The Rise of Microsoft Visual Studio Code (triplebyte.com)

Expressedly, this is my opinion solely, with that said:

I stopped using Sublime and stopped recommending it not because of price (I actually prefer to pay for things when I can) but because the community plugins for my development workflow (PHP + Frontend) is...not great. I also found the distinct lack of API documentation to be frustrating (I'm not above making my own extensions and I very much like Python)

Visual Studio code at least has good front end tooling (The PHP extensions can't handle my large PHP projects, though I am tempted to try the a paid extension on this that I heard works well in Visual Studio proper, also, Twig support plain sucks. I'm not 100% certain if this is a limitation of VS Code or the Extension but it can't find my variables from the PHP files)

I've since moved to a combo of PHPStorm (my daily driver) and Visual Studio Code for Git Merges (I prefer the way you can handle it in VS Code) and doing other misc tasks that I don't want to fire up a PHPStorm instance for.

Same reason I never liked Atom. Tooling always seemed off somehow.

Side note? If you are going to pay for an editor, I recommend any JetBrains product offering.

Be careful that's it's only open-source if you build it yourself or if you use VS-Codium (https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium).

The VS-Code that everyone uses is under a Microsoft License and includes close source Microsoft telemetry (spyware?) and user data collection :

https://code.visualstudio.com/License/

Edit: Disregard, I don't know wtf I'm talking about.

  Sublime Text is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. One license is all you need to use Sublime Text on every computer you own, no matter what operating system it uses.

What's the point investing time in learning a proprietary tool when the developers could take it away from you at any moment?

A lot of people I know who use Sublime never paid. In fact, I don't know anyone who paid for it IRL except myself.

If you don't pay, you only get a nag screen from time to time as you save. And cracks most likely exist if you want to get rid of it without paying.

BTW, I still use Sublime Text. I gave a try to VS Code and it is really great. It has most of the things that made me switch to Sublime (from Emacs), plus some more. The issue I had was performance. Sublime is generally more responsive for me, with less subsecond but still noticeable pauses.

I've paid for Sublime, but I abandoned it for VS Code. For instance, the default Python setup - in particular its handling of virtualenvs, linters, and formatters - works pretty much out of the box. I was constantly fighting against the Sublime plugins to make them work halfway reasonably. Sublime is faster, but the lower mental overheard required to make VS Code work properly makes a much bigger difference to me than the price does.

There’s a jetbrains (IntelliJ) flavored ide for basically everything - even c#! I prefer Rider for doing c# in Unity3D over VS or VSCode because it seems muc more performant and the vim plug-in is way better

VS code is a jack of all trades editor, obviously it's not going to be able to match more specialized editors

Separately from being my JS IDE of choice, VS Code has for the most part replaced Notepad++. It's quite good at being a general purpose "heavyweight" text editor.

I use emacs for Java and Scala development with LSP quite successfully, and VS Code's support for language servers is as good as they come. Is it primarily debugging that's the impediment to switching for you?

I switched from IntelliJ IDEA to VSCode for a massive legacy Java/Wildfly project. It started as an experiment, I figured I'd be back to IntelliJ within a week. I'm still using VSCode after a couple months now and I don't see a reason to go back to IntelliJ.

It starts and runs well, and has plugins for anything I might need. The day I run into something there isn't a plugin for, it's awesome to know that I could just make one to suit my need.

As far as negatives, VSCode has times where it gets hung up and intellisense is borked for a couple minutes, but I can usually just ignore the red squigglies until it catches up. I also don't yet feel as fast as I did in IntelliJ, IntelliJ has some really great keyboard shortcuts and I could jump around and work very quickly because of it. I'm hopeful this gap will close as I continue to learn and remember keyboard shortcuts in VSCode.

I agree with the first two, but does VS Code really solve different problems than Atom?

Java on VS code is still kind of pain, which is too bad.

To me, VS Code and Typescript were made for each other.

Python is just a free bonus.

IntelliJ has a huge head start in targeting Java. Right now it's my python & golang editor of choice.

I'm also skeptical of microsoft products, but they have come a long way since getting their new CEO. I've gained a lot of respect from them for better integration with non-windows platforms.

expect for a feature that keeps a lot of people on other editors (recordable macros) https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/4490

How can anyone say VSCode is fast, and then compare it to Sublime Text ? They are not even in the same order of magnitude.

VSCode is definitely fast enough for most uses cases, but I still wish it was as fast as Sublime Text, from Scrolling Frame-rate to response time.

I think the author is saying they have no idea why C# and Java devs are worse on average than Ruby and Go devs. I'm sure they know the specific reason those devs fail, but are trying to understand the more general trends that lead to higher rates of failure. I would guess that this is another instance of the python paradox (http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html).

