, writing typescript in vscode genuinely changed the way I think about editors. It's a smalltalkish sort of feeling where my code (at least the textual level) lives and breathes in the editor, automatic tooltips that are actually relevant, etc.

Idk. I like both.

Re: VS Code uses 13% CPU when idle due to blinking cursor rendering

#626

Post by jcwayne »

fapjacks wrote: post #589
m-p-3 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Heisenberg Compensator That's a perfect name, I love it.

There's a Heisenberg Compensator in Star Trek transporters [0] [0] http://www.startrek.com/database_article/heisenberg-compensa...

Not​ a coincidence.

Re: VS Code uses 13% CPU when idle due to blinking cursor rendering

#627

Post by audidude »

killin_dan wrote: post #624
audidude wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How have you managed to make an argument about embedding a web browser about GNOME? As it were, GNOME's IDE (which I wrote) uses 0% CPU at idle.

Gedit is fantastic. Thanks for all the work on it. I used it for years before VS Code, and I still use it outside of work on my personal projects. Amazing how much work you can get done by just typing the damn code into the editor, sometimes. However, writing typescript in vscode genuinely changed the way I think about editors. It's a smalltalkish sort of feeling where my code (at least the textual level) lives and b…

I work on Builder, not Gedit. However, Gedit does get various features as we push them up into Gtk/GtkSourceView. The overview map is one such example. The pixelcache in GtkTextView enabling smooth 60fps scrolling is another.

Re: VS Code uses 13% CPU when idle due to blinking cursor rendering

#628

Post by acdha »

roryisok wrote: post #508

I just checked on Windows 10, an empty instance of VS Code with a blinking cursor uses 0% most of the time. Is this a MacOS only issue? Does it affect Atom?

There has to be some other factor: on a 2013 iMac it uses under half a percent when idle, with the same versions of macOS and VS Code.

Re: VS Code uses 13% CPU when idle due to blinking cursor rendering

#629

Post by allenz »

chetanahuja wrote: post #612
allenz wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed your comment. The non-funny response is that all GUI layers suck, possibly because visual interfaces and abstract code are inherently incompatible. Since no one has managed to make the perfect GUI, we constantly look to improve on the tradeoffs we must make, which are different for different applications. 13% idle sounds egregious but higher battery usage isn't a problem for most if it excels in the areas t…

"3% idle sounds egregious but higher battery usage isn't a problem for most" Oh God this is why we can't have nice things. How the heck is someone actually justifying this stupid shit here?

What do you find stupid? The way I see it, HTML/JS is a pretty good higher-level GUI language, and much effort has been spent making it work well. The overhead is worth it if it makes developers more productive.

Re: VS Code uses 13% CPU when idle due to blinking cursor rendering

#630

Post by userbinator »

Philipp__ wrote: post #14

It just doesn't go in my head that we are building text editors inside a web browser! I get it, there are many good use cases for Electron and it's easy to get started with cross platform support, but why is everybody going crazy about text editors in them? Because you can write plugins in JS? Wouldn't it be better to make native application, especially for code editors, where developers spend most of their time, whe…

Wouldn't it be better to make native application, especially for code editors, where developers spend most of their time, where every noticeable lag and glitches are not appreciated.

I agree. However, as someone who has used Visual Studio (the one that costs $$$, not VSCode) which is a native application (AFAIK --- it probably has some .NET and web components too), I can attest to the fact that even native applications can be extremely resource-consuming and slow.

Post reply on HN