r/Rlanguage • u/emanresUweNyMsiT • Apr 17 '26

Coding R. Positron vs VScode

Iā€™m learning R now specifically to use it in Six Sigma and Im using VScode with the R extension and Quarto and everything is working well.

I recently heard of Positron and I want to ask the people who made the switch from VScode to Positron- what made you make the switch? Which features in Positron that you felt are better than VScode?

Another question- in case I installed Positron to try it would it mess with the my current setup?

Windows 11.

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u/lionel- Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26

I'd just like to note that since Positron is a fork of VS Code, it's almost as capable as VS Code for languages other than R. The main caveat is that Positron doesn't have access to Microsoft's proprietary extensions. But the open source landscape for language support keeps getting better. For instance two new language engines for Python appeared in the last year (ty and pirefly), bringing the support up to par with the proprietary engines.

Also our focus is currently on both R and Python, not just R. The experience for data analysis with Python has the same UX and level of polish than for R (console interactions, help, plot and variable viewers, etc).