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Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

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Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#281
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…

Jetbrains IDEs performance is so abysmal I quickly get annoyed and move to something else. Same with XCode. I find VSCode to be the most feature rich editor whose speed I can tolerate. VSCode is by no means ideal in terms of resource consumptions or startup speed but the community picked up VSCode for the golden path in the languages I code with (rust, node.js, frontend js) and using other lighter editors is a signif…

There are several projects attempting to develop a native smart editor. For Mac users there is Nova (https://nova.app/) and for the Vim crowd there is Onivim (https://onivim.io/).

I have used neither of them but I find them intriguing, especially when I wait for my VSCode cursor to catch up with my typing.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#282
I'll just keep using Eclipse over here in the corner :-)

I guess its a case of sunk investment, but having got to the point of understanding top to bottom how Eclipse works I find that it still beats everything else in terms of presenting me with a completely comprehensive framework for developing at a high level of complexity across multiple languages and environments. Every time I move to another tool I find them better on the surface but missing these deeper features that enable dealing with super complex infrastructure across many projects in many languages.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#283

VSCode won't kill IDEA, but it is a huge warning for Jetbrains They better invest A LOT MORE into solving slow startup and performance issues that are plaguing their IDEs since the beginning Time to ditch Java on the desktop, or invest in a native AOT compiler / or use GraalVM

Java is not slow, even JS is not slow. 10% performance improvement doesn't make sense for rewrite.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#284
post #3

I don’t really see IntelliJ and VSCode as competitors. VSCode competes with atom and other full-featured text editors (vim, emacs) ... its got great adoption amongst the newer generation of programmers that think those editors are old school and user hostile. VSCodes Java, Python, and Golang support is miles behind IntelliJ. FWIW, on my team at Microsoft where we write a lot of Go, theres a 50/50 split between Intell…

I haven’t tried the Java integration but based on using VSCode for TypeScript I could imagine feature parity. VSCode is so good that it makes me concerned Microsoft is just using it to eat at JetBrains until they up and start charging for it in the future. Not sure how else to see it.

I feel like we are kind of ignoring how Visual Studio plays into this, do we really expect Microsoft to replace it with VS Code? I feel like Visual Studio Pro/Ent is more of a competition with other paid IDEs and VS Code won’t be, perhaps somewhat so it isn’t positioned to eat Visual Studio?

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#285
post #146

Speaking as a corporate programmer working from home indefinitely, I'd kill for IDEA Viewer. My laptop can't have code on it, so I'm forced to remote desktop to my workstation to use IntelliJ and CLion remotely, which is a middling experience at best. A light protocol for synchronizing the frontend with the IDE backend would be excellent. You can look at my profile and various papers we've published about why code on…

Wow. I'm amazed they haven't relaxed the no-code-on-laptops rule this year.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#286

Why are desktop Java apps are always so slow? Applications written in other languages (C#, C++, etc.) are much much faster. Even VS Code, written in JavaScript is faster... I tried hundreds of applications and this was always the case and not just with certain applications.

Web Browsers are built on multithreaded rendering - Paint, Layout and Main threads. It works really well, but on legacy or native everything is done on the single main thread and everything is jammed into 16ms of a single thread.

For example why iOS is so fast? It renders everything in separate process. (This is why Flutter will always be a garbage by reimplementing this in main thread).

I bet it just too much and too old to rewrite to new shiny things.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#287
post #3

I don’t really see IntelliJ and VSCode as competitors. VSCode competes with atom and other full-featured text editors (vim, emacs) ... its got great adoption amongst the newer generation of programmers that think those editors are old school and user hostile. VSCodes Java, Python, and Golang support is miles behind IntelliJ. FWIW, on my team at Microsoft where we write a lot of Go, theres a 50/50 split between Intell…

I agree. They are not competition at all. I used to work together with someone who didn‘t catch basic errors in VueJs and Symfony projects in VSCode because (idk) somehow it can‘t do it or some plugin is missing. On the other side there‘s me with PHPStorm and WebStorm with full project inspection support and detailed analysis about code available at a glance. Maybe I just don‘t know how to do that in VSCode but VSCod…

It's likely a missing plugin. As an avid VSCode user I would liken the difference of VSCode and IntelliJ IDEs with the difference between an unfurnished apartment and a fully furnished apartment.

With the latter you skip setting up your environment and just start doing your thing. The former is more barebones in this regard. It lets you build your own IDE from plugins and a ton of configuration options.

As someone who likes to have one app for everything code related (from Markdown to the programming languages I use, to config files and to LaTeX) I like to "bring my own furniture" for the unique combination of needs I have.

Thus it makes perfect sense to me that VSCode is regularly underestimated regarding its IDE capabilities. Stock VSCode is indeed just "Notepad++ on steroids". You have to invest some time to build it up into a fully fledged IDE.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#288
post #66
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…

Part of it feels like it comes from a different development philosophy. Vscode is a "text editor" or a "code editor". Usually this means that it's fairly lightweight, supports every language under the sun, is highly configurable and extensible, but doesn't have a lot of very in-depth features, and also partially relies on third-party extensions for deeper functionality. Jetbrains on the other hand works on IDEs built…

Intellij allows you to install pretty much most of the features from all the other jetbrains IDEs as plugins. Additionally most of their IDE's have the ability to code in several other languages seperate from the core experience. Almost all of their IDE's can for example integrate with the javascript ecosystem.

I think you're making a mistake here. Essentially behind the scenes there's one jetbrains IDE. This IDE is a single platform that can take plugins and code in any language and be customizable to your hearts content.

ON the surface however Jetbrains doesn't exactly release this IDE to the public. They deliver different configurations and different defaults on TOP of this IDE, then they lock it down a little and ship each one of these profiles under a different name. All these IDE's are basically different bundles of plugins running on the exact same core platform.

That's why CLion is only a couple years old and still really good. It's because all Jetbrains needed to develop was a plugin and shove it into an existing ecosystem.

This is no different then Vscode when you think about it. Both are coding platforms that can be plugged with new features, it's just that jetbrains locks some of this customization down and sells their IDEs with bundles of plugins that offers a better core experience.

What makes Jetbrains better is this focused and higher quality bundle of features that feels cohesive. What makes jetbrains worse is that this central platform they're developing for is bloated. Everything is slow, takes forever and can lock up.

If Jetbrains just did something to speed up the platform then pretty much IMO it beats anything Vscode has to offer.

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#289

C# and F# support is vastly superior in Rifer to the VS Code epxerience.

This! I have been trying to switch to VS Code for dotnet core projects, wanting to ditch Visual Studio. It's clear that Microsoft is - willingly? - keeping VS Code an arm and a leg away from being close to Visual Studio. Refactoring is a hit and miss, the language server will randomly need kicking, code completion is at times outright trying to sabotage you - inserting random classes - and the whole experience makes…

You have better experience with JS/HTML/CSS in VS than VS Code?

that's unheard :o

Re: Reflections on IDEA vs VS Code

#290
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been using JetBrains IDEs for about a decade, after having used emacs for nearly two decades. I have never felt that JetBrains was slow, but I hear that a lot here. I'm curious what situations people are finding JetBrains' speed to be impacting usability.

Sometimes I just want to read code with highlighting. I want to open the project and search for some text in all the files. I don't want to wait for IntelliJ to take 30 seconds to open.

They've had something like that for a year. https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2020/04/lightedit-mode/
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