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5 EXACT alternatives of VSCode!

Muhimen on July 05, 2020

At the end of the day, Visual Studio Code(or VSC) is a text editor just like notepad or atom or something else. But what makes VSCode special than ...
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anomaly2009 profile image
Ibne Nahian

It's not fare if you consider Visual Studio just as an alternative to Visual Studio Code. Visual Studio is far more than a code editor. Its by far the most feature advanced full blown IDE. Visual Studio has lots of such features that Visual Studio Code is not even made to handle. They are two completely different products. Don't compare VS and VS Code just because they share names.

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Jean-Sébastien Beaulieu

For some specific languages, VS Code is quite literally an IDE at this point in time. So yes, I'd say it's quite fair. The distinction between an editor and an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is quite arbitrary anyway, when these days you can extend editors to integrate new functionality.

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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen

Somewhat agree. But I would counter it...

Visual Studio = Visual Studio Code + a lot more

That means VSC is a subset of VS. And if it is a subset, that means VS has all the features(except light-weight) that VSC does.

After all, we can say the are similar. (my logic isn't the best, still bare it 😋)

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shybovycha profile image
Artem Shubovych

I don't think VS is built in JS tho... Which means, VSC is definitely not a subset of VS

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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen • Edited

I wasn't talking about the language, I was talking about the capabilities.

(it's actually TS, not JS)

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anomaly2009 profile image
Ibne Nahian

TS is a superset of JS

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shybovycha profile image
Artem Shubovych

You are missing the point: you can't implement lots of features VS has in JS. Like, not in this time and reality. This includes tons of .NET and C/C++ development tools like debuggers and optimizations.

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rivernotflowing profile image
River • Edited

they're different products, VS has a fuck ton of features. Does that mean you can claim that any code editor is a subset of it? Ultimately there are zero shared components/ux between the 2, they're just 2 IDEs with different approaches and audiences

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rivernotflowing profile image
River

really? can you program scala 3 in vs? Can you even do scala 2? How about haskell? ocaml?

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anomaly2009 profile image
Ibne Nahian • Edited

Why the hell anyone would ever want to write scala or Haskell on VS? VS is specially optimized for C# .NET. Also it can nicely handle C++, F#, Python, VB, JS & TS. Would you consider Goland or PyCharm for writing Scala, Haskel, OCaml? Your comparison is totally irrelevant.

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rivernotflowing profile image
River

I was responding to the ridiculous claim that “VSC is a subset of VS”

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qws profile image
Qws

I like VS Code, but I like to see a none electron Code editor. Like why isn't there a code editor in React Native (or maybe even Flutter?)

On Windows 10 they should make Visual Studio UWP. That would be the ultimate Windows 10 code editor ...😁

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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen

What is UWP?

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alan5142 profile image
Alan Ramírez Herrera

Universal Windows Platform
docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/u...

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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen

tnx

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anomaly2009 profile image
Ibne Nahian

Visual Studio is WPF yet.

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rezabazargan profile image
Reza

When you like text editors, either you are not a developer or never have tried visual studio

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anomaly2009 profile image
Ibne Nahian

Depends on use cases. I have been using Visual Studio since 2015 community version. I also use Intellij , Clion and a few more if I need. Still I go for VSCode , sometimes even Notepad++.

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rezabazargan profile image
Reza

Just kidding 😉

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_ajay_gupta profile image
Ajay Gupta

I don't think so, visual Studio is as an alternative to visual studio code.

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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen

Didn't I say EXACT?

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Sloan, the sloth mascot
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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen

👍

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Artem

Wdym EXACT in the context?

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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen

hard to differentiate.

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Panshak

He said the exact alternatives. I think it make sense. If I'd seen any of the ones you mentioned in his list, then I wouldn't be happy about it, because we've seen those ones over and over again.

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JoelBonetR 🥇

You left behind some other IDEs like IntelliJ Idea Community Edition for example (you can code html, css, js, react, angular... on it brainless. It detects the source code and suggest you to add the required plugin for this language or framework).
It will of course, depend on what exactly means on your context.
Being able to code with same languages?
Able to customize it using plugins?
Capable to run on any system? (then VS is not equal to VS Code, which can run on Linux while VS can't).

If I fit into your points at the top, I'm obligated to comment each one by one:

  • Extensibility
  • Lightweight
  • Customization
  • Debugger 🐛
  • Ease of use

About Extensibility, you can add plugins to extend the functionalities on any IDE, same as Customization. If you can't, you're not using an IDE, you are using a code editor.

Lightweight could depend on what you are about to do sometimes. Eclipse performs observably worse than IntelliJ Idea for Java coding, and VS Code performs better than Web Storm (as webstorm indexes the entire project), but when adding Git into VS Code the things aren't different, so if you can, go for WebStorm (paid) which comes with built-in features that VS Code lacks.
BTW VS is NOT a lightweight IDE, moreover I would say it's the heaviest IDE ever, specially if you run through .NET coding and use local server. Last time I used it, the full package was about 80Gb weight.

All IDEs have debuggers too, some of them built-in and some others across a plug-in.

