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The Era of Visual Studio Code

blog.robenkleene.com

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Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#361

Post by mekster »

aspaviento wrote: post #281
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…

> 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.

The indexing is what matters. After that, IntelliJ knows pretty much all about your project files. It only takes a minute on first load and reopening it will only scan what's changed which is fast.

I doubt IntelliJ plugins slow down the IDE noticeably, though I do keep the number of plugins activated to minimum for only what I use.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#363

Post by Eric_WVGG »

> I’m hoping it moves into the category with apps like Excel, Illustrator, Photoshop, software that has held the most popular position in its category for decades.

Products that have stagnated for decades, ignored by their intended audience due to lock-in and entrenched habits? (I have no opinion on Excel)

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#364

Post by nine_k »

I can't help but see VSCode as a reincarnation of Emacs. It's written in a dynamic language on top of a native-code runtime, and you can extend it the same way it's "officially" built, right from inside it. Most interesting parts are such extensions. You can access anything internally by name, not hunting through menus.

It's also open source (though MIT, not GPL).

If not the particular implementation, but the approach finally has reached the deserved widespread popularity.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#365

Post by zelly »

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…

> In IntelliJ I can write a half baked statement like `new Foo()`, and then Alt + Enter my way to it being `foo = new Foo();` as a private member variable of the class in no time

This will be in VS Code one day, except when it's there it will be for all languages (some neural code completion engine) and do much more.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#366

Post by xmprt »

aschatten wrote: post #291
varispeed wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience out of the box you get poor performance and you have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to change configuration to improve it as knowledge is scattered in many places and not always up to date. Then it still likes to stall from time to time or sometimes doesn't register key presses properly. It's a poor user experience, but even worse is that alternatives are often worse. I wish there was an e…

(disclaimer: I am an IntelliJ fanboy) > From my experience out of the box you get poor performance and you have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to change configuration to improve it as knowledge is scattered in many places and not always up to date. I don't know if you are talking about IntelliJ or VCS, but IntelliJ can quickly start an empty project. And you don't to spend time to figure out how things work.…

I've used both VSC and IntelliJ and I understand where you're coming from but when the parent comments says VSC is fast they really mean it. It's almost instantaneous and I can get a lot done in VSC even without all the complex smart functionality.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#367

Post by mekster »

macinjosh wrote: post #156

If you want a text editor with longevity try vim or emacs. They aren't dependent on the benevolence of a greedy corporation. Over time VSCode _will_ be raided by the bean counters at MS and it will begin to track you, give you ads about MS products, and lock you in to their ecosystem. I'll never understand why a professional developer would give so much influence over their work to the likes of MS, JetBrains, etc. Su…

I'd like to assume you're joking but 20 years of vim doesn't get me anywhere close to the productivity of JetBrains or even VS code on their first years.

Vim first of all has its default set so that only very patient people can live with it. So you need to edit the defaults so much to make it slightly more comfortable, and you need to pick plugins that only some work as expected, mostly not updated in years and they add yet more crazy shortcuts no one can remember and still don't work like modern editors do.

I only use vim to edit config files on servers but VS code can do that these days, vim is losing a position for me as of late. Glad it invented modal typing but it's as ancient as one would guess.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#368

Post by tomc1985 »

dheera wrote: post #264
winrid wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The way people use Java is a problem. Spin a blank "hello world" project in Android Studio and you get no less than 79 files, and it won't work the next time you update Android Studio because of some Gradle errors. I don't know what went wrong, but "hello world" should not be 79 files, it should be something that I can hand-code in something less than an IDE.

Yeah but "Hello World" in actual java is a main class and a quick write to stdout, like most any other normal (programming, not scripting) language

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#369

Post by dragonwriter »

mekster wrote: post #360
kumarvvr wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without installing a million plugins Perhaps that is because of the very narrow focus on what IntelliJ does and the functionality of plugins is part of the core system of IntelliJ. In my view, VSCode is a platform. It's unfortunate that they chose to use Node (its slow) but otherwise, its a great platform to develop extensions for. For someone just getting into programming, it offers a great stepping stone and it c…

The problem is, after installing bunch of plugins it is still no match for IntelliJ. If it was, why would I pay for it... I want a plugin to parse the SQL query and do auto complete, check for syntax and column/table name errors according to the database I connect to through ssh tunneling but it's just a string in VS code. It also auto completes join columns by checking which foreign keys may match on the table I'm t…

> I see there's "prettier" etc but the supported languages and customizability aren't there.

Er, how? What language does VSCode not support formatters for with an appropriate, existing extension, including full customizability for the formatter?

Now, there's not an integrated UI for customization, instead relying on each formatters native configuration method, but that also makes the formatting configuration independent of the editor. For me that's a plus.

Re: The Era of Visual Studio Code

#370

Post by zelly »

moron4hire wrote: post #132
andrewstuart wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be more interested in VSCode if Microsoft's strategy was to relentlessly implement the most popular plugins into VSCode natively such that the most commonly used and needed functions were built in and did not require plugins. The problem with systems that are really just frameworks for other to build on is they become reluctant to build stuff that plugins exist for. The philosophy becomes to depend on the plugins…

>> I'd be more interested in VSCode if Microsoft's strategy was to relentlessly implement the most popular plugins into VSCode natively such that the most commonly used and needed functions were built in and did not require plugins. Unlike the FANG companies, Microsoft doesn't tend to rip the carpet out from under independent developers like that.

It's all open source. Is there anyone making money from VS Code plugins? Why does it matter if MS "steals" the code?
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