Eclipse boss claims Visual Studio Code is an open-source poseur – though he would say that, wouldn't he?
- Reference: 1588758305
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/06/visual_studio_code_eclipse/
- Source link:
He is keen to promote the Eclipse [1]Theia project as an alternative. "There are no obligations to, or dependencies on, any company that has contributed to the code base or that uses it," he [2]said .
The odd aspect of this rant is that Theia is built with the Microsoft-created language TypeScript and uses VS Code components including the [3]Monaco code editor, the Language Server Protocol used to support intelligent coding features, and the extension model that allows Theia to work with most VS Code extensions. Theia would not exist without the work that was done for VS Code. VS Code builds on other open-source projects including [4]Electron and [5]Chromium . So the open-source model is working exactly as it should.
Milinkovich is correct: VS Code itself is proprietary, though it is freeware. There is a distinction between the source on GitHub, which is under the MIT License, and the VS Code product, which is released "under a traditional Microsoft product license," according to the [6]VS Code FAQ .
The proprietary bits include the Visual Studio brand, some icons, integration with the Visual Studio Marketplace, and "small aspects of enabling Remote Development". The Marketplace issue is particularly troubling for Milinkovich as it is something of a barrier to competing software. He is promoting the Eclipse [7]Open VSX marketplace as an alternative.
Given that VS Code is free, though, it is difficult to convince developers that Microsoft's ownership of the product is a problem. If Microsoft did abandon the product, the bulk of the code remains for someone to pick up, just as has happened with Theia. Further, the fact that a giant corporation is actively developing VS Code is not altogether a bad thing. The lack of a business model can hold back open-source projects, as a member of the Inkscape team [8]told us recently .
VS Code does include telemetry collection by default – it is easy to disable, though Milinkovich highlighted that "you can opt out of many telemetry data collection scenarios, but not all." The "not all" refers to third-party extensions. "These extensions may be collecting their own usage data and are not controlled by the telemetry.enableTelemetry setting," Microsoft explained in the FAQ, which is not really a fault in VS Code.
Milinkovich's problem may be related to the fact that Visual Studio Code is used by 50.7 per cent of developers (with Visual Studio in second place), according to the latest StackOverflow [9]survey . Eclipse, the developer tool platform for which the foundation was formed, has just 14.4 per cent usage. Theia does not yet feature.
Erich Gamma, a computer scientist who co-authored the influential book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software , was involved in the design of the Eclipse Java tools – but in 2011 joined Microsoft to work on the "Monaco" project.
There are many points of connection therefore between VS Code, Theia and Eclipse. Despite the one-sided nature of Milinkovich's statements though, the Theia project is also a good thing for developers. One of the points made [10]by GitPod's Sven Efftinge , to which Milinkovich refers, is that Theia is better suited as a base on which other products can be built, because "Microsoft has no interest in serving as a basis for products of other vendors."
If Visual Studio Code usage does decline, it will not be because of licensing, but rather the product becoming bloated or evolving in a direction that is unwelcome to many of its users. Longstanding complaints that VS Code occasionally [11]deletes itself , for example, could be a problem, though fortunately this seems to be rare. In general, VS Code is trouble-free compared to Eclipse and its [12]complex updating mechanism . Theia is different, of course – thanks in no small part to VS Code. ®
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[1] https://theia-ide.org/
[2] https://eclipse-foundation.blog/2020/05/05/eclipse-theia-and-vs-code-differences-explained/
[3] https://microsoft.github.io/monaco-editor/
[4] https://github.com/electron/electron
[5] https://www.chromium.org/
[6] https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq
[7] https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/ecd.openvsx
[8] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/14/16_years_inkscape_v1/
[9] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#development-environments-and-tools
[10] https://eclipse-foundation.blog/2020/05/05/eclipse-theia-and-vs-code-differences-explained/
[11] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/52855
[12] https://wiki.eclipse.org/FAQ_How_do_I_upgrade_Eclipse_IDE%3F
[13] https://go.theregister.co.uk/tl/1936/-8554/forrester-build-a-digital-experience-portfolio?td=wptl1936
But it is quite good!