Finally the Ease of use is attached at what you are used to. Generally the easier to use are JetBrains IDEs but you can be used to any IDE and you will think this is the easier to use unless you force yourself to learn another one pretty well.

I started coding on Macromedia Dreamweaver 7, used eclipse, visual studio, brackets, eclipse, net beans, vs code, intelliJ Idea, PhyCharm, PHPStorm, WebStorm and many others. My final choose at this point is PHP Storm or WebStorm (both can do exactly the same with plugins) so I coded Angular, React, Preact, Svelte, SCSS and so on PHP Storm without any issue.
From 14 people on my department, we are using JetBrains IDEs except for 1 person which is using VS Code, and this is fine, everyone have the option to choose the preferred one. There's a difference too while comparing professional coding with academic/learning phase. You usually want (or expect) more productivity on professional environment and here's when paid IDEs fit.

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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen

Turns out I am way less experienced than you are (completely okay) also used way too less editors, IDEs than you did. And yes, I've never written code in professional environment.

Anyway, your comment was really helpful. And as you said,

and this is fine, everyone has the option to choose the preferred one.

Perspective can really make things different. According to your comment, I assume you are a web developer. And you will always want the features that help you with your professional work.

On the other hand, my perspective was ML, DL. When you are playing with a TON of data, every single kilobyte does matter. Let me show you how I decided on the things.

  • Extensibility: Normally, jupyter notebook is the daily driver for ML engineers. But I was amazed to see how you can add all the jupyter(yes, you spell it this way) functionality in VSC.

  • Lightweight: As I said, every kilobyte matters. You don't want your models performance to be hampered for the tools you work with.

  • Customization: I was talking about the themes 😅😅

  • Debugger: Agree with me or not, the debugger of VSC is a beast.

  • Ease of use: Before VSC, I used PyCharm(JetBrains) and Jupyter. Compared to those, it's really easy to get familiar with VSC and be productive.

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joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇

Yes I'm web dev, of course IDEs are intended for a primary language or environment and then the plugins make what plugins make. The best part on all of this is that you get comfortable enough with an IDE to perform its helper functionalities brainless. This is what it gives you more performance after all. You also need this features for coming built-in or able to add it using a plugin, of course. On a windows notepad you will lack intellisense compared with brackets and both are code editors at the end of the day haha

I'm not much into ML, never get into DL. I only used a dockerized ROCm platform (with Tensorflow and Keras) to train an IA that was like an image interpreter between two options. I used Jupyter here too. I'm learning another paths that gets directly into my daily job for now but if you write some posts for beginners (or dummies) on ML, DL or NN I would be very interested on adding them into my reading list. Specially if you detail a bit the calculus behind it, as it's something that is usually obviated on higher level articles or tutorials.

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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen

You just gave me my next blog idea!

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joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇

Just followed you, and waiting for it :)

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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen

Then take my return gift. 😉

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psiho profile image
Mirko Vukušić

I tried WebStorm last week. Expected more than VSCode but slower to start and work with. I was pleasantly surprised. Its a bit slower to start than VSCode but working with it seems even smoother sometimes. No lag whatsoever, no memory drain. My laptop is not a beast, just an average today, 3 year old, but too of the line (then).

I think I'm switching

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joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇

You need to try and keep with the one that fits best to your needs and/or the one you feel more comfortable with

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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen

True. And I am sticking with VIM!

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joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇

I only use vim when editing server config files on an ssh connection or when on terminal. It's just I don't want to use a code editor if I can use an IDE hahaha
I read something about neovim and things like that but i didn't dig further to know more.

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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen

Actually I use neovim, not vim. I just say vim all the time because most of the people won't know(probably). I don't see any big difference over vim although the official website says it's a better version of vim.

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joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇

The older I get the less I like to change the software I use 🤣

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cubiclesocial

Question: Are any of these options Portable Apps-compliant? (I know Visual Studio isn't. VS Code itself has a semi-portable version.) If not, then they are non-starters for me. I use portable apps almost exclusively for nearly all new applications. I don't install anything on my system drive if I can avoid it.

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rivernotflowing profile image
River • Edited

code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/...
Most developer apps these days are portable in the sense that you can pass the arg/env to point them to any directory outside system, but people don't really care anymore. I stopped caring about this after university when I stopped using library computers.

Asking if VS is portable doesn't really make sense given that the thing you develop with it (.Net) isn't.

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muhimen123 profile image
Muhimen

You can go for the clouds then.

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cubiclesocial

Portable Apps is not cloud software. It's local software that runs in a portable fashion (i.e. not installed with a traditional installer), hearkening back to the MS-DOS era where an entire product ran within its own subdirectory and didn't touch anything else on the system.

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Muhimen

I meant as we don't have any portable app available in the options you can go with cloud ones as the dont mess around with your local drives

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thearianit profile image
theArianit

Codium is my new replacement for vscode

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Vuelancer

Now I use Vscodium. I liked it!

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Matt Ellen-Tsivintzeli

Don't forget Emacs: M-x vscode-mode

(just kidding)