Beside that reason (true) a mayor roadblock would be that the iOS simulator (the simulated debug device running alongside Xcode on the development host) is a simulator, not an emulator: it runs iOS libraries re-compiled for x64 using the macOS kernel (and the macOS Foundation and Cocoa libraries) support. Porting that on another host OS is probably borderline impossible. Doing something borderline impossible that wil…
There are tons of Android emulators running under Windows. So it doesn't seem borderline impossible. The easiest thing would probably be to virtualize the OS X kernel.
The phrasing chosen by the Eclipse foundation for the Theia 1.0 announcement was a bit unfortunate: - It's not Theia versus VS Code - Theia is not an "open-source alternative to VS Code" - Theia is not a "rip-off of VS Code" While confrontational narratives are appealing, it's more subtle than that: Theia is based on VS Code to address a different kind of need. Much like TypeScript doesn't try to replace JavaScript,…
Does building an IDE based on Theia provide significant benefit over simply releasing a plugin for vscode?
Sure, you don't develop something on the side for an existing IDE which treats your content as remote and potentially insecure, prohibiting access to DOM and other useful APIs like embedding editors. If you are building an end product for particular developers you want to be in the control of final developer experience, you don't want to deal with limitations of iframes because your content is not remote, you want to change styles, access DOM and have good integration with editors. Consider new Arduino IDE, they have to provide similar UX as old IDE for smooth transition. It requires disabling many features by default and complete restyling and rebranding. There is no way to do it with VS Code apis.