If I recall correctly the test is 100% automated. Write code, run tests. Answer multiple choice. Humans and their bias need not apply.

I think he means he has no idea why candidates of those languages are less likely to meet his pass criteria

I have a theory on this. For most interview style coding problems (which tend to be algorithmic in nature), scripting languages such as python or ruby:

1) are less verbose

2) don't require worrying about typing

3) have really easy ways to manipulate strings, iterate, etc., which are often found in interview style problems

Java and C# have many advantages over python and ruby, but I think that they put you at an inherent disadvantage for many interview style questions which often require you to solve an algorithmic or data structure type problem in a limited amount of time [1].

[1] This doesn't explain why people using Go would tend to pass at higher rates, but since the Go community is comparatively much smaller, there could be other factors at play there.

I suspect it's because most Java and C# engineers are "enterprise" engineers who work on mostly CRUD applications. Go and Ruby would be more aligned for a startup. Given that TripleByte's interview process is more technical and computer science oriented, I'm not surprised they score less. It's mainly about the types of problems you solve at work and how well you keep technical knowledge fresh.

> > However, it seems that the average C# or Java engineer who goes through our process does less well than the average Ruby or Go engineer. I have no idea why.

> Given that they have the test info... and they're the ones deciding pass/fail... it's a bit strange they "have no idea why". Well, perhaps just this person doesn't?

> Are people not finishing the projects? Do the projects have syntax errors in them? Or logical bugs? What metrics do they use for "pass/fail"?

Something I've noticed over time is that a good chunk of the people not too enthusiastic about their work tend to gravitate towards the enterprisey stuff like java, C# or VB while the more enthusiastic may end up in embedded, research or low level code like the guts of an OS or database.

I wonder ....

It's because the process is CS heavy. Slinging business logic together while mapping it through some ORM to satisfy the latest priority shift this sprint is what the average C# and Java engineer excels at. It's more craftsmanship and less computer science.

We use it in our distributed team and it works wonders for pair programming.

wow, never realized that was a supported feature. I must have glossed over that feature in that then feature release https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2017/11/15/live-share

Yep. I really like Sublime, and I probably still would be using it. I had it all set up to sync settings between my devices, with a nice theme, some handy plugins, and excellent syntax highlighters. But at some point I had both a new personal laptop and a new work computer. I had it on the back of my mind that I need to sort out my Sublime configuration again on both of these (which at the time included that weird dance to install Package Control). But then I already had VSCode working pretty well out of the box (including a perfectly good colour scheme), so my motivation to sort out Sublime became less and less until suddenly I was happy just using VSCode.

Interestingly, I found Atom to be much easier to customize. There are still things in VS Code I can't customize that I used to have in Atom.

That said, I've been on VS Code for a little more than a year now and it's grown on me.

Maybe it’s because the editor was taught to students at places like MIT, Berkeley, etc?

I've been almost exclusively an Emacs user since the turn of the millennium or so, even before I was a full-time professional programmer. I briefly tried out TextMate years ago, and I've tried out VS Code, but I stick to Emacs for day-to-day work, and the keybindings are pretty much hard-wired into me at this point.

At the same time, I hate and actively avoid typical tech interview processes, and I suspect my pass rate if I did a bunch of them would start out low and only grow after a while once I got used to "interview coding" (which is basically a separate skill from actual programming).

So I don't know why they see this effect. My first guess would be that it's a kind of survivorship bias; outside of the occasional splash of someone trendy inspiring some new users, using the classic Unix-y editors seems to correlate with older/more experienced programmers. Who, because they've managed to stick around as long as they have, probably can manage to get hired when they want or need to.

amen

people look at me like I'm an old crazy dude because I don't use a git UI or eclipse, or intellij, or from sublime. Git already has plenty of quirks, adding another layer of unknown on top of it is a no-go

I've had best results decoupling my tools, so I use a separate git client (in my case, Git Tower). You can also add things like database clients to VSC, but similarly I use Datagrip etc.

> This is a fantastic demonstration of why i exclusively use git from a command prompt...

Thanks for this. I've always felt the same way but haven't been able to put my finger on why. As more things get integrated into my editor (I use VSCode) I feel like I should use the shiny features, but for source control I think I'm going to only use the commandline forever. (Edit: though plugins such as GitLens that give you source control info inline are fantastic.)

Along with some nice features I've added, such as my 'git af' (add + fzf) shortcut[1][2], the commandline is very usable (don't have to 'git add' and type filenames manually).

[1] https://github.com/kbd/setup/blob/65b3d0abcb34540b43880792e8...

