Theia: Cloud and Desktop IDE • Hacker News Board

Re: Theia: Cloud and Desktop IDE

#121

Post by kls » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 3:31 PM UTC

garettmd wrote: post #51

I think many people are missing the point that this doesn't appear to be a finished product ready for developers to use. It looks like Eclipse's goal is to make a foundation that others can customize for their purposes, building off of what VSCode has already done. That's not to say this is a good idea or not, but I think all the comments asking "Why would anyone switch to this from VSCode" are missing the point.

And why would they not just consolidate their efforts into improving VS code. I don't get it, VS Code is an awesome platform, no need to reinvent the wheel we just need more high quality extensions to improve it support for different technologies.

Re: Theia: Cloud and Desktop IDE

#122

Post by core-questions » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

jhasse wrote: post #37

bb101 wrote: post #18

Contributors and adopters: Whilst it's healthy to have competition, I'm not sure a rip-off of VS Code is in the spirit of open source. Did they try to work with the team at Microsoft to improve VS Code before forking it?

"Hey Microsoft, we're trying to improve VS Code by moving it over to a not-for-profit corporation not under your control and completly removing the Visual Studio brand. What do you think?"

It's pretty fair considering Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish was the MS modus operandi for decades and may yet be.

Re: Theia: Cloud and Desktop IDE

#123

Post by cfv » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 3:34 PM UTC

jagged-chisel wrote: post #103

cfv wrote: post #95

What is Theia better for than Visual Studio code or Atom or any other of this new trend of build-a-bear IDEs? I like Eclipse and the Eclipse foundation (hey, they rocked the whole IDE game back then, and make a decent one nowadays too), but I cannot understand where this particular project sits.

In the browser. That's where it sits. VSCode does not.

Nothing prevents you from chucking https://microsoft.github.io/monaco-editor/ on a random page tho. Is the value add the fact that there's a server component behind it?

Re: Theia: Cloud and Desktop IDE

#124

Post by atonse » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

kls wrote: post #121

garettmd wrote: post #51

I think many people are missing the point that this doesn't appear to be a finished product ready for developers to use. It looks like Eclipse's goal is to make a foundation that others can customize for their purposes, building off of what VSCode has already done. That's not to say this is a good idea or not, but I think all the comments asking "Why would anyone switch to this from VSCode" are missing the point.

And why would they not just consolidate their efforts into improving VS code. I don't get it, VS Code is an awesome platform, no need to reinvent the wheel we just need more high quality extensions to improve it support for different technologies.

Yeah when I see a project like this, I think of all the wasted time that all these talented teams could save by combining forces.

At the end of the day, after who knows how much effort, this thing looks IDENTICAL to VS Code. So what was the point of all the work, apart from Not-Invented-Here? VS Code is MIT licensed. So what exactly is the concern about one company running it? Anyone can fork it and do whatever they want.

Re: Theia: Cloud and Desktop IDE

#125

Post by 725686 » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 3:43 PM UTC

jtdev wrote: post #54

Theia developers: The Eclipse brand in the IDE/code editor world is toxic to many developers; You may want to disassociate Theia from Eclipse if you’re hoping for wide usage or pulling devs away from VS Code.

What are you talking about. Just because a bunch of hipsters dislike Eclipse doesn't mean everyone does. Eclipse rocks.

Re: Theia: Cloud and Desktop IDE

#126

Post by skrtskrt » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 3:49 PM UTC

jefft255 wrote: post #120

leejoramo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand your point about “Eclipse”, as a long time open source web developer, macOS user who has had to work at times with Microsoft servers, I did not think the best of “Visual Studio” Now I spend much of my day in Visual Studio Code.

I worked professionally with VS doing Windows app development in C++ and I found it super powerful, especially for handling our 20 years old gigantic codebase. I don't get the hate, and I spend most of my days in Emacs nowadays (doing more research-y coding). Yes, it's huge, but it's huge because it is full of powerful tools for developers.

I think hate for giant IDEs & their corresponding resource consumption will generally come from devs who don't need all the features, or who have the usage of the features forced on them by their org when they may not be needed or there are more lightweight alternatives outside the IDE.

It's kind of an even-more-resource-intensive Microsoft Excel - almost no one needs all the features, but they all need a different subset.

Re: Theia: Cloud and Desktop IDE

#127

Post by tomp » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 3:49 PM UTC

leejoramo wrote: post #115

jtdev wrote: post #54

Theia developers: The Eclipse brand in the IDE/code editor world is toxic to many developers; You may want to disassociate Theia from Eclipse if you’re hoping for wide usage or pulling devs away from VS Code.

While I understand your point about “Eclipse”, as a long time open source web developer, macOS user who has had to work at times with Microsoft servers, I did not think the best of “Visual Studio” Now I spend much of my day in Visual Studio Code.

The difference is, Visual Studio is a world-class IDE produced by a company that sucks, while Eclipse sucks as an IDE.

Re: Theia: Cloud and Desktop IDE

#128

Post by jpalomaki » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 3:55 PM UTC

jtdev wrote: post #54

Theia developers: The Eclipse brand in the IDE/code editor world is toxic to many developers; You may want to disassociate Theia from Eclipse if you’re hoping for wide usage or pulling devs away from VS Code.

Maybe they are not so much trying to convince end users about the project, but other companies who might be willing to incorporate this into their products and contribute back to the project.

For that kind of use case having an organization like Eclipse Foundation, Apache Foundation or Linux Foundation on the background adds credibility.

Re: Theia: Cloud and Desktop IDE

#129

Post by nvrspyx » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

hexa00 wrote: post #94

zabil wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did they try to work with the team at Microsoft to improve VS Code before forking it? As an open source project maintainer, I don't think it's necessary or easy to do that. Project teams and maintainers have different goals and sometimes it's much easier to fork and evolve without stepping on each other's toes. I'd even say that's the strength of open sourcing software under the right license.

Note this is Not a fork, it's a from scratch implementation that is compatible with the extensions of VSCode, not a vscode fork.

Yeah, I'm sure they just happened to make a one-to-one exact recreation of the VS Code UI as well, huh?

Re: Theia: Cloud and Desktop IDE

#130

Post by fxtentacle » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

jtdev wrote: post #54

Theia developers: The Eclipse brand in the IDE/code editor world is toxic to many developers; You may want to disassociate Theia from Eclipse if you’re hoping for wide usage or pulling devs away from VS Code.

Agree. When I read Eclipse, I thought "icky" and scrolled down to see if maybe JetBrains will turn it into something usable. Since they're not in the list, I'll pass on this.

I'd rather rent a Windows Server so that I can remote desktop into IntelliJ than suffer through another IDE.

The productivity boost that you can get from using a great tool that you are intimately familiar with is just way too much to sacrifice in exchange for what boils down to less setup work for getting a new laptop ready for duty.