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Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

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Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#41

Post by matsemann »

charrondev wrote: post #9
matsemann wrote: post #2

Most of this post is just speculation like " I seriously doubt it will work well in an average cafe though " without much substance. Either test it or report on it, or at least discuss its shortcomings based on some technical merits. And frankly I don't care how well it works on "spotty café wifi". If the wifi sucks I wouldn't sit there and work anyway. As for the language server protocol, nothing stops IDEA from doi…

One of the things that baffles me is the rust-Lang support. Rust-lang has an official dual-licensed MIT/Apache language server protocol implementation (RLS) under active development. In my view it’s currently a better experience than the custom IntelliJ one. Instead of collaborating though I see IntelliJ continuing on the path of their custom implementation. Every week RLS gives an update on their progress and so doe…

I can think of multiple reasons they may prefer doing it themselves: Differentiation, if they just reuse the same thing everyone else does, they will have no moat or extra features. Or maybe because the language server protocol cannot handle everything IDEA normally provides, so they will have to run some kind of parser etc. on their end anyway. Or that interfacing with an external tool can be buggy or have weird boundaries making certain features harder to implement.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#42

Post by sdfhbdf »

zappo2938 wrote: post #29

Until four months ago I used PHPStorm although I haven't typed a line of PHP code in at least 4 years. Since all my coding is with TypeScript I decided to switch to VSCode and not renew my Idea subscription. The only feature I miss is the local history. It is nice to be able to aggressively hash out code to solve a complicated problem and revert to the state 1 minute, 5 minutes, or 20 minutes ago or at least look at…

Only? Wow.

When I juggle between vim, sublime, VS Code and PHPStorm/IDEA. I tend to come back to IDEA for any project bigger than a few files since the after the indexing the refactor, code analysis, search and auto import functionality is so reliable that I just love the ease of use. I still have the free education license and a company license so I am not sure whether I’d pay for JetBrains out of my own pocket but difference in the tooling is night and day, it’s much more robust and quicker to get stuff done than VS Code in my experience

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#43

Post by denysvitali »

Nursie wrote: post #32
matwood wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I have used IntelliJ for Java for as long as I can remember and can't imagine using anything else. For JS and Go I use VSCode. I wonder if it's just what I started with and am used to. I've tried to use Intellij a couple of times for Go, but end up back on VSCode.

Goland is great if you have IntelliJ muscle memory, I haven't tried using IntelliJ directly for Go though, Imagine it's probably sub-optimal. You do have to pay for Goland also.

I love Goland, and it's honestly one of the products that I very much like to pay for. You can eventually pay a one time fee and use it forever (without updates).

I'm also using it for Rust, but it's missing CLion's powerful debugger UI - but I think that gdb is good enough :-)

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#44

Post by st3fan »

> Meanwhile, JetBrains seems to be staying afloat mostly thanks to hard work and sheer luck.

Or, just maybe, their products are excellent.

This piece is interesting but is is not more than an opinion piece. There is very little in there that actually compares the two products. Feature-wise or how the developer experience is.

It would be interesting to read an objective comparison. Does any site/magazine review developer products?

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#45

Post by parhamn »

Nursie wrote: post #32
matwood wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I have used IntelliJ for Java for as long as I can remember and can't imagine using anything else. For JS and Go I use VSCode. I wonder if it's just what I started with and am used to. I've tried to use Intellij a couple of times for Go, but end up back on VSCode.

Goland is great if you have IntelliJ muscle memory, I haven't tried using IntelliJ directly for Go though, Imagine it's probably sub-optimal. You do have to pay for Goland also.

If you have IntelliJ ultimate, Goland is installable via the Go plugin for free. I use IntelliJ for go/js/python using their plugins and they work as well as the native apps (pycharm, webstorm, goland). Although it is a bit tougher to configure because you treat things more as modules.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#46

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

wokwokwok wrote: post #35
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that does not carry over to all languages. It does. All languages are basically the same. They parse to ASTs that you can manipulate programmatically. If those ASTs are strongly typed, you can safely perform refractors. What makes IntelliJ good is the base framework JetBrains uses, the same one they use in WebStorm, PyCharm, etc. VSCode is that same thing: an adaptable base and I’m sure making it on par for Jav…

No. Microsoft has delegated Java support to redhat. ...no surprise, why would they waste their time on it? They give zero fruitcakes about Java. Let’s just say, 3rd party plugins (like the redhat Java language support) are.... not of the same quality... as the Microsoft plugins.

