IntelliJ has all of those things. I'm not sure you understood my question. I use Webstorm daily, I'm using it this very moment. I was asking about VSCode and where it falls between IntelliJ and N++.
I understood the question – and that IntelliJ has all of those things is exactly the point I was trying to make.
You get most of the features from a heavyweight IDE, but they managed to get the architecture incredibly lightweight so you can use it as a "daily driver" editor as well.
It is snappy enough to quickly edit some configuration or Markdown files (with live preview and clickable links), it has text based configuration files, its easy to write plugins with a couple of lines of code – and all sorts of other things that previously could only be found on the "editor-side" of the spectrum (export VISUAL="code -w", anyone?).
Unique selling points are quite hard to find, most things where invented somewhere else. Its more the combination of things and walking the thin line between the text editor and IDE worlds.
I also use WebStorm. But VScode is lightweight, starts up in two seconds and typescript support is always up2date with the latest typescript release. Changing user/language preferences in VSCode is a breeze as you simple open and edit the settings files with rich language support and intellisense. WebStorm requires you to open that horrible application modal Settings dialog. VSCode is also highly responsive compared to WebStorm which tends to lag a bit. I also like the quick info and peek features of visual studio code. However, there are folks who find this distracting.
WebStorm beats VSCode hands down in refactoring though.
When I first began using it the lag made it unusable. I'm talking up to 2000ms delay for visual feedback on my typing. Somehow that resolved itself over time though, and with my newer rig it's actually pretty damn snappy. It only takes about 15-20 seconds to spin up a virtual machine and launch Webstorm. I can't imagine how quick VSCode might be for me. I'll have to try it out tonight, everyone here has convinced me it's worth checking out.
You get most of the features from a heavyweight IDE, but they managed to get the architecture incredibly lightweight so you can use it as a "daily driver" editor as well.
It is snappy enough to quickly edit some configuration or Markdown files (with live preview and clickable links), it has text based configuration files, its easy to write plugins with a couple of lines of code – and all sorts of other things that previously could only be found on the "editor-side" of the spectrum (export VISUAL="code -w", anyone?).
Unique selling points are quite hard to find, most things where invented somewhere else. Its more the combination of things and walking the thin line between the text editor and IDE worlds.