[2] https://github.com/kbd/setup/blob/65b3d0abcb34540b43880792e8...

    git gui

    git add -i

    git commit -a

> This is a fantastic demonstration of why i exclusively use git from a command prompt -- i know what will happen and nobody's going to reinvent terms to put on buttons that just confuse me.

This many times. I'll open SourceTree to view a large set of diffs or changes, but still drop back to the CLI to push/pull/rebase/commit/stash/etc... I know what git will do in those cases, and am a little wary of git UIs.

> I paid for sublime so i will use it -- and multiple cursors everywhere is a boon for quick and dirty data munging

These days pretty much every serious editor has multiple cursors, including Visual Studio Code.

Since you're an Emacs user... just wanted to plug magit - it might make you change your mind about command-prompt-only git usage

P.S. VSCode has multi-cursor as well: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/tips-and-trick...

> and multiple cursors everywhere is a boon for quick and dirty data munging.

VSCode has this. Hold down Command on Macs (probably Ctrl on Windows/Linux) and click. You can also select "next similar word" with command-D so you can quickly change all instances of a word to another word.

To each their own. I've used CLI git only for a decent amount of time but VSCode's git diff view is fantastic and effortless to use. Their interface for staging files and making commits is excellent and combined with the ease of viewing local changes, it makes it very easy to ensure that commit messages are well documented and accurate. Same goes for handling merge conflicts.

I still use the CLI to push/pull/branch/merge, etc just to have total control, but staging files, viewing diffs and making commits are a lot more annoying in the CLI.

> fantastic demonstration of why i exclusively use git from a command prompt

What's described in that github issue happened to me as well the first time I used git via Visual Studio. I normally don't do that, but something told me to make a zip of everything before using git in VS. So that saved me big time.

Why in the world are the deletions not pointed to the Recycle Bin??? That's what it's there for.

I do command line git as well because I am bouncing between IDEs and dont want to learn the differences in little features of each IDEs source control ui.

> I paid for sublime so i will use it

I purchased Sublime when it was the least bad editor out there, but finally realized that I was suffering from the sunk cost fallacy. I still consider it the worst software purchase I've ever made, and it's also why I'm reluctant to pay a single buck for software nowadays.

I managed to commit node_modules folder to github using VS Code git integration. Luckily it was on a smaller test project. My fault but there was a UI failure.

All I did was press Commit which apparently decided to stage and commit everything under the root folder.

It didn't do this in other projects so who knows what was different.

This is how credential files must get committed to github every day.

If VS Code is going to be smart about so many other things, then there should be some sort of warning for major code affecting changes.

You are about to push 5000 files to master repo inluding some that appear to be widely used libraries, are you sure that is what you want ?

I use TortoiseHg for Hg. Source Tree for git (though I honestly don't like it very much, and often use hg-git to just work with git from TortoiseHg). Sublime for text editing; and agreed on the multiple cursors and great regexing - fantastic for quick and dirty munging indeed. I use VS for writing C#, creating SQL databases, and a myriad of other functions that would take too long to get into. LinqPad for quick experiments or writing up some quick scripts I need to run rarely.

Since you mention both using git directly from the command line and Emacs, have you tried magit?

I am much the same. I have stickers for IntelliJ (as a stand in for all JetBrains IDEs), Emacs and Vim on my laptop because each has a different use case and preferred language. I even have Atom, Sublime and others installed and use them on rare occasions when they have plugins that are useful for a task at hand.

I also exclusively use the command line for source control (of which I use at least four, but mostly git and hg). I just do not trust IDEs to do the right thing, although JetBrains does get close (but my colleague devs hate the properly pruned .idea in the repos).

multi cursor is pretty much a basic feature in all modern text editors these days.

They mean plurality.

Just changed it to plurality. Thanks!

Emacs has multi-cursor support. http://emacsrocks.com/e13.html

Are sublime multi-cursors different from code multi-cursors?

Can't really speak to performance comparisons, but VS Code has has multi-cursor support for a while now.

What language do you write?

From a point of anthropological curiosity, do you work in a team where everyone uses that style of brace indentation?

Is it actually common and I've just never encountered it before?

In which codebases is Whitesmiths formatting used? It looks so wrong if you're used to any of the other styles.

VS Code uses Electron.

For those not familiar (as I was), here's what Whitesmiths style looks like (straight from Wikipedia):

    while (x == y)
        {
        something();
        somethingelse();
        }

    finalthing();

Hey, I'm familiar with VS Code language extensions. Depending on your language you may or may not be able to do this. The controls you have are:

- increaseIndentPattern: If a line matches this pattern, then all the lines after it should be indented once (until another rule matches).

- decreaseIndentPattern: If a line matches this pattern, then all the lines after it should be unindented once (until another rule matches).