It’s possible they lack vision and focus for this thing, such that they go out and do “Java support” without making it good or caring about it.

On the other hand, we’re talking about Microsoft. If you lived in the 90s, I find it hard to imagine how you can see Microsoft in any other light. I know: different times, different leadership. But still: it seems possible that they’ve got a huge vision for this and want to do the equivalent of Internet Explorer 1 and 2 just to be out in the market, so they can come back and do versions 3 and 4 as their position has become entrenched.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#47

Post by vbsteven »

maple3142 wrote: post #27

In my opinion, one killer feature of VSCode is the ability to connect to WSL, remote server and Docker container. As someone mainly developing on WSL2, I use this feature everyday. I only use Idea when I need to use Java or Kotlin, because its language support is really good.

WSL support is in IntelliJ now. Makes it super easy to use jdk/node and other toolchains on the WSL side from IntelliJ running on the windows side

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#48

Post by specialp »

mythz wrote: post #30

I used to think VS Code was going to be a threat to JetBrains IDEs considering how fast its iterative development was (thanks in large part to the productivity of JS + Web renderer) but its never seems to quite be able to reach the feature-set, polish & intelligence of JetBrains IDEs. Every IDE function appears to be better implemented in JetBrains, whether it's Code Analysis, Refactoring, Navigation, Running/Debuggi…

The plugin infrastructure for VS Code along with excellent first party support for JS/TS has helped it grow very fast. But in languages other than TS the mishmash of plugins of varying quality really degrade the experience. The opinionated approach and strong first party support just makes Jet Brains product much cleaner. I use both a lot.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#49

Post by [deleted] »

charrondev wrote: post #9
matsemann wrote: post #2

Most of this post is just speculation like " I seriously doubt it will work well in an average cafe though " without much substance. Either test it or report on it, or at least discuss its shortcomings based on some technical merits. And frankly I don't care how well it works on "spotty café wifi". If the wifi sucks I wouldn't sit there and work anyway. As for the language server protocol, nothing stops IDEA from doi…

One of the things that baffles me is the rust-Lang support. Rust-lang has an official dual-licensed MIT/Apache language server protocol implementation (RLS) under active development. In my view it’s currently a better experience than the custom IntelliJ one. Instead of collaborating though I see IntelliJ continuing on the path of their custom implementation. Every week RLS gives an update on their progress and so doe…

[deleted]

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#50

Post by monsieurbanana »

matsemann wrote: post #2

Most of this post is just speculation like " I seriously doubt it will work well in an average cafe though " without much substance. Either test it or report on it, or at least discuss its shortcomings based on some technical merits. And frankly I don't care how well it works on "spotty café wifi". If the wifi sucks I wouldn't sit there and work anyway. As for the language server protocol, nothing stops IDEA from doi…

> Most of this post is just speculation like "I seriously doubt it will work well in an average cafe though"

Meh. I don't think that's his main point. The two advantages of vscode he points out are:

- browsers, and by extension Electron, are the best funded cross-platform GUI

- vscode offloads language support to compilers (or other third-party tools) via LSP (Language Server Protocol)

Electron apps are... slow craps. But it seems to be a problem of implementation, as vscode is slick and fast. In my own anecdotic experience, faster than IDEA.

As for LSP, you don't care how it works, since it works now. But will it support as many languages as vscode in the future?

Sure, that's speculation, but he gives a sound argument: it offloads the burden of maintaining the language integration to the community at large (or even to the language team itself). By creating a LSP server, you add support for vscode, vim, emacs, or even... Intellij. Hard to pass.

LSP support on Intellij is a community plugin, far from first-class experience. And if it does become first-class, why then would people choose it over vscode? If both are LSP based, vscode is faster, free, and extensible in the most widely used language.

And here's something less speculative, editor usage from stackoverflow surveys:

- 2017[0] -> vscode 24.0% intellij 23%

- 2018[1] -> vscode 34.9% intellij 24.9%

- 2019[2] -> vscode 50.7% intellij 25.4%

Disclaimer: I don't think LSP is great, yet. Most of the servers are still rough around the edges, but as an emacs user, I have big hopes for them.

[0] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017#technology-_-...

[1] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018#development-e...

[2] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#development-e...

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