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0 pointsfr4nkr11mo ago0 comments

My point about VSC is that brands itself as "open source" when Microsoft clearly intends for it to have a proprietary, tightly controlled ecosystem. It's not just RMS-unapproved, it's practically a lie. You can use it as a FOSS editor, but only if you are willing to accept a vastly subpar experience. Oh, and they've started cracking down on people using their proprietary VSC plugins in derived editors, too.

I expected it to be a little less convenient to leave Microsoft's beaten path. I did not expect it to be a massive waste of time. This is what I meant by futile. Not only is it apparently very brittle, it's missing large swaths of VSC's ecosystem. Hell, I don't even know if the extension I wanted is available on OpenVSX because it's still down!

If Microsoft hadn't openwashed their product, I wouldn't care nearly as much.

Besides, Emacs still provides a streamlined system for managing packages on top of being hackable. It even makes installing and upgrading packages straight from a Git repo easy. Sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too.

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mrlongroots11mo ago

Exactly this.

For me, the C/C++ language pack stopped working overnight with Cursor. This was clearly because of commercial concerns about derivative IDEs fairly and squarely gaining traction over the original product. But it broke my workflow a couple hours before a meeting.

I use neovim with LSPs and this is unimaginable in my world. I have started using IDEs only because the productivity gains from better LLM integration are undeniable. Sure I moved to clangd in Cursor and it was all fine, but the IDE actively pushes you to install Microsoft extensions, that can be yanked off whenever some Msft PM decides "oh we didn't actually want our competitors to be making money".

LLVM/GCC/Neovim/Apache projects are open-source. Anything that is "open-source until it is not" is not open source, and this perfectly describes VSCode today.

firejake30811mo ago

I saw someone mention Avante on here a few days ago, which looks like it tries to emulate the Cursor experience in Neovim. Might be worth a look: https://github.com/yetone/avante.nvim

bayindirh11mo ago

When people started to toot the horn of VSCode, esp. younger, inexperienced people, I personally warned quite a few of them about Microsoft's practices and motivations. Of course, who listens to a graybeard who's talking about impending doom? All answered " Microsoft <3 Open Source, what are you talking about?"

And here we are.

I hate to be right about things sometimes.

cortesoft11mo ago

> You can use it as a FOSS editor, but only if you are willing to accept a vastly subpar experience.

Why is this Microsoft's fault, though? Nothing is stopping the open source community from creating a more resilient extension distribution system.

throwup23811mo ago

The problem isn't the distribution system, it's the licenses on the flagship Microsoft extensions that provide C/C++, Python, Javascript/Typescript, etc. support. Those licenses are entirely Microsoft's fault.

jhanschoo11mo ago

My 2pence. C/C++ experience on VSCode is still subpar compared to other IDEs. Python is good, but very viable alternatives to VSCode exist. The biggest unique value proposition regarding languages is in TypeScript support. Support for many other languages still come from authorities from those languages who have no issue making them available on the open registry.

For me, the killer proprietary extension is their remote development extensions.

miohtama11mo ago

Language servers are open source. One can write your own extension like we do today for Vim and Emacs.

There is no reason we should expect Microsoft to invest tens of millions of dollars into a product development and give it free for competitors like Cursor. That's not just rational, even for companies that are not Microsoft.

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watusername11mo ago

I wonder if more differentiated branding would have helped. Chrome/Chromium is another example that came to mind: Like "Code - OSS" (the open-source base of VSCode), Chromium works just fine as a browser but with fewer Google-related features (syncing, DRM, etc). People seem to happily use Chromium despite the limitations (many actively seek them!), and I don't remember there being a controversy like this.

pdntspa11mo ago

It's very easy to point VSCodium at the official MS extension marketplace. Everything works.

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