- indentNextLinePattern: If a line matches this pattern, then only the next line after it should be indented once.

- unIndentedLinePattern: If a line matches this pattern, then its indentation should not be changed and it should not be evaluated against the other rules.

They are all regex patterns. If you think your language would let you do that, I can try and throw together something for you.

The same engine that VSCode uses is open source [1]. With lsp-mode [2] or eglot [3], you can have the same stuff working inside emacs. I've actually been writing Java inside emacs lately --- yes, java, and I have had very few issues.

One caveat, development on the emacs LSP stuff is moving very quickly, so I don't recommend using ELPA/MELPA/etc. to install the plugins. I use straight.el [4] to manage my plugins, they're checked out from the upstream source and can be updated at-will. You'll also need an up to date version of emacs, ie: 26+. (That's the current release, but it's not available in some distributions ie: debian/ubuntu yet.)

---

[1]: https://github.com/Microsoft/python-language-server

[2]: https://github.com/emacs-lsp/lsp-mode

[3]: https://github.com/joaotavora/eglot

[4]: https://github.com/raxod502/straight.el

It's hard to beat pycharm especially on Windows...

Hanging out with Bloodshed and Code::Blocks

Could you give some examples? I keep seeing annoying Triplebyte ads popping up and not sure what it is.

I recall reading something to the effect that the most competent developers by Triplebyte's metrics used vim and Ruby on a Mac. That sounded too much like the typical hipster startup dev to be a coincidence, which got me wondering: is that really a snapshot of the best developers out there, or is it just what Triplebyte, hence their clients, are selecting for?

That was annoying me the entire time I was reading this, the entire article has an unspoken assumption that their interview process couldn't possibly be responsible for any discrepancy in the data.

Well, what they hiring for, their questions in a specific language, how and who is evaluating the answers, the fact that a person is looking to work for them vs other companies are all biases. Nobody should try to extrapolate their results to the whole population of software engineers.

That said, Visual Studio is really on the rise. I used to think VSCode was late and could have never catch up with the Sublime's and Atom's ecosystem. So after trying it, I went back to my editor of choice. Lately though I went back to VSCode and I think it is pretty good out of the box and very good when you install the right plugins.

Further, it looks like the questions are biased towards Ruby devs.

I don't know if this counts, but it might, me and several friends and people I know who have all been doing Java for 10-15 years... are all writing typescript now. And using VSCode to do so.

> It's a good text editor, first and foremost. Compared to netbeans, eclipse, visual studio, even intellj idea

Have to disagree with VSC being better than Intellij. I find Intellij refactoring, debugging and autocomplete far ahead of VSC, especially when it comes to supporting leaser known features, or recently released language changes.

I still use Netbeans as my daily driver, but it's been in a death spiral. Now it's the Apache graveyard and will never get modern features like SASS.

Of all the IDEs I've been dabbling with for a replacement, I'm still deciding on Visual Studio Code or PHPStorm.

Actually I really do not like VSC resource consumption and performance. It feels more like eclipse than text editor but it does not offer as many features. If I want something fast and lightweight I reach for vim or sublime. But I do not care about start time as I leave all those program open all the time.

I love VSCode and have moved to it from Sublime; mostly same shortcuts by default, inline debugging, extension ecosystem and blistering pace of development.

It's fast enough but Sublime blows it out of the water - especially for things to "Go To Symbol" where it works almost instantly whereas I'm constantly waiting for VSCode to stop spinning and give up and cmd-f search instead.

Also, I have to work with a lot of network-user-login RHEL6 boxes, and VSCode doesn't work on desktops that old.

> the difference in UI performance is astounding

I could not agree more. I've made numerous attempts to embrace the new hotness that is VSCode but I just cannot get over the performance. Yes, it has some cool features, the plug-in ecosystem is booming, and it sure looks pretty. But at the end of the day none of it is compelling enough for me to put up with the constant lag.

It's funny because after several of these experiments I have literally wondered to myself if I'm getting stuck in my ways or becoming a so-called "greybeard" due to my long term adherence to Sublime Text, but is constantly getting annoyed with how slow an editor is really a hallmark of old age? I'll wait for your web page to load, I'll wait for an ssh command to return. I will not wait for my bloody text editor. I have no patience whatsoever. Now god damn it NOW!

Another thing I wonder is how many of those VSCode users have simply never used anything better. If all you've ever known is an iPhone 5, you probably think it's pretty great - maybe you think that's just how phones are! This impression will be totally ruined of course when you try an iPhone X...

> I don't think it has anything to do with people's failure or success.

Unless the interviewer is a big fan of VSC and they favour other VSC users.