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The Era of Visual Studio Code

blog.robenkleene.com

281–290 of 698 posts

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#281
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…

> JetBrains products allow you to do so much out of the box

It's all nice and shiny until it takes several minutes to index your whole project structure. Then you can only hate it a little bit more every time you start it.

VSCode is not bloated (for now) with millions of options, I can add extensions and/or disable them whenever I need without losing performance or even creating my own ones without too much effort.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#282
> In most software categories, choosing the software with longevity is easy, the most popular tools are usually the ones that have been around the longest. Microsoft Excel and Adobe Illustrator were both released in 1987 and, for the most part, they’ve remained the most popular software in their categories since then.

Hold up! I'm out here still repping Lotus 1-2-3...

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ha! Every older point of sale software and every medical screen Seems to have that distinct java ui. Never liked it.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#284
post #214

As far as I know, there are no serious email clients for Visual Studio Code. So the kind of obsessive users, the ones that want to do everything with it, the presence of which indicates a really good piece of software, don't use Visual Studio Code. I consider that a fatal indictment of Visual Studio Code.

Surely even crusty greybeards would use a dedicated email client like mutt?

No, Emacs is notorious for having many email clients, and many users enthusiastically read and send email through Emacs. Likewise, there are email clients for vim, though I presume they're relatively less popular.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#285
I think it's premature to say that visual studio code is the ultimate in human textual interfaces.

There's a ton to do with optimizing how text works. In a few decades, maybe someone will develop a properly functioning brain/neuron/text interface, bypassing VSCode entirely.

Regardless of whether that is feasible or not, it's really defeatist to just say "oh we give up, Microsoft has made the ultimate text editor" and call it a day.

That's not how the world improves, and you'll find that VS Code will also have its day when it's sunsetting and Microsoft throws in the towl and ends development on the project, similarly to how the Internet Explorer engine team was shut down.

Give it about 5 years, and then we'll talk again about this topic.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#286
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…

> To me the future is IntelliJ for Java and all other languages should seek to have such a nicely integrated experience with an IDE.

If you think Java + IntelliJ is well-integrated, you should try C# + VS, C# + Resharper.

I am not joking or being facetious - modern C# IDE support is on another level.

And I don't even like C#.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My only problem with it is performance when you load large repos and occasionally large files because it is an Electron app eventually. I know the extension ecosystem has thrived just because it is Electron but I wish MS worked on a native editor to achieve it.

For what it is worth, I have never experienced this issue on modern hardware, and I regularly work with a very large monorepo. Perhaps it is my habit of opening a subset of the repo into the workspace rather than the whole thing (e.g. only the bottom 4 or 5 directory levels so there is at most only a few hundred files in the workspace - builds etc just run from the usual command line so not having the entire repo in…

I use VS Code daily, and most of the time I have a single workspace open with everything in it, probably more than a thousand repos.

Checking now, the workspace contains ~3.7 million files. I have had no perceivable performance issues with the editor, it works like a champ. Granted I have a beefy machine, but VS Code has been a pleasure from my first impression. For my needs, it's a great development environment.

Recently I onboarded someone to set up remote SSH editing. It did require a few technical steps, but after that they were joyous to see how well it works - a "game changer" in their words, saving them a lot of time and effort.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#288
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…

You just have to get Nyan Progress Bar extension to make those wait times more fabulous.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#290
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'll add to your Java anecdote: JetBrains editors appear to be the most sophisticated across multiple languages. PyCharm is a pleasure to use with Python, Rust, and Typescript. Perks include catching errors on its own (eg before compile in Rust or TS, and don't even need to run Python's type checker), auto-complete, and refactoring. In comparison, VsCode appears to only understand these languages at a surface/syntax level.

I don't like this situation: I wish there were more competition, but it appears one company has the edge at present. I use VsCode for one-off files, since Jetbrains isn't a good fit for these.

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