[sporedro]

Is there actually any point in using it? My initial thought was they would allow a more “atom” approach while still keeping all the vscode functionality.

But it looks like it’s aimed more for “building your own IDE” without having to start from scratch, feels just like the old eclipse.

Maybe I’m missing something but why would anyone bother using this?

[fbdab103]

I am becoming increasingly concerned with my reliance upon VSCode. With Microsoft's increasingly visible dark-pattern shenanigans, it feels inevitable that eventually the other shoe is going to drop.

A few design decisions of the platform seemed designed to make it difficult to go elsewhere, and Microsoft keeps changing default plugins away from the fully open source versions to the Microsoft quasi-kinda-pinky-swear-open source variety. Which deprives the open source versions of mind share and development resources.

[noduerme]

I very, very reluctantly switched from Eclipse to VS Code a couple years ago, because certain Eclipse plugins I relied on were no longer maintained. VS is pretty good, but I've never been comfortable with its place in the MS ecosystem, and I worry too about it turning to free-to-pay junk down the line. At least with Eclipse you really could just download and run years-old versions if you wanted to keep your particular plug-ins and favorite setup working.

[seltzered_]

There was a decent critique from a couple years ago on this, not sure how relevant it still is: https://ghuntley.com/fracture/ (HN Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32657709 ) (Aug 2022)

[bitwize]

OK, now I'm really glad that Visual Studio Code was one of those "eh, pass" things for me (like GNOME) and I stuck it out with Emacs all this time.

Microsoft's play appears to be soup-to-nuts control over every aspect of web developers' work -- from finding a job (linkedin) to source control (github) to libraries and dependency management (npm). Visual Studio Code fits neatly within this play. Windows may have lost web devs' hearts and minds in the 2000s-2010s, but Microsoft has pivoted to where they don't need Windows in order to capture the developers.

Wait till Pluton takes hold in a few years, and you need a Microsoft account just to get to the bootloader.

[Asraelite]

I've been using the Cursor editor recently. Unfortunately it's based on VS Code, is closed source, and is tightly coupled with Microsoft/OpenAI. But the full AI integration blows everything else I've used out of the water. I feel significantly more productive with it than any other editor.

I think in the coming years as LLMs become more powerful, the productivity gap between using AI to code and not using it will only increase. It will become difficult to justify not using AI, despite the privacy concerns. I really hope that open source alternatives can keep up and provide viable alternatives to editors like Cursor.

[catgary]

I’m ready to switch over to fleet for my ML/data science work load once they support plugins (so I can use Ruff) and Jupyter notebooks (the notebooks are mainly for debugging).

[goosejuice]

I don't find vscode sticky at all.

Now cursor, they have something no one else has and sadly it's a codium fork.

[toprerules]

I mean, what's holding you back from using neovim? Great plugins, same LSPs, anything that's missing you can code up yourself in Lua, works over ssh... what are you really gaining by using VSCode?

[richardw]

My read was different. That this is an IDE with plugins and whatnot, and they have a similarly named but entirely different offering:

“Note that Eclipse Theia IDE is a separate component from the overall Theia project's related Eclipse Theia Platform, used to build IDEs and tools based on modern web technologies.”

No idea why they didn’t brand them differently. The base is different (built more on VSCode platforms and not Theia the platform), unlike old Eclipse that had a split between the base and the IDE built from that base. I think that is very confusing.

[kumarvvr]

Theia platform is the foundation to build custom IDE.

TheiaIDE is one, dare I say official, implementation of an IDE on the platform.

To me, that seems congruent.