Happy to hate on MS as much as the next guy but VSCode is pretty much the Chrome of the IDE world at this point, that might be what parent was alluding to (since I'd struggle to defend any other Microsoft software).
VSCode is not an IDE. It's a text editor with some optional bells and whistles. I presume the GP refers to the actual Visual Studio.
Visual Studio is less shit than ever, but only after JetBrains gave MS a firm kick up the ass with Rider.
It's got an editor, a debugger, code intelligence, a debugger, terminal, task running, test explorer, refactoring tools, project management, and so on. What's an IDE if not a text editor with bells and whistles?
It's got each, but they're holding together with duct tape.