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You Need to Ditch VS Code

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Re: You Need to Ditch VS Code

#71

Post by alecco »

diarrhea wrote: post #25

No thank you... One of the primary things shells are supposed to excel at is file system navigation and manipulation, but the experience is horrible. I can never get `cp`, `rsync`, `mv`, `find` right without looking them up, despite trying to learn. It's way too easy to mess up irreversibly and destructively. One example is flattening a directory. You accidentally git-cloned one too deep, into `some/dir/dir/` and wan…

LLMs make all those commands trivial to learn. Back in the day we had to study whole man pages meant as reference. Like keeping attention for minutes at a time. The horror!

Re: You Need to Ditch VS Code

#72

Post by rounce »

my_brain_saying wrote: post #62
rounce wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every VSCode (Neo)Vim plugin I’ve tried (most, if not all of them) is a janky mess of random missing features and/or broken state handling. They’ve all felt like a worse experience than just doing things the ‘normal’ VSCode way.

You are trying very niche plugins then... my experience has been superb for almost 10 years now. Recently I started using LazyVim by folke which I think is a really polished experience as well. Worth trying out if you don't like the regular plugin workflow.

That name rings a bell, I recall trying it but I’ll give it another go next time I find myself opening vsc, cheers!. Most of the time I just use VSCode as a visual debugger but it’d be nice to make minor changes without making typos due to vim-brain muscle memory.

Edit: just looked up LazyVim and it seems to just be a prebuilt neovim config atop the VSCode-Neovim extension which was one of the aforementioned janky experiences (IIRC undo stack wasn’t shared with VSCode and would get out of sync). I think I tried it as a last ditch effort because someone else said that it’ll fix VSCode-Neovim plugin deficiencies but I ended up just going back to my simple but effective neovim config and using VSCode as a visual debugger. I’ll give it another go if you reckon it’s much better though.

Re: You Need to Ditch VS Code

#73

Post by DecoySalamander »

It's all-round horrible advice. Once you have developed an understanding of 'fundamental operations', such as code formatting and file operations — and, realistically, you will already have done so if you are doing any programming — the next step is to automate them so that they take no time or mental energy, leaving you to work on things that matter. IDEs help with that.

Incidentally, the reason the tabs vs. spaces debate has died down is the proliferation of autoformatting. It really doesn't matter once you don't have to spend your precious time manually aligning code.

Re: You Need to Ditch VS Code

#74

Post by diarrhea »

monooso wrote: post #31
diarrhea wrote: post #25

No thank you... One of the primary things shells are supposed to excel at is file system navigation and manipulation, but the experience is horrible. I can never get `cp`, `rsync`, `mv`, `find` right without looking them up, despite trying to learn. It's way too easy to mess up irreversibly and destructively. One example is flattening a directory. You accidentally git-cloned one too deep, into `some/dir/dir/` and wan…

I agree that certain commands require some effort to learn, but I would not include `cp` or `mv` in that list.

I have trouble gauging the effects of `*`, aka "will I cp/mv the dir or all contents of the dir"? Then shell expansion getting in the way, like expanding it all ("argument list too long"). I try to use rsync when possible, where intermittent `.` in paths are relevant, as well as trailing slashes... and don't forget `-a`! Then I forget if those same things apply to cp/mv. Then I cp one directory too deep and need to undo the mess -- no CTRL+Z!

The wide-spread use of `rm -rf some-ostensibly-empty-dir/` is also super dangerous, when `rm -r` or even `rmdir` would suffice, but you need to remember those exist. I find it strange there's no widely (where applicable) available `rm-to-trash`, which would be wildly safer and is table stakes for Desktop work otherwise.

Then there's `dd`...

I use terminals a lot, but a GUI approach (potentially with feedback pre-operation) plus undo/redo functionality for file system work is just so much easier to work with. As dumb as drag-and-drop with a mouse is, a single typo can't wreck your day.

Re: You Need to Ditch VS Code

#75

Post by heratsi »

I've moved to VS Code after almost 20 years of Emacs. Couldn't been happier.

Spent a little time hacking hotkeys to match my Emacs muscle memory and that's mostly it.

Now I have a debugger that's actually easy to use, ability to run the test case under the cursor in one click and support for Jupyter Notebooks. However, still missing tab completion.

Re: You Need to Ditch VS Code

#76

Post by 20k »

>Every time you:

>Look up a Git command instead of clicking a button

>You're building real, transferable skills that make you a better programmer.

