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I switched from VSCode to Zed

tenthousandmeters.com

211–220 of 440 posts

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t get this attitude. What deal do you mean? You using VS Code? Why not change the setting simply?

You should really look in to the difference between opt-in and opt-out. Opt-in respects the user; opt-out is for foisting features that the user might not need or want.

Flip it around: a new user might be confused why the AI features that all their friends told them about are not available.

It's a tradeoff

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#212

Does Zed have something similar to VSCode Dev Containers ? That is one of the few things keeping me going on VSCode. For example, I frequently write Ansible playbooks. And with VSCode you can just fire up the Ansible-provided Dev Container with all the dependencies. Which means you don't have to clutter up your local system with them.

This falls under the "something similar" category but it's direnv support is great https://zed.dev/docs/configuring-zed#direnv-integration

It isn't 1:1 since there probably won't be ansible provided configs, but I find writing nix devshells per project to be low effort and high reward. It'll only be a couple lines if all you need is a specific version of ansible

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#213
NeoVim, Yazi, and Tmux are my go-to tools. When I need AI and Agents, I create multiple instances of Claude Code or Codex. However, I don’t let them interfere with my workflow if I don’t need them.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#214
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the point is just to loudly proclaim how virtuously anti-AI you are, how disruptive it actually is to your workflow is irrelevant.

Oh, I use coding assistants every day, just not the one that came with VSCode. Because I want to decide if/which coding assistant I want to use, not whatever VSCode forces upon me. In fact, at many companies, GitHub Copilot is explicitly forbidden. Not the smartest argument to brand this as anti-AI.

I really like the Copilot autocomplete across multiple symbols in the file (e.g. predictive edits that you can tab through).

For most other stuff I prefer Cline/RooCode/KiloCode, but sadly it doesn’t seem like any of those offer similar autocomplete (Continue.dev did with even Ollama support for local models but the whole plugin was a buggy mess and it didn’t work well). Oh and sometimes Claude Code or Codex is nice in a terminal directly.

Personally, I don’t mind something being there by default (same as how JetBrains has their pre installed plugin and also something like Junie available), as long as it’s easy to turn off or uninstall.

Similar to how I wouldn’t scoff at a Git integration plugin even if I prefer to use Sourcetree or GitKraken.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#215

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…

Hey, Ben.

I recently (less than 2 months ago) did an in-depth analysis in the area of license compliance that suggests that Microsoft and many other companies that are shipping Electron apps aren't in compliance with the LGPL. (By all signs, it looks like the Electron project might not even be aware that Electron is subject to the LGPL, though they are. Even Slack, which isn't violating the license appears to be in compliance only incidentally—because they're shipping other LGPL components that they know are LGPL.)

I was set to leave the company I was at a couple weeks later (end of November), and I did, so there haven't been any developments with my investigation/findings since I departed. I haven't prepared or published a formal write-up, and I've only brought it up in a semi-public setting once. It's a pretty big deal, though. Could you raise this with Microsoft legal (not Electron/GitHub) and suggest they look into this?

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#216

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 in…

I'd like to attach to this comment to say that we should support smaller companies. It doesn't matter how responsive a big company is if it controls too much surface area of the important technological salients.

Large company hegemony of our industry is bad. VSCode, Google Search + Chrome, mobile phone duopoly, Amazon/AWS/MGM/WholeFoods/TeleDoc conglomeration and cross promotion... It doesn't matter. We need more distribution of power.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#217
I tried Zed for a few months but just couldn't get the JavaScript/Python syntax checking and Prettier type reformatting to work reliably. I would poke at it for a few hours, get it working and then mysteriously, a few days later, it'd stop working again.

I switched to VSCode now and whilst that piece of it seems to be much more reliable, I think overall I prefer the "feel" of Zed.

I've bookmarked the article to see if that helps me figure out how to make the settings stick.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#218

I’m currently using a mix of Zed, Sublime, and VS Code. The biggest missing piece in Zed for my workflow right now is side-by-side diffs. There’s an open discussion about it, though it hasn’t seen much activity recently: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/26770 Stronger support for GDB/LLDB and broader C/C++ tooling would also be a big win. It’s pretty wild how bloated most software has become. Huge th…

I agree with that comment chain about the intelliJ diff view so much

https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/26770#disc...

I don't even need that to be built into the editor – I would pay for a fast, standalone git UI that is as good as the IntelliJ one. I use Sublime Merge right now and it's kind of ok but definitely not on the same level

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#219
post #8

I would have switched in a pinch if Zed had their low-DPI font rendering in order. At the moment it just looks bad.

I used to have the same complaint, and recently swapped to 4k monitors. I thought that would solve my zed font problems, but text presentation is still bad. In zed, it feels like there is significantly more spacing between each line compared to vscode (or any other text editor).

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#220

I’m currently using a mix of Zed, Sublime, and VS Code. The biggest missing piece in Zed for my workflow right now is side-by-side diffs. There’s an open discussion about it, though it hasn’t seen much activity recently: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/26770 Stronger support for GDB/LLDB and broader C/C++ tooling would also be a big win. It’s pretty wild how bloated most software has become. Huge th…

> I’m currently using a mix of Zed, Sublime, and VS Code.

Can you elaborate on when you use which editor? I'd have imagined that there's value in learning and using one editor in-depth, instead of switching around based on use-case, so I'd love to learn more about your approach.

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