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I switched from VSCode to Zed

tenthousandmeters.com

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Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#61
post #19
post #8

I would have switched in a pinch if Zed had their low-DPI font rendering in order. At the moment it just looks bad.

This is interesting to me, because I see this kind of comment on almost every Zed post. I haven't used a low-DPI monitor for like... not sure, but more than a decade, I'm pretty sure, so for me the weird blocker I have with Zed is the "OMG YOU HAVE NO GPU!!!! THIS WILL NOT END WELL!" warning (I run a lot of Incus containers via RDP, and they mostly have no GPU available). But what kind of monitors are you low-DPI peo…

I actually don't understand what I'm missing. I'm using two old monitors, a 27" at 2560x1440 and a 23.5" at 1920x1080 (in addition to my high DPI Framework 13 screen). How else can I get at least 4480 across (after scaling to a font size I can read - I'm 49) and still cover that many inches? My DPI right now is about 100, so to double that, wouldn't I need 8960 across 44 inches? I don't really want to pay $1500 for resolution my eyes are probably too old to notice.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#62
post #47
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind explaining how / why you have a low DPI monitor? I haven't even seen one in maybe a decade.

1080p is the most popular screen resolution by far, and on regular monitors 1080p is "low DPI". https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

It blows my mind that the most ubiquitous computer screen resolution worldwide is considered too niche for decent support by the Zed project. Hopefully that will change in 2026?

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which microcontrollers? Of interest, I program STM32, ESP32 (Risc-V) and Nordic chips, and do everything in RustRover. The compiling is decoupled from the editor. (You do cargo run to build and flash with debugging, or click the Run IDE button; works just like any program) The editor is for the code structure, and should reflect that, vs the chip. There is Cube IDE which is useful for configuring clocks, memory layou…

Do you do this in a professional setting? I'm curious because I did some embedded/uC work about 10 years ago and considering the state of C/C++ SDKs (and IDE support) at the time, I would have expected it to take decades for Rust to get a foothold.

Yep; do it at work (Security-related sensors for a DoD contractor) as well as my own small business. It doesn't have a foothold, and may not ever; we will see. I think a lot of the embedded rust content you see online is makers who are more interested in doing tricks with the ownership system and Async. So, I am an exception, but... I do recommend this workflow despite its lack of popularity!

I just like rust for the overall language and tooling. (For example, the workflow I described above); don't really care about the memory safety aspect to the degree it's often presented.

The biggest downside is I have to do a lot of leg work which wouldn't be required if done in C or C++. E.g. implementing hardware interfaces from datasheets and RMs. Sometimes there will be a Rust lib available, but in my experience they are rarely in a usable state.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#66
post #19
post #8

I would have switched in a pinch if Zed had their low-DPI font rendering in order. At the moment it just looks bad.

This is interesting to me, because I see this kind of comment on almost every Zed post. I haven't used a low-DPI monitor for like... not sure, but more than a decade, I'm pretty sure, so for me the weird blocker I have with Zed is the "OMG YOU HAVE NO GPU!!!! THIS WILL NOT END WELL!" warning (I run a lot of Incus containers via RDP, and they mostly have no GPU available). But what kind of monitors are you low-DPI peo…

Typical DPIs are still all over the place depending on the demographic. Macs have been ~200dpi forever, while cheap PCs are still mostly ~100dpi, and decent PC setups tend to land somewhere in the middle with ~150dpi displays which are pretty dense but not up to Mac Retina standards. Gamers also strongly favor that middle-ground because the ultra-dense Mac-style panels tend to be limited to 60hz.

Zed started out as a Mac-only app, and that's reflected in the way their font rendering works.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#68
post #37

I've been frustrated by the constant nudges to use specific AI tools from within VS Code, but I made a different change. Rather than moving to a different editor altogether, I started using VS Codium. If you're unfamiliar, it's the open core of VS Code, without the Microsoft-branded features that make up VS Code. I believe Microsoft builds VS Code releases by building VS Codium, and then adding in their own branded f…

That's a good idea. I considered VSCodium but the issue is that I used VSCode's proprietary extensions such as Pylance. So it would require to switch to OSS replacements at which point I decided why wouldn't give Zed a try – it has a better feeling by not being an Electron app. I think VSCodium is a good option if you need extensions not available in Zed.

I've been using vscodium with basedpyright as I've thought it was supposed to be a open source version of pylance. I've got to say it's annoying about type errors and after changing it's setting to be less strict it still annoys me and I've even started littering my code with the their # ignore _____ .

I'm really glad the article mentioned ty as I'm going to try that today.

On zed I tried it but the font rendering hurt my eyes and UI seems to be glitchy and also doesn't support the drag and drop to insert links in markdown feature * I use all the time.

* https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/languages/markdown#_inser...

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#69
I tried moving from Cursor to Zed but the LLM integration still seems very early. Cursor is very far ahead in terms of DX and the various models/tokens you get is very reasonable price wise. Zed would be a good half-way point for the people using terminal LLM CLIs and prefer the more structured approach rather than a deep IDE integration.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#70
I tried switching from VScode to Zed but unfortunately it doesn't have Jupyter notebooks and image/video preview which are deal brakers for me.

Other pain points:

- Format on save by default: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/29395

- VSCode Debugger UX seams to be much better

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