I'm convinced that the only reason that people think git is complicated, is because of the incredibly widespread elitist attitudes around using a GUI for git

This is a hot take, but a GUI for git is strictly better (unless you're scripting). You can do incredibly complicated operations at the click of a button, far more safely than you can through the CLI

But even then, the idea that you actually learn anything by using the CLI is just not true. The longest running meme with git is that people just learn a few commands to copypaste in without actually remembering anything. You stick to your tiny niche because you don't know what's actually happening nor is it possible for a human being to truly remember all of the syntax: This meme exists for a reason https://xkcd.com/1597/

Git via a GUI gives you the freedom to actually use all of git. You learn how git actually works, all the power of it - how to merge complex things, and you can create really nice workflows that are powerful and easy to use. You come out of using the GUI for a while with a strong understanding of what git is, not what the git CLI is. The skill I care about is the former

The CLI teaches you nothing by virtue of it being a CLI. All you learn via the CLI specifically is the ability to type accurately without making mistakes, and gain a strong fear of hitting enter. The underlying concepts are the important skill, and you absolutely do learn those via a GUI - much more effectively without the hard wall of an archaic CLI interface in the way

Re: You Need to Ditch VS Code

#77

Post by iepathos »

Research on calculator use in early math education (notably the Hembree & Dessart meta-analysis of 79 studies) found that students given calculators performed better at math - including on paper-and-pencil tests without calculators. The hypothesis is that calculators handle computation, freeing cognitive bandwidth and time for problem-solving and conceptual understanding. Problem solving and higher level concepts matter far more than memorizing multiplication and division tables.

I think about this often when discussing AI adoption with people. It's also relevant to this VS Code discussion which is tangential to the broader AI assisted development discussion. This post conflates tool proficiency with understanding. You can deeply understand Git's DAG model while never typing git reflog. Conversely, you can memorize every terminal command and still design terrible systems.

The scarce resource for most developers isn't "knows terminal commands" - it's "can reason about complex systems under uncertainty." If a tool frees up bandwidth for that, that's a net win. Not to throw shade at hyper efficient terminal users, I live in the terminal and recommend it, but it isn't going to make you a better programmer just by using it instead of an IDE for writing code. It isn't reasoning and understanding about complex systems that you gain from living in a terminal. You gain efficiency, flexibility, and nerd cred - all valuable, but none of them are systems thinking.

The auto-complete point in the post is particularly ironic given how critical it is for terminal users and that most vim users also rely heavily on auto-complete. Auto-complete does not limit your effectiveness, it's provably the opposite.

Re: You Need to Ditch VS Code

#78

Post by globalnode »

While this issue is up, I've recently been looking for an alternative to vscode for personal use because it runs so slow now with a few other programs running in the background. My main requirement is copy paste needs to be ctrl+c, ctrl+v and text selection needs to be ctrl shift + arrow keys or some combination of those. Using geany for a week or so hasn't been terrible but its not great either.

Re: You Need to Ditch VS Code

#79

Post by abc123abc123 »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #9

"You should not let your IDE do the thinking for you" As a solo entrepreneur, if something enables me to execute faster, I'll gladly use it. Articles like this only remind me to never (again) hire expensive, pedantic, over-principled and cynical engineers.

Strange. Articles like this remind me never to hire vibe coding brogrammers who have no idea about basics such as cp, mv, find etc. Usually they leave behind a mess which soon breaks.

The cynical and pedantic engineers however, do excellent work, and their software never breaks. It takes longer, you pay a bit more, but it is worth every cent.

Re: You Need to Ditch VS Code

#80

Post by donkeybeer »

diarrhea wrote: post #74
monooso wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that certain commands require some effort to learn, but I would not include `cp` or `mv` in that list.

I have trouble gauging the effects of `*`, aka "will I cp/mv the dir or all contents of the dir "? Then shell expansion getting in the way, like expanding it all ("argument list too long"). I try to use rsync when possible, where intermittent `.` in paths are relevant, as well as trailing slashes... and don't forget `-a`! Then I forget if those same things apply to cp/mv. Then I cp one directory too deep and need to…

If using dd for messing with filesystems and partitions, then I don't know how much more a gui will save you. Its an inherently scary task that needs some thinking first. Personally, that stuff always scares me gui or not.
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