Electron = slow and big install
Even if other tools are objectively slower and bloatier, it is a immutable law that Electron = slow and big install
In my experience, other IDEs have either a really high learning curve, needless bloat, or are closer to a notepad with extra features rather than a full fledged developing environment.
You can open VSCode and be welcomed by a lot of development features right on your face and wander through a lot of recommended add ons that add extra value out of the box. Also, since is electron based, multiplatform support is a no brainer.
Meanwhile, everyone is absolutely free to create a native VSCode clone. But that isn't happening at least for now. Maybe UI toolkits are a mess, maybe trying to mimic an UI in a 2D library is a PITA, maybe it's that an extensions engine needs to implement some "easier to develop" language (like javascript or Lua) and a full fledged interpreter for it, and it's so much work one would rather stick with Electron and be done with it.
Everyone hates VSCode, but nobody ever has managed to offer a competing alternative.
I think Nova[1] is generally angling for that spot on Mac. I really wanted to embrace it, and someday if I have a bunch of free time to indulge my curiosity I may well do. But…
> Everyone hates VSCode, but nobody ever has managed to offer a competing alternative.
This, plus even trying a new editor that isn’t a ~direct copy of a successful incumbent is a huge investment in time, energy, and delay/diversion of muscle memory.
I resisted VSCode for years, and skipped several others entirely, because I could half ass most of what I cared about with TextMate and the other tools I had at hand. When I finally caved on VSC, reconfiguring it and myself to be maximally productive took an enormous effort.
I’m getting old and I have shit to do. I’ll do it maybe one more time in my life, but only if something comes along with a new-value proposition on the order of what VSC brought me:
- actual semantic language awareness, which works everywhere
- incredibly flexible and accurate reference navigation, again everywhere
- commit history where I’m working, whenever I need it
- debugging that’s almost seamless with editing, regardless of what’s being debugged
- I hardly even care about extensibility because most of what I need is built in, but when I do need to look for an extension it’s almost always exactly what I want (doesn’t break flow, does well what it says on the tin, doesn’t come with a kitchen sink unless it’s supposed to)
- everything I’ve missed from previous editor preferences either has a built in config equivalent or a perfectly cromulent alternative
- bonus points to VSC team beyond these criteria: 9/10 times I install an update, some new feature addresses a problem I didn’t even know I could put in words
Maybe another round of that is possible, but I’m not holding my breath.
These look similar to haters who claimed horse cart can't be faster than automobile once some performance optimizations are put in place.
I have seen a tiny number that performed decently once running, but they are the exceptions.
This isn't the 1990s. My username alone should show I went through a period where the size of the binary and the memory size mattered.
These days with have gigabyte/terabyte hard drives and gigabytes of RAM. It generally sits unused and the O/S will handle reallocating if you really put the pressure on.
I'm not too concerned about VS Code hitting my RAM cap. Right now, with the entire front-end of a large enterprise application loaded, it's using 350 MB of RAM.
Meaningless in the grand scheme of things. And it's fast, on a 3 year old laptop.
