I was interested in Zed, but lost all interest when they started integrating "AI". I'm tired of "AI" everywhere.
I'll just stick with Neovim until something better comes around. Which probably won't happen until after the "AI" bubble bursts.
I'll just stick with Neovim until something better comes around. Which probably won't happen until after the "AI" bubble bursts.
I won’t go near a code editor anymore without AI integrated deeply.
There is AI as a useful tool, maybe, which is at most few % of current hype. Most folks seem to end up babysitting it a lot to get something useful out of it. And then there is everything else which is mostly hype or narrow use cases. To proper typical senior managing a team I don't see much added value. It can help juniors churn out large chunks of the code but I haven't worked in 20 years in a place that values quantity of code and quick deliveries over quality.
Also very much depends on the business and specific company. In my banking mega corp, no AI is even allowed to be used even as I write it now, all popular sites are blocked and there are strict policies against. Couldn't care less, coding is such a small part of my work I don't want to lose this creative outlet by delegating it to something I need to triple check for bugs afterwards. Also with any new stuff I learn way more by implementing it myself rather than looking at pre-made code.
This is a huge thing tbh. I don't like these AI things in general so I wouldn't use them anyway, but I just can't imagine going to my clients and asking them, "Hey is it okay with you if I routinely upload all your code to these random American venture-backed start-ups?". And I really can't imagine just doing that behind their back. I couldn't really imagine doing that with an employer's code either.
Ideally I don't even use software where accidentally toggling the wrong checkbox in some settings screen results in automatically uploading client code to these American start-ups either. Now I won't pretend that my stance against AI is purely out of some principled cybersecurity concern, but it's definitely a factor.
In any case, what I see most people doing is integrating it with Claude/Copilot/etc. The security concerns specifically obviously don't apply when running it locally.
AI also isn't shoved in your face when using Zed, there's one small button on the button right.
Wait there's an always-present AI button in the normal text editing UI? That's way more prominent than I expected, I assumed it was just an option in a settings screen somewhere. I definitely don't want an AI button that's always on screen.
I just downloaded Zed to see this for myself and found not only one but two AI buttons in the lower right, one for integration with chat bots and one for their "prediction" AI. Both try to get you to log in to online services (even though, yes, a local chat bot is an option for one of them).
It seems like you can remove the chat bot ("agent") button through their config file, but I found no option to remove the "predictions" button.
Man this editor is pushing "AI" way harder than I imagined. As I said I genuinely assumed that it was just like iTerm2's chat bot integration where you could enable it in a settings screen.
It’s fair to have huge concerns over AI (I certainly do), but I don’t think it’s fair to expect IDEs to skip some of the only technology that developers (and companies, importantly) are willing to pay for in an IDE.
But all that annoying madness is distracting from how amazingly awesomely useful this stuff is. It's wild how many little quick projects I can kick out in a couple hours! Ideas just come out of my head with so much less fuss; when I don't like it I ask for something different.
My point is less to convince though about AI. I appreciate your starting sentiment here, but I really don't get the follow up?
> genuinely happy it works for you. I just don't want AI in my text editor, even if you're happy with it.
I don't see why it would bother you at all? There's a tiny little button in the status bar and a few scattered menu items that feel, to me, very easy to ignore.
It feels like someone being mad that their spreadsheet has I dunno, logarithms in it, but the person hates logarithms? It feels weird to opt in to caring against. I have a generalll abnner of thought which is "your anti-feature is not a feature", and this feels like one of those situations: i don't see why someone would cling to an editor not having a feature they don't use?
So if you’re not in the minority now, you will be in time.
This is not a “tech bro” thing (as someone else said). There is real substance to it.
Am I an AI curmudgeon? I wouldn't necessarily use that word, but it's not entirely inaccurate.
I guess it's always possible to return to Vim if Neovim starts showing signs of being steered by its sponsors.
A whole lot of "AI" features today are in that "solution looking for a problem" category. There's a lot of "AI" in places where it really makes no sense at all. Companies and projects are afraid of missing out on what they think could be the Next Big Thing, instead of just trying to make the best software they can.
When the AI bubble bursts, it could end up like Internet features: software gets them when it genuinely makes sense, but they won't be crammed into software which has no need for it. Or it could end up like cryptocurrency: it pretty much just disappears as people realize that they don't really have any use other than to speculate on its value and to buy drugs.
Personally, my bet is that they'll end up more like cryptocurrencies. After all, "AI" doesn't just have to be a useful feature to be worth it. It has a real cost. Companies like Microsoft and Apple and Google, as well as the venture capitalists and investment funds behind the likes of Anthropic, are currently sinking VAST amounts of capital into giving "AI" away for free or heavily subsidized. At some point, it'll need to become profitable, and I don't think many people will find that the value outweighs the real, non-subsidized costs.
But we'll see.
Just because tulips are nice doesn't make Tulip Madness a good idea. At the height of the DotCom boom consumers were buying stock at IPO prices for companies which made no sense whatsoever, because they said "Internet" or, (hence the naming) ".com"
For example Be Inc. was a vehicle for a failed Apple exec to "prove" he was the right person to run Apple, not Steve Jobs. After their runway ran out and institutions wanted nothing further to do with it, Be Inc. went IPO. They do this by saying they were an "Internet appliance" company and taking an OS with terrible networking but pretending it's good. In normal times this would attract laughter - they're offering a worse product, most likely it just tanks or never comes to market, and in the extreme case that Apple wants the CEO they're going to cut a deal with the man, not save the dead weight company. His most senior people might get parachutes but Apple has no reason to pay ordinary stock owners a penny. Sure enough those who bought at IPO rescued the institutions but were wiped out.
Plugins are relatively easy to write in nvim so I'd expect all ai stuff to come from there and be opt in.
They're moving from "making awesome code editor" into yet another "buy our ai" product
Give them some time to polish, jeez.
Rust probably slows them down here, but working correctly early is preferable imho.
(This is referring to their recent integration work. The acceleration layer was usable a year or more ago.)
We're going to be adding more features to the debugger for a while
Just like I want a terminal without AI features, which is why I'm no longer using iTerm2
Anyway, I'm happy with Ghostty since I switched away from iTerm2 and haven't paid attention to iTerm2 development much.
Furthermore, Zed Agents are currently my favorite way of using LLM's during programming
agent.enabled = false and it's gone, no?
I have a firewall, OpenSnitch, so don’t have to worry much about programs trying to connect. But definitely would prefer they don’t unless directed.
How does zed handle it?
features.edit_prediction_provider=none agent.enabled=false
There's additional config to set if inline assistance is automatic, only when the user presses a key, fully disabled, etc.
"agent": {
"enabled": false
}