> Meanwhile, everyone is absolutely free to create a native VSCode clone. But that isn't happening at least for now.
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.
1: https://nova.app/
