I use vscode for my personal projects (c++ and a fully open source stack, compiling for both Linux and Windows).
I’m using the proprietary version of vscode (via the aur) for the plugin repository, but I’ve always envied the open source version…
Are there any tools that have made you excited?
Bonus points if they have some support for compiling with MSVC (or if you can convince me to ditch it for something else).
I’ve tried lots of options, and I still go back to vscode.
I’ve extensively used neovim and it has been my main IDE for years, but I got tired of having to spend entire afternoons configuring it. And I had too many total breaks, that had led me to recently abandon it as an IDE, still use it sometimes but much less. It relies on too many plugins, which makes breaks more common imho.
I tried helix. But features are far from what I expect for an IDE, even a modal command line one.
On the gui territory, I tried Lapce, but it’s still buggy and lacks features. Development pace is slow enough so I don’t consider it could become my ide in the near future, I have hopes for it, but not much as it could easily become abandoned before it’s usable.
I wanted to try Zed, but they seems to have a preference for macOS, which may have sense in the US but here I don’t remember the last developer I saw using a mac. There’s now a linux version, which I may try at some point, but some people commented that while in a better state than Lapce it’s not still a production ready option for an text-editor-IDE. Also the company behind it doesn’t inspire trust to me. There’s something about it that smells fishy, I cannot quite put my finger on what, but there’s something.
There are more options, some obscure, some old, some paid. For instance I usually hear good things about jetbrains ide. I tried intellij community and I’m not impressed, it’s slightly better than eclipse, but it’s not on the level of visual studio for dotnet. I’m not a student and I don’t get paid for my hobby developments so paid options are a no-go.
So it is visual studio code for me. Sometimes I still use neovim, as I really like modal editors, and vim/neovim is my go to text editor anyways. I’m due to try emacs, and I’m hopeful for the future of both helix and Lapce, though I manage my emotions as I’ve know too many projects that just never deliver, so I’m cautious.
Emacs!
With LSPs it works for just about anything and Magit is simply too good.
Magit has changed the workflow of my life.
I switched to Emacs over two years ago because I was getting too comfortable in VS Code. If VS Code didn’t have the “dodgy” stuff, I would recommend it to everyone without reservation.
Emacs has been a pleasant surprise. The latest versions have introduced Eglot (LSP), EditorConfig and a few other odds and ends that make it very close to being usable with very little configuration. My latest suggestion for getting started is JUST two lines of config, and I think you can scale easily.
I just wish Emacs had started from the outset with more common keybindings- it makes it hard to recommend because you need to make a significant investment. I think it’s worthwhile, but still…
However, due to how it’s evolving lately, I suspect it might become even easier to get started with time. If they rolled in to base Emacs automatic LSP installation, that would be huge, for instance.
for some people it’s nice to start from nothing and build up config, I’d recommend doom for anyone else. it’s nice to be given a file with all the settings you can change instead of having to do it all yourself.
I just wish Emacs had started from the outset with more common keybindings- it makes it hard to recommend because you need to make a significant investment. I think it’s worthwhile, but still…
Surely you mean, “I wish Microsoft had adopted the standard Emacs keybindings.”
Emacs with LSP and magit rules!
Emacs. Everything else feels lobotomised
Vscode when I’m feeling productive, neovim when I’m feeling saucy
Hate pretty much every other ide out there, but do occasionally get forced into Android studio or xcode. Xcode is the worst, msvs a close second.
One day a multi cursor first multi-language extension lightweight ide will replace vscode I’m sure but it’s solid for now.
Used to use vscode, then one day it stopped working for me. I’ve been using Helix full time for a few months now and I’m pretty happy with it.
I used vim for all of my personal stuff until switching to vscode a few years ago, so an editor inspired by neovim is exciting!
Also,
No Electron. No VimScript. No JavaScript.
Hah! Shots fired, I love it
I really want to switch from VSCode to Helix but not having a file tree is a deal breaker.
Luckily there’s been a lot of work on adding a plugin runtime with one of the proof-of-concept plugins being a file tree. Assuming the plugin runtime comes out this year in a helix release, and adding on a year for the community to settle on the first wave of plugins while giving them time to mature, I can see myself using helix fulltime in 2027 (before Microsoft has enshitified vscode enough to be unpleasant to use).
ed
My three IDE’s of choice in order of preference:
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EMacs: ultimative workhorse which can do many more - especially with org-mode (however, time intensive to configure which is why I used also ChatGPT to get it done)
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VSCodium: easy to manage almost anything due to its huge number of extensions
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Vim: don’t know, sometimes I feel the need to work with Vim and it’s many shortcuts
All are free and open source.
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Vim when I can, and when I can’t, Neovim with plugins (LazyVim). Both are fast. I have had troubles with Neovim and configuration, and it does some things that really annoy me (like autoclosing parentheses - it just messes up everything). Honestly, the only feature that I really need is Go To Definition.
But vim - I absolutely love it. I started using it nearly 20 years ago and it still does everything one could want if you’re willing to learn the keymaps and commands. Macros,
ci), block indentation and so on. It’s even great for editing XML. If the codebases I’m working on these days weren’t so large and complicated, I would still be using it with very little configuration in my.vimrc.I don’t use lazyvim, but I found the “auto pairs” plugin you can try to disable
My preference is Visual Studio. For some technologies, and mass-text-replace, I use Visual Studio Code.
A long time ago my main IDE was Eclipse for C++ and Java before that. Recently, I’ve tried RustRover for Rust as an alternative to VS Code.
Visual Studio debugger is still best thing ever. It is strange how much poorer vscode’s debugger is compared to visual studio.
The Unix shell remains an excellent IDE.
A huge array of text- and data-manipulation tools, with more available through the standard package manager in my operating system.
Add in a powerful text editor like Vim or Emacs, and nothing can beat this IDE.
Yep. When everything about your IDE (unix) is programmable, it makes “modern” IDEs seem quite quaint.
Personally I make extensive use of https://f1bonacc1.github.io/process-compose/launcher/ to orchestrate a bunch of different shell scripts that trigger based on file changes (recompiling, restarting servers, re-running tests, etc.). Vim just reads from files as needed. It’s lightning fast, no bloat, and a world-class editing experience.
Jetbrains IDE’s are top tier (but resource hungry). A text editor with some plugins is fine for smaller projects, like zed, sublime text or neovim
Unix is my IDE, vim is my editor.
Based.
The universe is my IDE, my hands are my editor.
Xcode because I build iOS apps.
VSCod(ium). Jetbrains IDEs are arguably better (I’ve used this some in the past), but I like OSS and having all languages in one IDE (even though some languages may not be integrated as well as others).
Notepad++, all i do is edit java class files.
