The Era of Visual Studio Code • Hacker News Board

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#251

Post by kccqzy » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 12:12 AM UTC

no_wizard wrote: post #225

Question I have for everyone who doesn't use an IDE What is your workflow? I find the following to be true, in that one of 3 things happens inevitably: 1. The Text Editor becomes the IDE, (e.g., with VSCode, if you just live in plain HTML, CSS/SCSS/LESS and JSX/TSX/JS/TS all day, its actually pretty great, lots of well maintained extensions and Microsoft really put their energy into capturing into this market with VS…

I'm exactly what you describe at the end: a simple Emacs editor (with Evil) and CLI for almost anything else. Building and running code? They all happen in the terminal. Version control? I tried Magit, didn't like it, and went back to git CLI in a terminal. Auto formatter? Likewise in the CLI; in fact I have shell aliases that automatically run them when I commit.

I haven't really hit a wall, and I personally think I'm just as productive, if not more, than IDE-using colleagues.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#252

Post by justrudd » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 12:14 AM UTC

jameslk wrote: post #243

willbw wrote: post #198

I find this post along with the comments in "A Picture of Java in 2020" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24551390 to be incongruous with my experience as a professional developer. My first couple of years writing software I used Vim, then VSCode, then worked in a Java shop and was forced to use IntelliJ. I didn't like it at first, but now after a couple of years I cannot see how I lived without it. The idea that…

I used to use Intellij for everything (and I'm not even a Java dev). It is indeed very nice and comes with so much out-of-box around languages and popular libraries. However, Intellij is _sooo_ very slow to load and edit with. This is more tolerable if you work on one project. But in the past couple years, I've had to work on many smaller projects, and loading up Intellij for multiple projects meant gigs of RAM disap…

Are the projects related? Or all unique? If related, you can create a uber project and import each directory as a module. I’ve got a project right now with 5 modules - 2 JS, 1 Go, 1 Python, and 1 Ruby (Rails). I’ve found this keeps memory usage down.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#253

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 12:16 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #238

willbw wrote: post #198

I find this post along with the comments in "A Picture of Java in 2020" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24551390 to be incongruous with my experience as a professional developer. My first couple of years writing software I used Vim, then VSCode, then worked in a Java shop and was forced to use IntelliJ. I didn't like it at first, but now after a couple of years I cannot see how I lived without it. The idea that…

Fancy IDEs are lubricants for high-friction languages. If a language is already low-friction, there won't be much benefit to be gained from an IDE, as even a plain text editor will already get you near to optimal productivity in said language. Personally, I'd rather use a plain-old "code editor" (with at most syntax highlighting, but no snippets, let alone autocomplete), in part because doing so will actively steer m…

I haven’t used IntelliJ, but if it gives Java developers half of the refactoring options and shortcuts that JetBrains Resharper gives C# developers, it must be worth its weight in gold.

C# is the only language for which I have had to deal with large monolithic codebases.

For smaller codebases, I prefer VS Code. Especially now that I go back and forth between JS, Typescript, Python, and occasionally Go and Java. I’m also frequently editing yaml and JSON. Having one editor is more ideal.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#254

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 12:17 AM UTC

jameslk wrote: post #243

willbw wrote: post #198

I find this post along with the comments in "A Picture of Java in 2020" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24551390 to be incongruous with my experience as a professional developer. My first couple of years writing software I used Vim, then VSCode, then worked in a Java shop and was forced to use IntelliJ. I didn't like it at first, but now after a couple of years I cannot see how I lived without it. The idea that…

I used to use Intellij for everything (and I'm not even a Java dev). It is indeed very nice and comes with so much out-of-box around languages and popular libraries. However, Intellij is _sooo_ very slow to load and edit with. This is more tolerable if you work on one project. But in the past couple years, I've had to work on many smaller projects, and loading up Intellij for multiple projects meant gigs of RAM disap…

IntelliJ still has that Java GUI stench that made me stay away from Java over 15 years ago.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#255

Post by winrid » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 12:18 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #238

willbw wrote: post #198

I find this post along with the comments in "A Picture of Java in 2020" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24551390 to be incongruous with my experience as a professional developer. My first couple of years writing software I used Vim, then VSCode, then worked in a Java shop and was forced to use IntelliJ. I didn't like it at first, but now after a couple of years I cannot see how I lived without it. The idea that…

Fancy IDEs are lubricants for high-friction languages. If a language is already low-friction, there won't be much benefit to be gained from an IDE, as even a plain text editor will already get you near to optimal productivity in said language. Personally, I'd rather use a plain-old "code editor" (with at most syntax highlighting, but no snippets, let alone autocomplete), in part because doing so will actively steer m…

Java doesn't have a lot of friction. In fact, IntelliJ is probably the closest you'll get today to the "golden age" of programming with something like Turbo Pascal.

Also, good luck doing major refactoring with a text editor. In 2020 we can do better than find and replace.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#256

Post by useful » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 12:19 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #238

willbw wrote: post #198

I find this post along with the comments in "A Picture of Java in 2020" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24551390 to be incongruous with my experience as a professional developer. My first couple of years writing software I used Vim, then VSCode, then worked in a Java shop and was forced to use IntelliJ. I didn't like it at first, but now after a couple of years I cannot see how I lived without it. The idea that…

Fancy IDEs are lubricants for high-friction languages. If a language is already low-friction, there won't be much benefit to be gained from an IDE, as even a plain text editor will already get you near to optimal productivity in said language. Personally, I'd rather use a plain-old "code editor" (with at most syntax highlighting, but no snippets, let alone autocomplete), in part because doing so will actively steer m…

All of this is fine if you don't work with others. The point of these tools is to standardize around something to reduce the cognitive load someone has to experience contributing to code that they didn't write. The amount of possible paths are commonly reduced for the reader.

