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I’m switching from VS Code to VS Codium

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Re: I’m switching from VS Code to VS Codium

#191

Post by indymike »

jmyeet wrote: post #20

What I find truly bizarre is how many software engineers, who are aware of how much they earn and how long it really takes to make software, are so resistant to paying anything for tools that make their job easier and faster. It blows my mind. Take the Jetbrains IDEs. I don't mean to offend any VSC fans out there but the Jetbrains IDEs are simply better and more mature in every single way. For individual use, most of…

> Take the Jetbrains IDEs. I don't mean to offend any VSC fans out there but the Jetbrains IDEs are simply better and more mature in every single way. For individual use, most of them are After a particularly bad tooling week (js supply chain problems, plugin problems and more than the usual amount of DB changes) Our dev team made the unanimous call to move require all developers to use Jetbrains IDEs instead of the mix of VSCode, Emacs and whatever else... Our codebase is Python, Go and Javascript, and data is stored in Postgres, so we use Goland, PyCharm, WebStorm and Datagrip regularly. We also started using the awesome Micro editor when we need something that can be installed on a remote because it's key bindings are identical to JetBrains...

A few thoughts:

1. We all picked up 2-3 hours per week of time we were spending pounding plugins on Emacs and VSCode into shape. There was a lot more fiddling going on than we thought.

2. The debugger in JetBrains IDEs is top notch. Debuggers are underrated, and bad debuggers make using print and over-logging seem like the best option.

3. When we want to do something new, (containers, notebooks, etc...) it is almost always supported, and there are not 100 incomplete plugins to sort out (both Emacs and VSCode have this issue).

4. We're doing things the same way, which sometimes really pays off. For example, instead of a mix of PostMan, python scripts, restclient, and bashified curl for making api requests, we just use the client in the IDE... which means we can share them.

5. Datagrip and the database tools in the IDEs are incredibly useful.

Ok, so the payoff: By the end of the second week, we were over the learning curve, and the payoff came in the third week: a total of 16 hours of developer time not spent on twiddling with Emacs, vim, Sublime and VSCode. That time savings paid for the subscription for the year.

Re: I’m switching from VS Code to VS Codium

#192

Post by mixmastamyk »

jmyeet wrote: post #20

What I find truly bizarre is how many software engineers, who are aware of how much they earn and how long it really takes to make software, are so resistant to paying anything for tools that make their job easier and faster. It blows my mind. Take the Jetbrains IDEs. I don't mean to offend any VSC fans out there but the Jetbrains IDEs are simply better and more mature in every single way. For individual use, most of…

Jetbrains does quite a bit of telemetry as well, particularly on starter versions. This has made me hesitate, until I get an outbound firewall set up.

Re: I’m switching from VS Code to VS Codium

#193

Post by lal »

terhechte wrote: post #147
netr0ute wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any evidence to back that up?

I think Gnome / GTK is a good example. Famously, the Budgie Desktop Environment will have to be rewritten on top of Enlightenment because they don't like the GTK 4 changes. So now they're forced to go to a different widget system. [1] [1] https://joshuastrobl.com/2021/09/14/building-an-alternative-...

Sure, that's a good example of something else, but do you have any examples of any forced updates?

Re: I’m switching from VS Code to VS Codium

#194

Post by garyrob »

> I don't mean to offend any VSC fans out there but the Jetbrains IDEs are simply better and more mature in every single way.

I must admit that I used PyCharm for a few years but ended up liking VSC more, and now that's my IDE. Just seems lighter and more pleasant.

Re: I’m switching from VS Code to VS Codium

#195

Post by 5e92cb50239222b »

the_duke wrote: post #30
jmyeet wrote: post #20

What I find truly bizarre is how many software engineers, who are aware of how much they earn and how long it really takes to make software, are so resistant to paying anything for tools that make their job easier and faster. It blows my mind. Take the Jetbrains IDEs. I don't mean to offend any VSC fans out there but the Jetbrains IDEs are simply better and more mature in every single way. For individual use, most of…

> but the Jetbrains IDEs are simply better and more mature in every single way That's just not true. I have access to the full Jetbrains suite for free, yet I still opt to use Neovim or VS Code/Codium for most languages. Jetbrains IDEs are great in many ways, but are objectively worse on several metrics: * slow startup times * slow initial operations until the JIT is warmed up * even once warm, you always eventually…

I agree with the rest of your points, but keyboard navigation in VSC just blows (or I'm doing something very wrong). It's painfully obvious main VSCode developers must be heavy mouse users because you just can't do some things there without a mouse, or they're really awkward (for example, de-focusing the sidebar requires pressing some weird key combo (I think it's Ctrl+Shift+E or something like that?), while a simple Escape works in IDEA for all similar situations — de-focus the sidebar, de-focus a search result/debugger/whatever pane, close the search dialog, basically anything that means "go back to editing the code").

I couldn't find a key combo (or any way to configure it) to navigate between classes and functions in the same file. I find this to be very useful, I must be pressing it hundreds of times a day. VSC expects you to focus on the breadcrumb pane, arrow up or down to the name of the member you'd like to jump to, and press Enter, while in IDEA you just press Alt+ArrowUp (or down) and quickly jump between functions in the same file.

Same with search results. Do a search in IDEA, press Ctrl+Enter, it moves the result list to the search pane. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Arrow(Up|Down) lets you quickly jump between them. That's another thing I just can't live without. I couldn't find anything like that in VSCode, search is so awkward to use I just drop out to the shell and use ripgrep directly.

