Don’t get me wrong, I swear I wanted to use VSCode as my default code editor.
Since you’re here, I assume that you’re a big fan of VSCode or Visual Studio Code or at-least have used it before. It’s the most popular code editor for developers according to StackOverflow developers survey 2019 (https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#technology). And Github stars is at 92.7K(https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/) at the time of writing. I can’t blame you, it’s a great editor, has a lot of plugins, intellisense, themes, integrated terminal, customizations and more customizations… Trust me, I tried and wanted to love it. BUT, here’s some of the big BUTs why it’s still not my main code editor until now.
There are 3 reasons why and that I deeply cared about for a code editor.
#1
Not being able to open multiple project folders in one workspace. I know…, I know… This feature has been added already starting version…. I don’t know. But it’s there already. 100% sure.
So this one is good. But I wanted to give you a little bit of history. When Visual studio code first came out in the open. I was one of those few who tried it and this specific feature is a major blow for me the first time. So I immediately uninstalled it. It’s just sucks to open multiple Visual studio code instance for different project folders. Sorry, but I just can’t do it.
#2
Eslint- You know that linter for javascript files that will analyze your code on the fly while editing and will give you hints for code errors and enforce coding styles? Yeah! That’s what Im talking about. Im a BIG fan of eslint. It’s my #1 requirement for a code editor. Since I do mostly javascripts code.
And Yea, I know, I know… This feature is already on Visual Studio Code since the early days. But, again… here’s the big BUT. You know how VScode supports for multiple project folders opened in one workspace, point #1 right? Well, On Visual Studio Code eslint works only on the root folder. Meaning that, on multiple project folders, If you have eslint configurations on those folders, VSCode does not detect any of that and simply gives you a bunch of eslint errors from the output window. It won’t work! And Yes there are some work around, a hit and miss work around. But regardless, it should be supported upfront without further configurations. It’s almost like a normal thing to do for a code editor. A major blow for me.
#3
Performance. Yes- It’s that speed Im talking about. Visual Studio Code performance has improved a lot since it came out. And I love it, It’s one of those things I wish were there and I almost lost hope when I found out that Visual Studio Code is written in Javascript and wrap around Electron. Again, please don’t get me wrong. I love both javascripts and electron, javascript is my language of choice. But as far as speed is concerned on a desktop app? I don’t think javascript would compare to any of the native programming languages like c++, python or c#. At least not yet. Then again, the team behind Visual Studio Code proved me wrong, it makes me love javascript more. The performance of Visual Studio Code is great. However, compared to Sublime Text it’s still far behind. And I completely understand. So the performance of visual studio code is something I can tolerate at this point.
I still have few other things, but those are minor areas that I can leave without. So until #2 and #3 get’s resolved or at-least #2 get’s resolved, Im gonna stay with Sublime Text. AND… your probably thinking, So what? Who the hell are you?
Well, I am nobody. Im just writing this to get my point and my feelings across the world wide web. I don’t care if any from the team will come across to this article or not. Or these concerns will be addressed or not. But hey, we might share the same thought right? We wanted to have Visual Studio Code as our main code editor but we couldn’t because there are something missing that we deeply cared about.
Thank you for reading. Any comments or feedbacks are greatly appreciated. Ciao!