Linting, snippets, autocomplete, are all things that prevent you from bending the nail or breaking off the head which makes maintenance harder for the person who has to find the nail and remove the nail. If I don't have to redo the nail, the cost of the nail and my time are also saved.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#257

Post by headcanon » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 12:21 AM UTC

willbw wrote: post #198

I find this post along with the comments in "A Picture of Java in 2020" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24551390 to be incongruous with my experience as a professional developer. My first couple of years writing software I used Vim, then VSCode, then worked in a Java shop and was forced to use IntelliJ. I didn't like it at first, but now after a couple of years I cannot see how I lived without it. The idea that…

Other replies have expanded on this quite a bit, so I'll just add my 2 cents:

When using a strongly typed, object-oriented language like Java or C#, Jetbrains tooling, namely the intellisense and refactoring is well-worth the cost.

However I'll still spin up VSCode for most all other languages since the tooling advantage diminishes when using a loosely-typed language like JS or Python.

Also consider that VSCode is free compared to Jetbrains, and the tooling is "good enough" for most cases. Even the C# tooling is passable with the right plugins.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#258

Post by mixmastamyk » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 12:22 AM UTC

The author makes some good points. However, very early on after being exposed to vim I decided "CUA" keybindings were the way for me, no context-switching required.

It's paid off handsomely. From DOS Edit, to Netware admin tools, Turbo Pascal, SimpleText, Notepad++, Sublime, Geany, and micro the strategy hasn't failed me yet. I like that they are mature and not changing a lot. Using another CUA editor takes a few minutes of tweaking the control panel. Having everything automated in the terminal with a Makefile or similar is another hedge. Easy to assign to a build key too.

So, perhaps the concern of moving to another editor is a bit overblown. Maybe if you've really locked yourself in—don't do that.

These days I use Geany 90% of the time. Micro another 5% via terminal. They are lightning fast, with just enough support. Have been developing Python and Web/Javascript for twenty years so I don't really need extensive completion. Identifiers, snippets, and linters, etc. are enough for me.

For huge work projects its Pycharm or other Jetbrains tool, but as I said only if huge.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#259

Post by yowlingcat » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 12:23 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #238

willbw wrote: post #198

I find this post along with the comments in "A Picture of Java in 2020" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24551390 to be incongruous with my experience as a professional developer. My first couple of years writing software I used Vim, then VSCode, then worked in a Java shop and was forced to use IntelliJ. I didn't like it at first, but now after a couple of years I cannot see how I lived without it. The idea that…

Fancy IDEs are lubricants for high-friction languages. If a language is already low-friction, there won't be much benefit to be gained from an IDE, as even a plain text editor will already get you near to optimal productivity in said language. Personally, I'd rather use a plain-old "code editor" (with at most syntax highlighting, but no snippets, let alone autocomplete), in part because doing so will actively steer m…

This is part of what led to me originally choosing Python in the first place so many years ago. I really liked Haskell but I found it hard to get things done with it. I tried to build out a large project in it, and with a deadline looming, decided to try building the rest out in Python. Python got out of the way for me and made it easy for me to "think out loud" -- perhaps this is what you mean by "hand-tools".

I was a lot earlier in my maturation at that point, but I still think my intuitions were sound. I like languages like Python which lack syntactic noise and make it easier to write compact self-explanatory things. I used to hate JavaScript but with ES7 onwards, I've begun to like it much more because it's easy to write compact, self-explanatory things.

I was forced to write Java for work a few months ago and rudely awakened in a painful manner. Yes, you adapt to it but deep down inside, you know that it sucks and you prefer going back to your better alternative.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#260

Post by cylon13 » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 12:23 AM UTC

TaupeRanger wrote: post #247

zeroxfe wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two decades of vim here, and I switched to VS Code. As a "professional developer", it's just nicer to use, and makes me feel way more productive than ever. I definitely wouldn't call it a toy.

I find comments like this incomprehensible. Are you using a Vim emulator in VS Code? If not, how can you possibly be more productive? People use Vim precisely because it offers a faster more efficient way to write code. What is it about VS Code that makes you more productive?

Not the parent, but I switched from vim+plugins to vscode+plugins for most development. I absolutely use the vim plugin because I can't stand to edit text without vim keybindings anymore. The reason I switched is that plugins in vim are more of a pain to configure and they are usually less maintained and polished than their vscode equivalents.

For example, let's say I'm not set up to program rust at all. In vscode, I just search "rust" in extensions, grab the most popular one, and it sets itself up magically. In vim, my experience was that I would lose a few hours to configuration, and the plugin would still be a little janky.

I still use vim as a plain text editor, and every once in a while I need to open a file in vim to do some serious macro editing (macros aren't perfectly supported by the plugin), but for the most part vscode+vimplugin is just nicer to use for day to day development. I should specify that my daily work languages are typescript & c#/unity on linux, but I've also been writing a fair amount of rust lately.