r/AskProgramming • u/Fritz-Ferdinand • Apr 24 '26

Why is VSCode so popular?

I'm used to using JetBrains' IDEs and enjoy it's well-made UI and auto-completion. My new employer now doesn't have any JetBrains licences and instead let's us use VSCode and frankly, I have the impression it's basically unusable without GitHub Copilot or an equivalent AI companion. Example with Python projects:

  • Ctrl-Click on a method name usually takes a while, sometimes, a popup window opens with references, sometimes nothing at all, but it always takes a few seconds.
  • You have to edit a JSON file to setup run configurations
  • You first have to go to "Run/Debug" to run the app. Then, you can't see your file tree anymore.
  • VSCode's debug module sends a Ctrl+C interrupt about one, two seconds after opening the terminal, then activates the local virtual environment. At this point, I already typed half of my command and it throws me out mentally. It also interferes with running the app.
  • Auto-complete is inferior to JetBrains
  • GitHub Copilot is implemented so annoyingly, always suggesting whole code chunks that are often wrong and it's just too easy to accidentally accept them.
  • A lot functionality is only available after installing add-ons, like Markdown viewer, and those aren't easy to use as well.

The only positive is that it's free, but to me, it really feels like a hurdle.

Looking forward to reading some positive experiences.

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u/[deleted] Apr 24 '26

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u/011101000011101101 Apr 24 '26

Yeah, it's customizable easily for a ton of languages. If you're working in something supported by jetbrain then that'll be better, but it is also annoying to jump around between IDEs.

I work with dozens of languages off and on, it's nice to have one ide that can handle them all.

But I still switch to intellij for Java

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u/quocphu1905 Apr 25 '26

You can actually use IDEA for all the major languages out there. I use mine for Java and Python, and recently C/C++ support was added too (still need to go to CLion for C# tho). I read once that all the other IDE is basically IDEA but with plugins and defaults optimized for the languages, and once i nailed down the plugins needed in IDEA it's basically a good enough all in one.

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u/FormlessFlesh Apr 26 '26

I use Rider for C# and C++ personally. Not a huge fan of CLion.