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I switched from VSCode to Zed

tenthousandmeters.com

181–190 of 440 posts

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#181

Zed is great and lightweight, one thing that stops me from it becoming my daily driver is the weak git integration (specifically, the lack of a history tree). From what I understand, eventually those features will get there.

same here. pycharm is still miles ahead in this regard. I use lazygit which plugs the holes (though pycharm is still the best that I have used).

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#182
post #60

I want to switch to Zed from JetBrains but I am too used to [1] and it seems no other editor besides JetBrains IDEs seem too interested in implementing it the way JetBrains does. 1 - https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/7721

JetBrains is well thought out in terms of capabilities. There are some core features that work so much better out of the box than with the best plugins in others. Local History (or even for a selection) with search, stacked clipboard, recent locations, how good search is in general (text, symbols, actions etc), how in-modal buffers work, debugging experience, version control merging experience, etc etc Old now fixed…

Yep, when these new editors-wanna-be ide will focus on delivering JetBrains level debugger, global search (really global through files, actions, whatever you can imagine) then maybe I will switch.

It amazes me they all put debugging as a second class citizen. Are these people the ones who debug with printfs?

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I didn’t notice that it hasn’t been updated since ‘21 (TM2), but I still use it every day. Just a reliable, minimal, fully native (no electron, etc) editor that is flexible enough to keep adding new bundles to. I’m sad it’s not in development, but happy it’s an oasis from AI coding.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Perhaps reserve your mind being blown for situations where the GP hasn’t confused pixel count and pixel density. Zed “supports” 1080p monitors just fine. Supports is in quotes because it doesn’t need to do anything nor care at all about the count of pixels on the screen.

If you can call the left image [1] "supporting 1080p" I guess Zed supports it. But it looks like VS Code and other editors somehow support it better without getting blurry.

Keep in mind that Zed developers [2] consider blurry fonts on low DPI displays a Priority 1 issue, and a reproducible bug that is commonly encountered.

I'm sure if there was no blurry font issue with Zed, they would just close this bug report.

[1]: https://ibb.co/zVS0Qz6z

[2]: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/7992

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#185
I love the minimalism and speed of Zed. The Zed Agent is exceptional!

It doesn't easily allow for parallel work like Claude Code in a Terminal but for a single session it is just as good plus it makes it really easy to switch between models. I also find it super useful when I'm working on our large monorepo, the minimal and fast ui makes it super easy to pull in the right context of folders, files, snippets etc to help the Agent.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#186

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…

Bravo, I respect that VS Code has added a single setting to disable all AI features. It prioritizes user choice and agency. Considering there was a recent rebranding as "the open source AI code editor", it means a lot to new and existing users that there's a choice to not use AI.

For many companies and products it's apparently hard to do these days when LLM integration is the hot new thing pushed by management and investors. Developers, users, and citizens deserve the respect and right to opt-out from AI features as it permeates other areas of work, life, computing, commerce and governance.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#187
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish AI had more access IDE-type features such as renaming or moving methods to another class. Claude often makes mistakes here because it doesn't have all the fancy tooling and indexing that IntelliJ has.

Claude recently got LSP plugins

Ah, thank you. I missed this over Christmas.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46355165

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#188

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 knew I was right to stick it out with Emacs, despite the world telling me literally everyone was using VS Code now. Emacs bros unite!

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That all makes sense. The only thing I was missing was that this refers to power output. It seems like kind of a niche and tenuous value-add for a monitor. Why would I want to get power from my monitor?

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#190

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 been happily using Doom Emacs on Linux as VSCode replacement. When I switched to macOS, I found the experience to be rather slow with significant input lag, though. (And yes, I did use native compilation.) Has something changed in that regard, or did you just accept it?

Many Emacs functions are sluggish on my work Mac, but I found out that this is because the Cisco endpoint security software stops and checks every binary that runs, every single Goddamn time, which means that things which shell out, like M-x compile and anything in magit, are noticeably slower.
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