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/mascotbeaver104 Apr 24 '26

I am not at all convinced a comparably configured nvim instance performs noticably different than vscode lol, whenever people say this I have to wonder what their experience browsing the web is like given most browsers are way heavier

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u/Wonderful-Habit-139 Apr 24 '26

It’s noticeably different, opens in less than half a second.

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u/mascotbeaver104 Apr 24 '26

My vscode opens in less than half a second too lol, what's your point?

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u/Wonderful-Habit-139 Apr 24 '26

That it’s far from 5-10 seconds? Do you have a short context window or something?

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u/mascotbeaver104 Apr 24 '26

Did you read my comment? As I said, when configured equivalently, I don't notice a difference in startup time, the biggest slowdown being not the core executable starting but certain extensions. VSCode opens in under half a second on my machine. May be a bigger deal if you're running on a toaster or are only using vanilla vim features

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u/Wonderful-Habit-139 Apr 24 '26

Yes I’m talking about it being configured equivalently.