Everything is better than "cloud desktops" and everything that includes remote desktop connection for UI, with bad font rendering etc. I don't use vim, I use IDEs and like when they have native and fast rendering
Also there's some other features for remote development. You can for example develop inside Docker while running the UI on your desktop [1]. Or you can connect via ssh [2]. A bit like IDE split between client and server components. All the intelligence runs remotely, just UI runs locally.
[1] https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/containers [2] https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/ssh
You could use the DOM based text editor (I think the VS code one is called Monaco ?) to build a cloud IDE (I've seen a few instances of this) but VS code has nothing specifically suitable for this over standard IDEs.
One thing is that it is based on Electron. This has enabled Microsoft to create Visual Studio Online[1], which is vscode accessed through browser (backed by container/vm hosted at Microsoft)
Another thing is the architecture which splits the IDE into client and server. It's not about file system access via SSH. It's actually the core of the IDE running on a remote machine and the UI part (client) talking to it via ssh connection.
Would be interesting to know if this was actually the master plan for vscode right from the beginning or if they realized these opportunities on the go.
[1] https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/services/visual-studio-on...