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0 pointskUdtiHaEX4mo ago0 comments

2020: every day a new JS framework is announced

2024: every day a new Chrome fork browser is announced

2025: every day a new AI IDE vscode fork is announced

0 comments

femiagbabiaka4mo ago

2020: every day a new electron fork is announced

2024: every day a new electron fork is announced

2025: every day a new electron fork is announced

myhf4mo ago

There's only one electron. It looks like separate ones because it's traveling backwards and forwards in time.

killjoywashere4mo ago

For the uninitiated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

pooyamo4mo ago

>vscode fork

I wonder why they are not trying to fixup something based on their own GUI stacks like Flutter or Compose Multiplatform.

It seems only Zed is truly innovating in this space.

fooqux4mo ago

Well it's a helluva lot faster to make for one. For two, just about everyone knows how to navigate in vscode by now. Reducing the barrier of entry has obvious advantages.

koiueo4mo ago

I have Cursor at work. The only element of the interface I'm using (and know how to use) is the chat window.

IMO, it's an absolutely crappy IDE, crappy editor, with absolutely incomprehensible hostile UI.

I have almost two decades of experience with Vim, Emacs and IntelliJ. FWIW, I was able to easily find my ways in helix, kakoune and Zed.

2 more replies

rafark4mo ago

> just about everyone knows how to navigate in vscode by now.

I don’t know and honestly I hate the assumption of the software industry that everyone knows or uses vs code. I stuck to sublime for years until I made the switch to Jetbrains IDEs earlier this year.

I quickly looked up the market share and VS code seems to have about 70% which is a lot but the 30% that don’t use it is not that small of a number either.

Like I get it it’s very popular but it’s far from the only editor/IDE people use.

charcircuit4mo ago

These new editors are trying to differentiate themselves via their AI features. Working on the core editor may waste resources that could have been better spent improving the AI features.

embedding-shape4mo ago

Until someone finally figures out that we need to rethink editors from the ground up to support different sort of operations and editing experience, to better facilitate LLMs doing work as agents.

But we're probably 1-2 years away from there still, so we'll live with skinned-forks, VSCode extensions and TUIs for now.

1 more reply

bsimpson4mo ago

Making an IDE sounds like an insane amount of effort.

FWIW, the Fuchsia team was working on an editor that had a Flutter UI when run in Fuchsia:

https://xi-editor.io/frontends.html

1 more reply

botanrice4mo ago

How would you say Zed is innovating? Never heard of it, just taking a peek now.

pooyamo4mo ago

Zed team is writing their own in-house GUI stack [1] that leverages the computer's GPU with minimal middleware in-between. It's a lot of work short-term but IMO the payoff would be huge if they establish themselves. I imagine they could poke into the user-facing OS sector if their human-agent interaction is smooth. (I have not tried it yet though)

[1]: https://www.gpui.rs

2 more replies

koakuma-chan4mo ago

It's written from scratch in Rust. It's super fast, polished, etc. A world of difference compared to VSCode.

roywiggins4mo ago

it's fast

2 more replies

wiseowise4mo ago

> I wonder why they are not trying to fixup something extremely complex that only a handful players managed to get right using gui stacks made with only mobile in mind that are desperately trying to catch up to desktop now

CuriouslyC4mo ago

We need a VS Code fork that just exposes more interfaces, and does nothing else. Then all these forks could just use that with power extensions, and it'd force Microsoft to change its behavior.

diegof794mo ago

You just described Eclipse RCP.

The issue with Eclipse and that approach is the complexity of mixing plugins to do everything, which kills the UX.

When VSCode started, the differentiator from Atom and Eclipse was that the extension points were intentionally limited to optimize the user experience. But with the introduction of Copilot that wasn’t enough, hence the amount of forks.

I think that the Zed approach of having a common protocol to talk with agents (like a LSP but for agents) is much better. The only thing that holds me from switching to Zed is that so far my experience using it hasn’t been that good (it still has many rough edges)

CuriouslyC4mo ago

There's actually an ACP that has some traction as well, though I don't think it solves the problem of what the agent can do in vscode: https://agentcommunicationprotocol.dev/introduction/welcome

w3news4mo ago

Microsoft just fork Atom, and Atom had already good and a lot of extensions. Before Microsoft buy Github, there was no reason to switch to VSCode instead of Atom. When Microsoft buy Github, it received Atom from the Github team, and Microsoft stops the development of Atom. VSCode was just Atom with the Microsoft brand, and some little tweaks from Microsoft, never a game changer compared to Atom, like Atom was in it's time. Now Antigravity is again a fork with some little tweaks from VSCode, no game changer, just with the Google branding.

