Look at the past threads for releases (I wont link, but) they are filled with nothing but praise. I'm totally non-affiliated with VSCode, but switched from Atom a few months ago and yes, anecdotally it's been an amazingly smooth experience.

I am actually the opposite of you: totally thankful for JS and electron, and I think they are the best possible future for apps.

To be honest, I really think people have an emotional reaction to JS/Electron one because it's seen as a threat to their preferred language, and two because it has all this built up hate due to legitimate past problems. A few years of pretty hectic pace in JS-land and now it's close to greatness, but still very inconsistent, so people still love to hate it. Couple that with some poorly made apps (looking at you Spotify/Slack) and you have a weird sect on HN that now vilifies Electron/JS with totally incorrect arguments about stability and speed (both are very doable with modern practices).

I'm not saying you are this person, or your grievances aren't real. But I'd be happy to put some money on the following points:

1. Electron/JS apps will be more prolific in the next 5 years

2. They will also be clearly the best platform for speed, stability and flexibility due to massive and ever improving ecosystems and dev tools.

Both have been happening, and to be honest, today we're at a point where I think it's a no-brainer to choose JS for just about any complex UI. The problem is you're wading into a fast-changing, diverse ecosystem, and a few wrong choices there can be very painful.