Comment by phoronixrly
1 day ago
I'm not mad that VScode is popular. I am mad at people that are not appalled by the resource use of vscode and clones, by the sluggish UI, by the abysmal security (with the latest example being the multi-billion bitcoin theft), by the walled garden that allowed a backdoored extension despite its very stated purpose... You know, all factors that a competent programmer would find important when making a choice of tools...
I’m not appalled by it because the resource use is “free.”
I already have 32GB of RAM plus an M2 Max in my laptop because my company issued it to me. I already have 32GB of RAM and a 9850X3D in my desktop because I play games.
What non-ideological motivation do I have to ration computing resources on my IDE? Even if I had an 8GB MacBook Neo, VSCode would run fine.
If I was coding on a raspberry pi my story would change (although I suspect VSCode would run fine on that, too), but I’m not so I don’t care. It’s fast enough to get the job done and the rich featureset is more important than raw performance.
>What non-ideological motivation do I have to ration computing resources on my IDE?
I feel gross explaining this.
If we both have the same exact machine, but I choose to use software that uses substantially less resources -- well -- then I get to run more of that software simultaneously.
if you use computers as some big single-tasked typewriter equivalent then yeah, who cares.
it's not all fucking style and ideology, sometimes behaviors have a decent concrete reasoning.
Two things.
One: A very many programmers have their tools selected by their jobs, not their own choices.
Two: There are very few competent programmers.