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I switched from VSCode to Zed

tenthousandmeters.com

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Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#351

Post by artur-gawlik »

artur-gawlik wrote: post #350
artur-gawlik wrote: post #346

I'm using vscode for couple of years now. I have disabled all AI related features with "chat.disableAIFeatures" option and it worked really well in my case. But I was convinced by this article to checkout zed mainly tempted by the promise of much better performance because it is written in native language instead of javascript. So to test it out I've opened https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/blob/main/src/compil…

additionally there is currently ongoing effort to make main editor to be rendered with WebGPU instead of DOM nodes, which I'm really waiting to happen.

this is the issue that tracks that effort https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/221145

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#352

Post by japhyr »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #347
japhyr wrote: post #37

I've been frustrated by the constant nudges to use specific AI tools from within VS Code, but I made a different change. Rather than moving to a different editor altogether, I started using VS Codium. If you're unfamiliar, it's the open core of VS Code, without the Microsoft-branded features that make up VS Code. I believe Microsoft builds VS Code releases by building VS Codium, and then adding in their own branded f…

I can't say I've noticed any "nudges" to use AI tools in VS Code. I saw a prompt for Copilot but I closed it, and it hasn't been back. I'm probably barely scratching the surface of what I can do with it, but as a code editor it works well and it's the first time I've ever actually found code completion that seems to work well with the way I think. There aren't any formatters for a couple of the languages I use on a d…

I'm a teacher, so I help people get started setting up a programming environment on a regular basis. If you take a new system that hasn't been configured for programming work at all, and install a fresh copy of VS Code, you'll see a number of calls to action regarding AI usage. I don't want to walk people through installing an editor only to then tell them they have to disable a bunch of "features".

This isn't an anti-AI stance; I use AI tools on a daily basis. I put "features" in quotes because some of these aren't really features, they're pushes to pay for subscriptions to specific Microsoft AI services. I want to choose when to incorporate AI tools, which tools to incorporate, and not have them popping up like a mobile news site without an ad blocker.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#354

Post by benji8000 »

SnowingXIV wrote: post #250
r4victor wrote: post #38

Hi, I'm the author of the post. I hope it resonates with many who got tired of VSCode and found Zed. I'd also like to add there are many small features I miss in Zed that I don't go over in the post, e.g. autodetect and respect file's indentation ( https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/4681 ). But I see Zed is actively shipping the missing features, so I believe they'll improve significantly over the next year…

Have you tried using vim? Or rather nvim? If tinkering is your thing, feel free to completely do your own setup but out of the box lazyvim is pretty sane and you may not need much to get it to your liking. But it’s very nice to easily able to extend or modify to fit your workflow. I’m just curious what people are getting out of zed that seems like vim has available.

+1 for lazyvim. I tried multiple times to switch to nvim from vscode, but lazyvim finally made it painless. love lazygit too. debugging in nvim also works like a charm.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#355

Post by _sinelaw_ »

I also got tired of the bloat and also prefer working from the terminal.

I'm building Fresh [0] [1] as an alternative to VSCode that runs in your terminal, with the main goal being ease-of-use out of the box (not a vi-clone modal editor), for example supports mouse, menu, command palette, etc out of the box. LSP as well. I'm focused on making it easy to use with minimum or zero configuration.

[0] https://github.com/sinelaw/fresh [1] https://sinelaw.github.io/fresh/

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#356

Post by thaneross »

dijit wrote: post #344
yndoendo wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact. I do not financially support any restaurant that has a Wall-street ticker. I wish more people would do this. There should be no reason to fund some CEO on Wall-street when we can benefit more by funding local communities. P.S. You have to pay me to use Microsoft products and to engage with Amazon.

I think this is quite ironic actually. If I understood the history correctly, being a "shareholder" was a path to a fractional business ownership for people who could not afford to outright own a business. It comes from the same mental position as a co-operative. In these scenarios, a CEO is really just an employee of sorts for the shareholders. It's quite funny that we see the CEO of a publicly traded company has wo…

Given the top 10% holds 87% of shares, it seems clear the stock market is primarily a tool to compound wealth. Having a surplus of money is table stakes to play.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#357

Post by _sinelaw_ »

lvl155 wrote: post #348

For such an incomplete product, Zed sure is popular among devs. I guess they love to waste time working with a tool missing key features. I can forgive all that but Zed has one of the worst UIs I’ve experienced in a long time.

What specifically are you missing from Zed? (not a Zed user but curious to know)

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#358

Post by gethly »

My daily driver is JetBrains. I never liked VS Code, or rather VS Codium. I use it as text editor and only when i want to open a directory i do not care about(ie. some old or foreign code) or really need syntax highlighting. I had high hopes for Zed, despite that built-in AI crap, but after I tried it I still could not configure my syntax highlighting theme, like i can in jetbrains, and for some reason going to definitions in std libraries does not work(i tested with odin). I am not fan of JetBrains and their pricing policies or their new ui changes. So i am working on my own editor/ide right now and I just wanted to mention that zed was the final nudge for me to do it.

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#359

Post by _sinelaw_ »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #57

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'm also a long time emacs user (>15 years) but got tired of the endless config fiddling, with some packages breaking over emacs versions, other packages which were cool at the time slowly getting stale and need to switch to yet another similar incarnation of the same idea. And most of all having to recover the config every time I use a new computer or just connect to a new VM.

I'm building an alternative, and I haven't opened emacs for a month now

Re: I switched from VSCode to Zed

#360

Post by dejw »

Zed, VSCode, Antigravity, Sublime Text... They all have the same workflow. For writing the code by hand I recommend Helix, batteries included, fast and efficient. For AI-assisted development it doesn't matter and you'd have to switch the app every 4 months if you want to choose the best one.
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