1 more reply

Mogzol4mo ago

there are now 15 competing standards

lozenge4mo ago

There's also Eclipse Che. They wrote a web based IDE from scratch and made it compatible with VS Code extensions but also provided extra APIs.

pdntspa4mo ago

Why is it so hard for these to be VSCode extensions and not forks?

Etheryte4mo ago

Microsoft has very specific constraints on what extensions can and can't do, it's not a free for all. They're actively defending their mote by allowing Copilot to do things in a way that extensions couldn't. That's why all the serious contenders make a fork, it's simply not possible to have the same integration otherwise.

hs864mo ago

A bit tangential, but I asked the new Gemini model about this, and it immediately traced back this quote to your username: https://gemini.google.com/share/144b46094d6e

Creepy stuff :)

1 more reply

TiredOfLife4mo ago

> They're actively defending their mote by allowing Copilot to do things in a way that extensions couldn't

That started to change in may.

https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2025/05/19/openSourceAIE...

https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2025/06/30/openSourceAIE...

https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2025/11/04/openSourceAIE...

dust424mo ago

Still it would be a lot wiser if all the forkers would do one 'AI-enabled' fork together that exposes all the extras that copilot gets. The barrier for testing would be much lower and all the extension makers would also jump onto the train. Likely MS would finally give in and make all the extras available for everyone. But all the fragmentation only helps MS.

2 more replies

catigula4mo ago

Which is a bit odd given that Claude code extension in VSCode is by far the best agent integration into a codebase that I know of.

2 more replies

siva74mo ago

That's the technical reason - the other is strategic and more important: Who controls the app controls the companies depending on it.

dabockster4mo ago

This isn't true. I've gotten Claude and its forks to do things the same way as Copilot.

tremon4mo ago

*moat

candiddevmike4mo ago

AIUI the forks are required because Microsoft is gatekeeping functionality used by Copilot from extensions so they can't be used by these agents.

jcelerier4mo ago

> AIUI the forks are required because Microsoft is gatekeeping functionality used by Copilot from extensions so they can't be used by these agents. reply

I always wonder how this works legally. VSCode needs to comply with the LGPL (it's based on Chromium/Blink which is LGPL) ; they should provide the entire sources that allow us to rebuild our own "official" VSCode binary

SR2Z4mo ago

I think that MS provides these extensions as plugins. The core of VSCode is OSS, it's the extra bits that have a different license.

ewoodrich4mo ago

Could you give an example of what they're gatekeeping for Copilot exclusively? I'm kinda confused because Copilot in VS Code isn't exactly a powerhouse of unique features in my experience, it still feels well behind Roo/Kilo Code in most ways I can think of, although much closer to the competition than it was a year ago.

TiredOfLife4mo ago

Has (kinda) not been true for half a year

https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2025/05/19/openSourceAIE...

rapnie4mo ago

> AI UI

2026: every day ...

ryandrake4mo ago

I was going to ask why all these companies choose to fork the entire IDE rather than just writing an extension like every other sane developer, and this response is the most believable reason why.

NewsaHackO4mo ago

But Microsoft made VSCode lol, I think being able to gatekeep things like that shouldn’t allow a billion dollar company just reuse all of your code instead of making their own IDE

whstl4mo ago

Most of VSCode (yes, most) is a mishmash of other OSS products, including Google Chromium! By that logic VSCode itself shouldn't exist.

1 more reply

nicce4mo ago

> 2024: every day a new Chrome fork browser is announced

I think this was more accurate around 2012. My local tech magazine had their own fork and they attached CD with the magazine which included the browser.

hypeatei4mo ago

> 2024: every day a new Chrome fork browser is announced

This is still happening. Didn't you see OpenAI's release of Atlas?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

femiagbabiaka4mo ago

2020: every day a new electron fork is announced

2024: every day a new electron fork is announced

2025: every day a new electron fork is announced

myhf4mo ago

There's only one electron. It looks like separate ones because it's traveling backwards and forwards in time.

killjoywashere4mo ago

For the uninitiated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

pooyamo4mo ago

>vscode fork

I wonder why they are not trying to fixup something based on their own GUI stacks like Flutter or Compose Multiplatform.

It seems only Zed is truly innovating in this space.

fooqux4mo ago

Well it's a helluva lot faster to make for one. For two, just about everyone knows how to navigate in vscode by now. Reducing the barrier of entry has obvious advantages.

koiueo4mo ago

I have Cursor at work. The only element of the interface I'm using (and know how to use) is the chat window.

IMO, it's an absolutely crappy IDE, crappy editor, with absolutely incomprehensible hostile UI.

I have almost two decades of experience with Vim, Emacs and IntelliJ. FWIW, I was able to easily find my ways in helix, kakoune and Zed.