Close to 100% of IDEA/Rider's functionality can be controlled through the keyboard, and I think the developers themselves are using it heavily, because it's configured out of the box, hotkeys are discoverable once you understand the logic behind them, and they make sense (unlike in VSCode where hotkeys for many important functions are either not assigned at all, or are awkward out of the box. For example, who in the hell decided to bind "jump to definition" to F12? I'm getting flashbacks to how we played Mortal Kombat at the beginning of the century where you were expected to quickly press difficult key sequences to perform spectacular fighting combos.)

Re: I’m switching from VS Code to VS Codium

#196

Post by xaberus »

lelandfe wrote: post #9
Asraelite wrote: post #2

The last time I tried Codium, not being able to use Remote Development was a showstopper. Has the situation improved since then?

No, and don't expect it or Live Share to ever land[0]. None of the "Remote" extensions are FOSS, and they restrict usage to "validly licensed" copies of VS Code[1] – plus the server side code for it is closed source. So getting it into Codium would require a clean room implementation, essentially. [0] https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/wiki/Extensions-Compati... ] [1] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items/ms-v…

The extension API proposals and RPC protocol are open sourced and the server code is just an electron-less version of the regular VSCode extension host (hence, remote extension host, REH). This is all part of the VSCode OSS release. What the proprietary extensions provide is integration. For example, the SSH variant automatically installs and launches an REH instance on the remote host and sets up port forwarding. If you are willing to start the instance and to forward ports yourself, you can use the tiny extension I wrote [1,2] (See the README how to enable the necessary extension proposals.). It allows you to connect to a local port you configure in the config. It is based on an example extension (vscode-test-resolver) in the OSS release that is used to test this functionality [3].

Microsoft is not really hiding any of this, so I am a little surprised, that nobody wrote a similar extension so far...

[1] https://open-vsx.org/extension/xaberus/remote-oss [2] https://github.com/xaberus/vscode-remote-oss [3] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/tree/main/extensions/vsc...

Re: I’m switching from VS Code to VS Codium

#197

Post by bmitc »

mbesto wrote: post #172
Shared404 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> discontinued: Atom just got discontinued. It's open source. Photoshop on the other hand has withstood the test of time. But if I want to use Atom I can fork it, or keep the source around. It doesn't go away from my environment until _I_ say it does. And Photoshop has become more and more user hostile over time. > Audacity's 3.0 update removed a feature I relied on. I wasn't forced to update to it, sure, but proprie…

> But if I want to use Atom I can fork it, or keep the source around. It doesn't go away from my environment until _I_ say it does. This is technically true, but in 99% of the cases is not realistically true. Most developers who use said FOSS external dependency do not want to actively maintain it themselves.

FOSS supporters always say this as if we live in a reality where knowledge and time are infinite. Yes, the licenses say you can legally do things, but they are hardly ever realistic.

Re: I’m switching from VS Code to VS Codium

#198

Post by kcb »

jmyeet wrote: post #20

What I find truly bizarre is how many software engineers, who are aware of how much they earn and how long it really takes to make software, are so resistant to paying anything for tools that make their job easier and faster. It blows my mind. Take the Jetbrains IDEs. I don't mean to offend any VSC fans out there but the Jetbrains IDEs are simply better and more mature in every single way. For individual use, most of…

Corporate expense processes are a pita. For critical applications like an IDE its not a problem, but for smaller one off tools it's usually more effort then it's worth to use paid software.

Re: I’m switching from VS Code to VS Codium

#199

Post by lelandfe »

xaberus wrote: post #196
lelandfe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and don't expect it or Live Share to ever land[0]. None of the "Remote" extensions are FOSS, and they restrict usage to "validly licensed" copies of VS Code[1] – plus the server side code for it is closed source. So getting it into Codium would require a clean room implementation, essentially. [0] https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/wiki/Extensions-Compati... ] [1] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items/ms-v…

The extension API proposals and RPC protocol are open sourced and the server code is just an electron-less version of the regular VSCode extension host (hence, remote extension host, REH). This is all part of the VSCode OSS release. What the proprietary extensions provide is integration. For example, the SSH variant automatically installs and launches an REH instance on the remote host and sets up port forwarding. If…

Nice work! The Remote Development license I linked earlier specifically excludes one from "reverse engineer[ing]" the code – which appears also to apply "to any Microsoft services... for the software".

IANAL, but I'd definitely be nervous to touch this stuff with a 10ft pole.

Re: I’m switching from VS Code to VS Codium

#200

Post by CuriousCosmic »

jmyeet wrote: post #20

What I find truly bizarre is how many software engineers, who are aware of how much they earn and how long it really takes to make software, are so resistant to paying anything for tools that make their job easier and faster. It blows my mind. Take the Jetbrains IDEs. I don't mean to offend any VSC fans out there but the Jetbrains IDEs are simply better and more mature in every single way. For individual use, most of…

I am fully willing to pay somebody for software. I just also want the software to be free (in the FSF sense).

Do I need to pay each time I want one of their updates? Or do I need to pay a subscription for support+code update?

I'm 100% game to do that but I want to own what I get and I want the freedom to do with it what I want (within reason).

If I want to recompile the software with some change I made, port the software to some other hardware, or go dig in the source to identify a bug, I want that option. It's that plain and simple.

If the license says "no commercial use unless you pay X flat, Y subscription, or Z whatever else", that's perfectly fine with me. People already use pirated versions of proprietary software so if someone wants to use your software without paying they are going to do so.

TLDR: I'll pay pretty much whatever you want for the product provided I have the means. I just want the freedom to do with my software & hardware as I please.

Edit: I wanted to toss into this that if we want more projects to be viable open source or free software projects, we need to be willing to support the developers. If you have the means, sponsor developers even if it's only some pocket change each month.

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