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Comment by japhyr | Hacker News Reader

I've been frustrated by the constant nudges to use specific AI tools from within VS Code, but I made a different change. Rather than moving to a different editor altogether, I started using VS Codium. If you're unfamiliar, it's the open core of VS Code, without the Microsoft-branded features that make up VS Code.

I believe Microsoft builds VS Code releases by building VS Codium, and then adding in their own branded features, including all the AI pushes. If you like VS Code except for the Microsoft bits, consider VS Codium alongside other modern choices.

https://vscodium.com

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> I believe Microsoft builds VS Code releases by building VS Codium

Isnt vscodium a specific product built strictly from open-source VS Code source code? It's not affiliated with Microsoft, they simply build from the same base then tweak it in different ways.

This is somewhat unlike my understanding of Chromium/Chrome which is similar to what you described.

The clearest explanation I've seen is on VSCodium's Why page:

https://vscodium.com/#why

You might be misunderstanding, you said in your comment:

> I believe Microsoft builds VS Code releases by building VS Codium, and then adding in their own branded features

This part isn't true, MS and VSCodium both build their releases upon https://github.com/microsoft/vscode, but MS does not build VSCodium at all.

That's a good idea. I considered VSCodium but the issue is that I used VSCode's proprietary extensions such as Pylance. So it would require to switch to OSS replacements at which point I decided why wouldn't give Zed a try – it has a better feeling by not being an Electron app.

I think VSCodium is a good option if you need extensions not available in Zed.

If you are good with a slightly jank option, I have had success with just moving the extension directory from VSCode to the VSCodium directory. Works for the Oracle SQL Developer plugin I use often. It might go against the terms in the extension, but I don’t care about that.

That doesn't help with Pylance and similar extensions. Microsoft implemented checks to verify the extension is running in VS Code, you have to manually patch them out of the bundled extension code (e.g. like this[0], though that probably doesn't work for the current versions anymore).

[0]: https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/discussions/1641#discus...

Basedpyright and ty should both work under vscodium.

Basedpyright is really good. I've been using it in neovim for a while. I'm currently evaluating ty. It is definitely not as good, but it is also really new.

I appreciate that we have good alternatives to pylance. While it is good, it being closed source is a travesty.

I've been using vscodium with basedpyright as I've thought it was supposed to be a open source version of pylance. I've got to say it's annoying about type errors and after changing it's setting to be less strict it still annoys me and I've even started littering my code with the their # ignore _____ .

I'm really glad the article mentioned ty as I'm going to try that today.

On zed I tried it but the font rendering hurt my eyes and UI seems to be glitchy and also doesn't support the drag and drop to insert links in markdown feature * I use all the time.

* https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/languages/markdown#_inser...

I can't say I've noticed any "nudges" to use AI tools in VS Code. I saw a prompt for Copilot but I closed it, and it hasn't been back.

I'm probably barely scratching the surface of what I can do with it, but as a code editor it works well and it's the first time I've ever actually found code completion that seems to work well with the way I think. There aren't any formatters for a couple of the languages I use on a daily basis but that's a Me Problem - the overlap between IDE users of any sort and assembly programmers is probably quite small.

Are there any MS-branded features I should care about positively or negatively?

I'm a teacher, so I help people get started setting up a programming environment on a regular basis. If you take a new system that hasn't been configured for programming work at all, and install a fresh copy of VS Code, you'll see a number of calls to action regarding AI usage. I don't want to walk people through installing an editor only to then tell them they have to disable a bunch of "features".

This isn't an anti-AI stance; I use AI tools on a daily basis. I put "features" in quotes because some of these aren't really features, they're pushes to pay for subscriptions to specific Microsoft AI services. I want to choose when to incorporate AI tools, which tools to incorporate, and not have them popping up like a mobile news site without an ad blocker.

What are those constant nudges to use AI tools? Sounds a bit strange.

I have been using vscodium for years, hasn't disappointed until recently (rust analyzer wont pickup changes, not sure if rust or vscode issue). I tried zed once, but just didn't do the basics I needed at the time. I'll have to give it a try again

edit: zed is working much better for me now and does not have the issue vscodioum was having (not recognizing changes/checking some code till I triggered rebuild)

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