I have often been described as a "tin-foil twat" based on the strength of my anti-Microsoft sentiments. I am one of those people that migrated away from GitHub the week Microsoft bought it. However, I bent the knee and installed VSCode about 2 months ago as I couldn't get the refactoring tools I needed into Kate, and I hate the full fat Eclipse IDE. It really is a great editor.
What I came to realises is that if I can't get behind a cross-platform open-source project with over 1000 contributors, then what am I really fighting for? Having to turn off the telemetry crap was rather discouraging, but the actual editor experience is really good. I cannot think I have ever said that the user experience was good for any Microsoft software before, and that is the power of open-source users added the features they needed. I think we the nerds won this round, Microsoft are doing it our way, we should encourage that.
Agreed
I'm one of those who dislike both Eclipse and Visual Studio; both of them too bloated and a hobson's choice between the potential of supporting any language & toolchain (and attendant compromises) vs baked in support for one vendor's tools and nothing for anyone else.
So VS code has been really useful because the designers understand that an editor should get out of the way - the code one's working on should always be front & centre.
Re: But it is quite good!
That is true. It IS rather good, which is something I don't remember saying about any Microsoft product. And if you want to use PlatformIO, you really don't have a choice.
I used to use Eclipse, but it's frankly a godawful mess.
Re: But it is quite good!
VSC is worth its weight in gold purely for the debugger integration IMO.
It's no Visual Studio, but it's a hell of a lot better than any other IDE I've used on Linux over the years, and a billion times easier to set up.
VSCode has allowed me to loosen the universities (and students) obsession with full fat Visual Studio.
We are finally able to use more modern innovative compilers like Clang, Emscripten, etc whilst still keeping those who are obsessed with "brands" happy.
As for my personal use... Vim solved the text editor problem for me in the early 90s. It is something I have never had to worry about since.
As soon as your students get into the real world though, if they're working as software developers on Windows they're more than likely going to be using Visual Studio. Employers want people who know how to use the tools they use.
In nearly 30 years of working as a software engineer, I don't think I've ever worked somewhere that didn't use Visual Studio. (Post 1995 that is - the DOS years are all a bit of a blur now anyway.) Even the places that were virtually married to Linux (and God forbid Solaris) I still used a Windows laptop with Visual Studio installed for my day to day work.
Visual Studio Code isn't bad as a substitute on Linux, but it doesn't come close to the real Visual Studio.
Nicely balanced article
My congratulations to Mr Anderson for taking a critically balanced view.
I'd just like to comment on this bit:
> Visual Studio Code is used by 50.7 per cent of developers (with Visual Studio in second place), according to the latest StackOverflow survey.
That would be 50.7 of respondents to that survey, which does not tell us much about usage by the population of developers at large nor about the preferences of the population of developers you would actually want to hire who, if they use that site at all, is to answer support questions about some code that they maintain.
So the actual usage amongst your target pool of developers might be lower or it might be higher, there is no telling from that poll.
Well, you can't fault Eclipse's consisitency …
From [1]Wikipedia , quoting IBM's Lee Nackman from a now-inaccessible eWeek article: the name "Eclipse" (dating from at least 2001) was not a wordplay on Sun Microsystems, as the product's primary competition at the time of naming was Microsoft Visual Studio, which Eclipse was to eclipse.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(software)#Name
'"These extensions may be collecting their own usage data and are not controlled by the telemetry.enableTelemetry setting," Microsoft explained in the FAQ, which is not really a fault in VS Code.'
Well...sort of. There's no reason why respect for a global telemetry setting couldn't be a requirement for listing in the Marketplace. It's clearly Microsoft's fault, whether you describe it as a fault in VS Code or in the Marketplace terms.