2 more replies

rafark4mo ago

> just about everyone knows how to navigate in vscode by now.

I quickly looked up the market share and VS code seems to have about 70% which is a lot but the 30% that don’t use it is not that small of a number either.

Like I get it it’s very popular but it’s far from the only editor/IDE people use.

charcircuit4mo ago

These new editors are trying to differentiate themselves via their AI features. Working on the core editor may waste resources that could have been better spent improving the AI features.

embedding-shape4mo ago

Until someone finally figures out that we need to rethink editors from the ground up to support different sort of operations and editing experience, to better facilitate LLMs doing work as agents.

But we're probably 1-2 years away from there still, so we'll live with skinned-forks, VSCode extensions and TUIs for now.

1 more reply

bsimpson4mo ago

Making an IDE sounds like an insane amount of effort.

FWIW, the Fuchsia team was working on an editor that had a Flutter UI when run in Fuchsia:

https://xi-editor.io/frontends.html

1 more reply

botanrice4mo ago

How would you say Zed is innovating? Never heard of it, just taking a peek now.

pooyamo4mo ago

[1]: https://www.gpui.rs

2 more replies

koakuma-chan4mo ago

It's written from scratch in Rust. It's super fast, polished, etc. A world of difference compared to VSCode.

roywiggins4mo ago

it's fast

2 more replies

wiseowise4mo ago

CuriouslyC4mo ago

We need a VS Code fork that just exposes more interfaces, and does nothing else. Then all these forks could just use that with power extensions, and it'd force Microsoft to change its behavior.

diegof794mo ago

You just described Eclipse RCP.

The issue with Eclipse and that approach is the complexity of mixing plugins to do everything, which kills the UX.

CuriouslyC4mo ago

There's actually an ACP that has some traction as well, though I don't think it solves the problem of what the agent can do in vscode: https://agentcommunicationprotocol.dev/introduction/welcome

w3news4mo ago

1 more reply

Mogzol4mo ago

there are now 15 competing standards

lozenge4mo ago

There's also Eclipse Che. They wrote a web based IDE from scratch and made it compatible with VS Code extensions but also provided extra APIs.

pdntspa4mo ago

Why is it so hard for these to be VSCode extensions and not forks?

Etheryte4mo ago

hs864mo ago

A bit tangential, but I asked the new Gemini model about this, and it immediately traced back this quote to your username: https://gemini.google.com/share/144b46094d6e

Creepy stuff :)

1 more reply

TiredOfLife4mo ago

> They're actively defending their mote by allowing Copilot to do things in a way that extensions couldn't

That started to change in may.

https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2025/05/19/openSourceAIE...

https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2025/06/30/openSourceAIE...

https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2025/11/04/openSourceAIE...

dust424mo ago

2 more replies

catigula4mo ago

Which is a bit odd given that Claude code extension in VSCode is by far the best agent integration into a codebase that I know of.

2 more replies

siva74mo ago

That's the technical reason - the other is strategic and more important: Who controls the app controls the companies depending on it.

dabockster4mo ago

This isn't true. I've gotten Claude and its forks to do things the same way as Copilot.

tremon4mo ago

*moat

candiddevmike4mo ago

AIUI the forks are required because Microsoft is gatekeeping functionality used by Copilot from extensions so they can't be used by these agents.

jcelerier4mo ago

> AIUI the forks are required because Microsoft is gatekeeping functionality used by Copilot from extensions so they can't be used by these agents. reply

SR2Z4mo ago

I think that MS provides these extensions as plugins. The core of VSCode is OSS, it's the extra bits that have a different license.

ewoodrich4mo ago

TiredOfLife4mo ago

Has (kinda) not been true for half a year

https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2025/05/19/openSourceAIE...

rapnie4mo ago

> AI UI

2026: every day ...

ryandrake4mo ago

I was going to ask why all these companies choose to fork the entire IDE rather than just writing an extension like every other sane developer, and this response is the most believable reason why.

NewsaHackO4mo ago

But Microsoft made VSCode lol, I think being able to gatekeep things like that shouldn’t allow a billion dollar company just reuse all of your code instead of making their own IDE

whstl4mo ago

Most of VSCode (yes, most) is a mishmash of other OSS products, including Google Chromium! By that logic VSCode itself shouldn't exist.

1 more reply

nicce4mo ago

> 2024: every day a new Chrome fork browser is announced

I think this was more accurate around 2012. My local tech magazine had their own fork and they attached CD with the magazine which included the browser.

hypeatei4mo ago

> 2024: every day a new Chrome fork browser is announced

This is still happening. Didn't you see OpenAI's release of Atlas?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse