I switched from VSCode to Zed • Hacker News Board

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#161

Post by alfiedotwtf » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

Robdel12 wrote: post #127

mark_l_watson wrote: post #57

This article struck a personal chord with me: I bought a new MacBook a week ago and installed minimal software on it, specifically I did not install VSCode and I don’t miss it. I use Emacs exclusively on my new laptop. I have about 40 years experience with Emacs and except for a treemacs automations, I am using my regular setup. VSCode is a great project but I just didn’t feel “happy” while I was using it. I feel hap…

I’ve fallen in love with emacs again now that I can have an LLM tune up my config. I love emacs, I don’t love lisp. Maybe LLMs are helping me with that, too. But I so happy with my config now. Simplified and modern.

Ha! My elisp is almost non existent, and so I’ve been using ChatGPT and Claude to help me rewrite my perfect setup - and it’s glorious!

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#162

Post by r4victor » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 5:49 PM UTC

guiambros wrote: post #141

Slashdotted :) Here's a copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20260105144155/https://tenthousa...

Working now? It's a 1cpu/1gb VPS – maybe too small to handle hn hugs.

The website repo is public, so it's also available on github: https://github.com/r4victor/tenthousandmeters/blob/master/we...

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#163

Post by Octoth0rpe » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:01 PM UTC

recursive wrote: post #153

Octoth0rpe wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks good overall, but: > USB-C with 15W power delivery for maximum compatibility I am hoping that is a typo.

What does that mean? If the monitor only requires 15W to operate, that's a good thing, right? Unless monitors are expected to use less than that? I'm not familiar with reading monitor spec sheets.

to add on to what jsheard said, for this feature to be usable (ie, charge your laptop just by plugging in the monitor), you need this number to be about what your laptop's charger is. At 15W, even a macbook air would run out of power slowly while plugged into this monitor, assuming you don't plug a second cable into your laptop. 65W or 90W is a much more normal value for a feature like this.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#164

Post by stellalo » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:03 PM UTC

aitchnyu wrote: post #67

I use Zed only for million line json log dumps. Everything else stuggles to scroll or ctrl+f but those are instant in Zed.

This is the same reason I switched to it. It’s just lightweight and fast, I don’t see why a text editor should not be like this

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#165

Post by kgwxd » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:07 PM UTC

bpasero wrote: post #131

We maintain a single VS Code setting that allows you to opt out of the AI features provided in VS Code: "chat.disableAIFeatures" (see also: https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_104#_hide-and-disab... ). If you can still find AI features appearing after you have configured this setting, then please report an issue at https://github.com/microsoft/vscode and we are happy to take a look. It is possible that from time…

Make it a separate build that doesn't even have any of the AI code in it because a flag can't be trusted. Especially when there's a history of resetting flags after updates.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#166

Post by stellalo » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:07 PM UTC

throwfaraway135 wrote: post #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

I was also disappointed by the lack of Jupyter notebooks support: I ended up not using Jupyter notebooks that much anymore, and when I do, well, I run them in Jupyter

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#167

Post by ericyd » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:08 PM UTC

tacker2000 wrote: post #148

mark_l_watson wrote: post #57

This article struck a personal chord with me: I bought a new MacBook a week ago and installed minimal software on it, specifically I did not install VSCode and I don’t miss it. I use Emacs exclusively on my new laptop. I have about 40 years experience with Emacs and except for a treemacs automations, I am using my regular setup. VSCode is a great project but I just didn’t feel “happy” while I was using it. I feel hap…

Also started using emacs (doom) a couple of months ago, after realizing that jetbrains and vscode are going to be AI-shittified, and there is no turning back. At this point, I would recommend to every coder worth his salt to just jump to vim/neovim or emacs, these editors will be around for the next 1000 years and you wont need to fight against some BS features and you wont need to switch ever egain. The 1-2 month le…

I set a calendar appointment for 1000 years in the future to fact check this claim

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#168

Post by tlhunter » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

Sadly momentum scrolling doesn't work on Zed for Linux. This is a big reason I haven't jumped ship.

It's also a reason I still use Firefox based browsers instead of chromium based browsers.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#169

Post by debugnik » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:11 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #102

adonese wrote: post #93

Sublime is quite good. I have always been using sublime for quick edits, dumping notes etc. But lately I came to appreciate it more as a lightweight IDE. I use go (lsp and some plugins) and ST (sqltools) in addition to package manager and project manager. I like how fast it is, how well polished the editor is. And generally all plug-ins i use work nicely. Also claude helped a lot (eg writing some shortcuts for specif…

I love(d) Sublime and it's still getting updates from time to time, but unfortunately its ecosystem died five ish years ago, its package repository is a lot of "last updated 10 years ago". It's still a viable editor, but without community support it's not going to be good enough long term. That said, ST (and its predecessor, forgot the name) set the standard for "lightweight" (lighter than IDEs) editors - Atom, VS Co…

> and its predecessor, forgot the name

TextMate? It's been surprisingly influential for an editor I've never seen anyone use; maybe in the US, where people actually buy Mac, it was different.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#170

Post by rcleveng » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:11 PM UTC

I'd love to try Zed, but it's unusable on MacOS (https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/20806 seems to be the issue).

If that ever gets fixed then I'd look at replacing Sublime (which is still my go-to for quick editing) and then see if it can handle more advanced coding (which one the rotating list of various vscode forks handle today)