Ask HN: Have you ever moved from VSCode to Emacs? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Have you ever moved from VSCode to Emacs?

4 pointsspdustin5 comments

Especially if you swore you'd never use Emacs or vim because (reasons).

Did you make the switch and stick with it?

Did you nope out and go back to VSCode?

Share your experience!

I made the switch from VSCode to Emacs. Never swore about the editor, I'm open to try other ones if I ever get interested.

I made the switch about 2 or 3 years and still on Emacs. I started with Spacemacs then moved to vanilla. I'm still configuring it, there are many things I want to improve but it does the job well, and I don't miss VSCode (except on TypeScript projects, maybe).

In Emacs, I feel like I have more control with the tool, I can write a function to make a new behavior. I like that there are many integrated tools, like calc and orgmode, and many more. It also feels good to navigate and work with text in the same way but in different contexts (editing code or email).

For me, Emacs was a natural progression from VS Code, which was a natural progression from Gedit. Similarly, at roughly the same time, I "progressed" from Ubuntu to Gentoo.

I want full control over my computing experience. Little things annoy me, and when things annoy me I get distracted. For me, taking the time to configure Emacs exactly the way I want it is a small up-front cost compared to the large ongoing cost of dealing with annoyances. Now, some time later, I've built up a computing environment that blows everything else out of the water, because it's mine (and mine isn't even as good as other people's Emacs configs, I'm a noob).

I would never go back to VS Code. Not because I don't like it, but it just doesn't do what Emacs does. Emacs is... what's the word?.. Unified? Hyper-integrated? You can't use your VS Code extensions in other programs, but with EXWM you can use Emacs functionality in all of them (okay, there are exceptions). To use anything but Emacs would mean un-unifying my computing environment, and that's the opposite of what I want.

> I would never go back to VS Code.

Even though I probably will not be using VSCode seriously, I still want to learn it to the point that I understand how things work. At some point, I'm gonna have to work on a diverse team of programmers, it's useful to see everyone's perspective on things to be able to explain your own approach and the workflow. I don't want to sound like an ignorant douche, saying things like: "yeah, but VSCode can't even do X", what if that wouldn't even make sense, because in order to have X, first, there's gotta be a foundational base feature that VSCode simply cannot ever have? You can't describe the universe of infinitely many similar but non-congruent shapes that exists in the realm of hyperbolic geometry if you never cared to learn the Euclidian one. Conversely, there are certain things that Emacs unlikely will have anytime soon, but VSCode maybe was designed to have them from the get-go.

I was an ardent Emacs user till 2020, since 2011. I used to and still love Magit and other modes of Emacs, nothing ever comes close by. But, I made the switch to VSCode in 2020 for the reasons of code navigation and TS support and haven't looked back since, though I miss Magit sometimes though.

I have VSCode installed and sometimes I try using it, yet I don't think it will become my main driver anytime soon. First, I couldn't figure out the Leader key modality like in Doom and Spacemacs. I found an extension called VSpaceCode - it ain't great, yet not terrible. There's noticeable latency when I move around the file or type, it's a small annoyance, apparently, all Vim plugins for VSCode suffer from that, meh, but whatever. I still need to learn how to extend it, e.g., I don't know how to add some local leader keybindings.

Having to use mouse all the time is mildly annoying. As a hardcore Vimmer I abhor such workflow.

Opening a file feels wonky, but I probably need to find the right extension or set some settings, not sure. I still can't figure out the simple "find-file" feature where I simply type the filepath, e.g. ~/foo/bar/zap.js and it just gets opened or created.

I miss features of Emacs like Hydra or Transient, I'm not sure if there's anything similar - I suppose there some extension for that.

I don't know if it's even possible to have indirect buffers. In Emacs, I often open a file, then clone the indirect buffer and work with the same file, in two separate buffers as if they are completely unrelated entities. That allows me to hide/collapse certain portions of the file - great for when I need to focus on a specific function, while also looking at the header or the footer portion of the module. I'm not sure how to completely hide some parts of the file in VSCode, even without cloned buffers.

I miss some basic stuff that I got used to. Like for example in Emacs, it's easy to figure out what pressing a key in certain context binds to. There's no `describe-key` functionality in VSCode, you have to open the keyboard shortcuts editor. But if the key is driven by some extension - in my case Vim-emulation, then it gets a bit difficult. I intuitively know that "gd" in Vim's Normal mode is bound to Go-to Definition, but I have no idea where and how this key is set and how to rebind it.

Code navigation and autocompletion in VSCode is nice, that's true, it is also true that sometimes it is hard to figure out all the proper steps to replicate same good navigation in Emacs for a specific language. Yet Emacs still offers unmatched extensibility, and it's easy to extend existing packages. afaik there's no equivalent to hooks or advising functions in VSCode, similar to Emacs.

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