Ask HN: Could VSCode be the new Emacs? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Could VSCode be the new Emacs?

#91

Post by kamaal » Wed, Nov 10, 2021, 3:43 AM UTC

stnmtn wrote: post #84

kamaal wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Just timed it myself, started and ready to go in 120ms. Let me get this straight. You plan to code for hours, and your biggest concern at this point in time is your editor takes 1 - 2 seconds more to start? A second is 1.666666666667% of a minute. And 0.02777777777% of an hour. Just how much more productive are you getting by saving this time? On the other hand emacs is notorious for making users spend days to get…

Programmer brains are weird, and are stimulated thoroughly by any and all optimization, especially ones that are impossible to not see On the scale of reality, it's obviously less time to just pick up VScode in a few hours of learning (if that), and then deal with it taking 2-3 seconds to launch But on the scale of programmer brain, it's clearly wayyyy better to invest days into learning emacs, writing custom configs…

That's ok if all you write is something like C or C++.

If you are writing html, css, react, js, python, sql and myriad other things. Then having all of this configured to your likings is a multi month project. While vscode gets you up and running in minutes.

Edit efficiency should be least of your worries. vscode constantly reminds me if I forgot to import something, or if I imported something and forgot to use it. It lets me navigate code semantically, not just through text tags. It lets me debug, have a project running on a remote box, and let me work on it like Im working locally etc etc. Writing a full feature list will make this a blog post/book.

At the end of the day my job is write code, not to work on side tooling projects.

Re: Ask HN: Could VSCode be the new Emacs?

#92

Post by Otek » Wed, Nov 10, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

loxias wrote: post #54

Otek wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

personal bias: i've been using vscode for about 4 years > I couldn't type more than a few lines before the high latency, and the fact that I could feel my CPU heating up, gave me all the info I needed. Consider that you must be doing something deeply wrong? I have a MacBook Pro (2015) i7, 4 cores, 16GB of ram, and VS Code is quite fast.

I'll take that bet! Keep in mind I said "when it came out". I don't know when that was, and maybe it's improved. A bit. That being said, the fact that VS Code isn't a native application, but something run as a local web app, is all the info you need. (no idea how it's gonna grab the keybindings it's gonna need if it's in a web browser... and the fact that it burns CPU on blinking the cursor isn't exactly a sign of Qu…

> And if VSCode seems fast on your machine, you should check out emacs! ;)

I did, I rely heavily on code completion, hinting, linting, marking unused variables, lighting big red light when I made type error... you get the point. And I have two conclusions. First is that setting all up how i like it was a pain, I finally had to use Doom Emacs as a boilerplate (kudos for hlissner, I believe this is best Emacs hope for new users), and it made it bearable, but whole setup felt really slow when UI had to take second or two before showing my precious type error.

Now, I really believe you when you are saying that i could make it faster. It's just that I would have to put evenings just to be basically in the same place.

Additionally, I would replace the most popular editor with one that has an almost negligible share of the "market".

The "it burns CPU on blinking the cursor" argument doesn't appeal to me at all, because it's not like the computer is unresponsive because that cursor is blinking, or even noticeably slower. I have to spend dozens of hours learning and configuring emacs to make parameters I don't notice improve?

Re: Ask HN: Could VSCode be the new Emacs?

#93

Post by siproprio » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 7:56 PM UTC

kangaroopouch wrote: post #9

> But are there any other reasons, technical or otherwise, why people don't seem to use VSCode for things beyond editing code? The best answer I've seen to this question is https://www.murilopereira.com/the-values-of-emacs-the-neovim... Amongst other things, it lists different values that each tool prioritizes, and how "Core values are self-reinforcing. They attract like-minded people, who will then defend them." Ema…

Let me correct you on one thing:

> VSCode: Approachability, Integration, Maintainability, Progressiveness, Velocity.

VSCode: Microsoft, Approachability, ~Integration~, ~Maintainability~, ~Progressiveness~, ~Velocity~.