Most of us hate Microsoft, and yet many of us use VSCode

flashgnash@lemm.ee to Linux@lemmy.ml – 393 points –

I get that it's open source provided you use codium not code but I still find that interesting

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The thing is the VS code handles everything (with extensions). If I want to use pandoc, or CSV to markdown table, python linting, Go,, whatever, there's extensions that can handle all of these equally well and consistently, for example format on save.

If I want to use jetbrains then the pycharm for python, intelliJ for Java, Goland for golang... Then there's licencing depending on whether I'm using a personal licence or corporate laptop, whether I have to get a licence from my employer etc.

For me it's not so much that it's so good, but that it works with everything in a consistent and obvious way plus I can install it on any machine I might be using.

The Intellij plugin ecosystem is pretty good. Granted my day job is 80% Java/Kotlin but I also need python and ruby and go and the plug-ins have never let me down. I don’t have pycharm or Ruby Mine or Goland installed.

The license also explicitly lets you use your work license for personal stuff or your personal license for work stuff. The only difference is who pays. You also don’t need a license to use the community edition.

It’s also pretty good at CSV and markdown files. I might be biased because I spend probably 60 hours a week using Intellij but I don’t find any of your points against it to be accurate.

The freemium and constant "are you sure you dont want to pay?" from some intellij plugins is insulting enough that it's hard to believe any developer would praise it. Presumably this doesnt happen in vscode because it cant happen in vscode, not because people arent shameless enough to do it there.

There are definitely VSCode extensions which ask you to pay for them, like GitLens.

Ick. At the very least, i've seen it a LOT less in VSC. The fact that something as simple as rainbow brackets uses the freemium model in intellij sucks. I mean the fact that it's not a builtin setting is dumb too but that's beside the point

Their licensing is pretty easy to work with IMHO. You can even get it for free if you contribute to GitHub enough.