Anyone think there'll be another editor that'll surpass VSCode, similar to how VSCode surpassed Atom (and others)? I used to think that there would be one, but now I'm not so sure.
Still seems like a market shift would be required to take them down, like an AI revolution, but then MS seem to be on top of that so far. Perhaps if CI/CD is reinvented in a wonderful way with mass adoption, integrated code editing and manipulation could reshape the text editor.
There's no reason at all why VSCode has "won" the same way Windows and Google did. VSCode fixed two main issues of Atom. If anything it was a natural evolution. The name was just a smart marketing play. There are some things that are exclusive VSCode but most of the important pieces are not.
I think the main reason there is no direct VSCode competitor is because there is currently no need to. People that use their own respective flavours of editors have almost the same features in their own respective features, so what's the point in mirroring it?
But the ecosystem effects of GitHub integration and getting into the browser as is the case with the top parent post and being the home for LSP servers seem to me like enough of an “embrace” to secure a “win” however lesser it is than Google’s. I’m not a user though, just my view from the outside.
Worthy mention- Zed is the spiritual successful of Atom that is being rewritten in Rust. Text editors gain and lose popularity often, so the potential is definitely there.
>"...eliminate entire classes of bugs..."
With modern C++, static analyzers and address sanitizers this aspect of Rust does not matter that much for me personally. As a language Rust looks way more restricted to me than a modern C++ and dancing around borrow checker is far from fun. Unless explicitly required by contract I do not see it as a business case with positive ROI for me. I run my own company and I actually pay for development.
All this could have been done another way, using another language, but not at the same speed as what was enabled by the ergonomy of Go, and not with the same enthusiasm. Arguably, the boiling mix phenomenon made a multitude of things happen and possible, by making them easier to do, thus crossing a required minimum threshold where enough people have the time, desire and ability to achieve something.
Rust will do the same.
It's like catalysts in chemistry. They are not the reagents, but they often make the reaction statistically possible in the first place.
VS Code has become the IE of old imo and it'll take an industry shift to kick it, just like IE. Microsoft is not being a good steward of open source for the project, and over time that will wear on people. Hopefully that'll irritate the right people with the right amount of money to do something about it.
Personally, I still prefer Sublime Text to VSCode.
Now, the problem is ST is proprietary, but then VSCode is starting to be proprietary as well.
Even writing a proper IDE-aware compiler is a quite a daunting task.
VS Code has the market share that it has because:
1. They encouraged a huge plugin ecosystem.
2. They made it cross-platform and gave it away for free, while Sublime costs money.
3. Most importantly of all (in my cynical opinion), they went "dark mode" by default at just the right time when this was becoming a trendy new feature among devs.
There are plenty of text editors that are far better than VS Code, but they either cost money or are for a single platform only. If someone came out with a free, cross-platform, attractive text editor that was a native executable and got critical mass going with a plugin ecosystem, then VS Code would fall out of fashion within a year. There's no genuine groundswell of support for Microsoft as a trendy entity with brand loyalty among young devs.
The recent boomer adage "No one wants to work anymore" simply has its sad technical analogue, "No one wants to create desktop apps anymore".
Well yeah, there's the problem. This isn't an easy task, it has never been done before.
It just hasn't been done RECENTLY... with an editor that is visually attractive, and uses modern keyboard conventions rather than arcane keystroke DSL's that are inaccessible for the masses. But that's just a matter of project philosophy, not technical limitations with what's doable.
> > Well yeah, there's the problem. This isn't an easy task, it has never been done before.
> It's been done with Vim and Emacs
My apologies if I misunderstood how you intended the pronouns to be applied.
It provides huge practical value to me as a developer. I am not fond of JavaScript being used as front end but as long as it performs decent job for particular use case I do not care. I use development tools to develop products and make money. I do not fight holy tech wars.
>"Startup time on my machine is only a hair faster than Jetbrains IDE's launching a JVM, it's ridiculous."
I value my development time and my development computers are very decent (desktop for example is 16 core AMD with 128GB RAM). Launching VS code on my machines is nearly instant. CLion from JetBrains is much slower (10 sec from cold start to opening my C++ project in a usable state for example) but still very acceptable. I do not restart it every minute. More like once in few days when using it.
>"VS Code has the market share that it has because:"
I do not care why. I am a consumer here. It is for a people who want to beat VS Code to figure out why and do better than MS. Me - I have my own problems to worry about and I just use tools that work for me.
>"Most importantly of all (in my cynical opinion), they went "dark mode" by default at just the right time when this was becoming a trendy new feature among devs."
I do not give a flying fuck about what is trendy for a generic developer. What is important for me in VS code along with plugin ecosystem let's me develop, lint, debug my code locally and on remote servers. As long as proper ergonomics / usability guidelines are followed I do not really care whether the mode is dark or light.
>"If someone came out with a free, cross-platform, attractive text editor that was a native executable and got critical mass going with a plugin ecosystem, then VS Code would fall out of fashion within a year."
And if I had a million dollars I'd be rich. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. And VS code is way more than an editor.
>"No one wants to create desktop apps anymore".
I actually have native desktop product and it keeps bringing me some dosh for what is a very little maintenance.
I am not insulting your personal identity by disparaging your choice in text editor. I am responding to a question of what could cause a future competitor to take the top spot away from VS Code.
My answer is that VS Code has inherent challenges from being built atop an embedded web browser, and that a similar implementation based on direct native executables may be the path through which it's successor will emerge. Carry on.
No. I need to take my eyes from work every once in a while and HN to me is one of the ways to do it. I just explained my opinion about a subject. If you believe that I really care about actually convincing anyone be my guest.