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Zed: High-performance AI Code Editor

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Re: Zed: High-performance AI Code Editor

#191

Post by hombre_fatal »

benlm wrote: post #78
terhechte wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the new agent panel not everything is editable. Maybe give it another try.

I really miss the everything is editable panel, it felt like a superpower. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but after it’s amazing and everything else feels limited.

Off topic: Fully editable AI chat conversation should really be the norm.

Editing and deleting not only your messages but also the LLM's messages should be trivial.

One of the coolest things about LLM tech is that it's stateless, yet we leave that value on the floor when UIs act like it's not.

Re: Zed: High-performance AI Code Editor

#192

Post by sroussey »

sapiogram wrote: post #170
kubik369 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are using MacOS, unfortunately, your issue is that you are using a 1440p monitor, not an issue with any one program. Apple has removed support for font rendering methods which make text on non-integer scaled screens look sharper. As a result, if you want to use your screen without blurry text, you have to use 1080p (1x), 4k (2x 1080p), 5k (2x 1440p) or 6k screens (or any other screens where integer scaling loo…

This comment is incorrect, I have tried the editor on both MacOS and Linux, and texts looks like crap on both if you're using your screen at its native resolution. The difference is easily visible in screenshots. Example Zed screenshot, using "Ayu Light": https://i.ibb.co/Nr8SjvR/Screenshot-from-2024-07-28-13-11-10... Same code in VS Code: https://i.ibb.co/YZfPXvZ/Screenshot-from-2024-07-28-13-13-41...

Looks like anti-aliasing on a hi-dpi monitor which you shouldn't do.

Re: Zed: High-performance AI Code Editor

#193

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

ndiddy wrote: post #181
duped wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, it's not worth the trouble. I don't care enough about using Zed to fix their Linux distribution problems or debug something for them. This isn't some volunteer backed FOSS project where they get a free pass or free QA work from me.

What's the point of commenting that it's slow if you don't care about using the program and switched to something else? Also, how is whether the project is volunteer-run relevant? Would you file a support ticket for commercial software you use saying "it's slow" and then when they follow up asking for details about your setup, you say "sorry, you don't get free QA work from me"? Do you really think that would lead to…

There is great enthusiasm for the editor in this thread. A personal anecdote indicating subpar performance on a common developer environment (Linux) is a useful signal that took a few seconds of effort.

Putting together a high quality, actionable bug report is a much higher bar that can often feel like screaming at the clouds.

Re: Zed: High-performance AI Code Editor

#194

Post by rtfeldman »

ramon156 wrote: post #188

I've used zed both for work and personal projects. I'm not a fan of the direction they're going. I don't want "agentic" tools, I just want to back and forth with an LLM to get a better idea. I've specified in my markdown to not write actual code to files. Would be nice if this was togglable in settings. Apart from that, it's a hell of a lot better than alternatives, and my god is it fast. When I think about the perfe…

> I don't want "agentic" tools, I just want to back and forth with an LLM to get a better idea.

Ah! So you can get that experience with the agent panel (despite "agent" being in the name).

If you click the dropdown next to the model (it will say "Write" by default) and change it from "Write" to "Minimal" then it disables all the agentic tool use and becomes an ordinary back-and-forth chat with an LLM where you can add context manually if you like.

Also, you can press the three-dots menu in the upper-right and choose New Text Thread if you want something more customizable but still not agentic.

Re: Zed: High-performance AI Code Editor

#195

Post by tgtweak »

I get the high performance component, but it seems most of their speed is from underlying models supporting a "diff style" edits and that a small percentage of it is from code-level text-editing optimizations and improvements.

vscode running a typescript extension (cline, gemini, cursor, etc) to achieve LLM-enhanced coding is probably the least efficient way to do it in terms of cpu usage, but the features they bring are what actually speeds up your development tasks - not the "responsiveness" of it all. It seems that we're making text editing and html rendering out to be a giant lift on the system when it's really not a huge part of the equation for most people using LLM tooling in their coding workflows.

Maybe I'm wrong but when I looked at zed last (about 2 months ago) the AI workflow was surprisingly clunky and while the editor was fast, the lack of tooling support and model selection/customization left me heading back to vscode/cline which has been getting nearly two updates per week since that time - each adding excellent new functionality.

Does responsiveness trump features and function?

Re: Zed: High-performance AI Code Editor

#196

Post by rtfeldman »

tgtweak wrote: post #195

I get the high performance component, but it seems most of their speed is from underlying models supporting a "diff style" edits and that a small percentage of it is from code-level text-editing optimizations and improvements. vscode running a typescript extension (cline, gemini, cursor, etc) to achieve LLM-enhanced coding is probably the least efficient way to do it in terms of cpu usage, but the features they bring…

> Maybe I'm wrong but when I looked at zed last (about 2 months ago) the AI workflow was surprisingly clunky

I'm curious what you think of this launch! :D

We've overhauled the entire workflow - the OP link describes how it works now.

Re: Zed: High-performance AI Code Editor

#197

Post by askonomm »

krastanov wrote: post #18
askonomm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1440p monitor would probably be why the text is blurry - there simply isn't enough pixels to make things smooth without resorting to special hacks to improve LowDPI text rendering, which with more and more displays being HiDPI many don't bother doing.

I am amazed people consider 1440p low resolution. My knee-jerk reaction was to assume you were sarcastic. I use a monitor of roughly that many lines of pixels and have never had observed blurry text in the tools I use (and I use fairly small fonts).

I mean the last time I saw anyone have a 1440p display was back in the early 2010's, so ... nowadays most people that I know buy 4k 27"/32" displays at minimum, with 5k displays gaining popularity as the price for them goes down. Macbooks for example come with a very high resolution display, and so do most high-end PC laptops, too.

Re: Zed: High-performance AI Code Editor

#198

Post by duped »

ndiddy wrote: post #181
duped wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, it's not worth the trouble. I don't care enough about using Zed to fix their Linux distribution problems or debug something for them. This isn't some volunteer backed FOSS project where they get a free pass or free QA work from me.

What's the point of commenting that it's slow if you don't care about using the program and switched to something else? Also, how is whether the project is volunteer-run relevant? Would you file a support ticket for commercial software you use saying "it's slow" and then when they follow up asking for details about your setup, you say "sorry, you don't get free QA work from me"? Do you really think that would lead to…

The point was contradicting another comment with my own experience, not to putz around with bug reports or trouble shooting.

I don't care about Zed fixing anything - they're Zed's issues, not mine. All I'm saying is that contrary to what someone else said about the software being "fast" I tried it and at startup, it was unusably slow. I'm what you would call a failed conversion.

> Also, how is whether the project is volunteer-run relevant? Would you file a support ticket for commercial software you use saying "it's slow" and then when they follow up asking for details about your setup, you say "sorry, you don't get free QA work from me"

So this is kind of needlessly antagonistic imo - the point between the lines is that FOSS projects run by volunteers get a lot more grace than venture backed companies that go on promotion blitzes talking about their performance.

Re: Zed: High-performance AI Code Editor

#199

Post by mapcars »

ramon156 wrote: post #188

I've used zed both for work and personal projects. I'm not a fan of the direction they're going. I don't want "agentic" tools, I just want to back and forth with an LLM to get a better idea. I've specified in my markdown to not write actual code to files. Would be nice if this was togglable in settings. Apart from that, it's a hell of a lot better than alternatives, and my god is it fast. When I think about the perfe…

In the assistant panel there is a mode option - write / ask / minimal, it sounds like what you are looking for.

Anyway you can always make your prompts to do or not do certain actions, they are adding more features, if you want you can ignore some of them - this is not contradictory.

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