[exceptione]

There is not much to see on a server that is down, so let me share some free advice instead.

Visit Eclipse Theia in the mean time when you are serious about de-risking from VSCode. I think VSCodium is doing an uphill battle here, while Microsoft can't help them self being a sales company first. In Theia, everything is open and free of spyware. MS is under no obligation to provide an OSS editor, but playing tricks after luring people in is not nice.

EDIT:

1. Eclipse Theia is a different platform than Eclipse the Java IDE.

2. link: https://theia-ide.org/#theiaidedownload

[0rzech]

Each time I try to use Theia IDE I have such a bad experience:

* On each start, Ada & SPARK extension pops up a dialog that I have to close by clicking 12 times (I counted it) on its "Cancel" button.

* I can't permanently remove items from the left sidebar. It looks like Theia is unable to persist some things between runs.

* The IDE notifies me about bad tasks.json config and proposes to open it to fix, but the "Open" button doesn't do anything.

* Open VSX extensions do not update automatically. [1] I have to manually switch their versions to the newer ones.

* Just now I've manually updated Ada & SPARK extension. Not only was I presented with several options with exactly the same version (perhaps each was meant for different CPU arch or operating system?), but after choosing the first one and reloading editor as the IDE asked me to, the extension disappeared completely.

None of these happen with VSCodium, or with VS Code of course.

[1] https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia/issues/9295

[mdaniel]

https://theia-ide.org/docs/user_install_vscode_extensions/#c... (sigh)

> Please note that a few parts of the VS Code extension API are only stubbed in Theia. Extensions will be installable, but some features might not work as expected.

Also, I thought Theia was a cloud IDE, and it seems like I was mostly right in that 2/3rds of their offering is (localhost:3000 & docker) but they also now apparently bundle it in Electron which I haven't tried

[exceptione]

Note they say that most extensions are compatible, and those not listed as compatible might still be.

The API surface covers almost 100% that of vscode, I only see some AI integration API's that are stubbed, and that is because Theia has their own vision here and doesn't want to depend on MS.

The complete API compatibility list is here, the stubbed API's are not core imho:

https://eclipse-theia.github.io/vscode-theia-comparator/stat...

[j0e1]

From my experience having attempted to migrate away from VSCodium (in the attempts to de-VSCode) and build atop Theia as a platform, there are few things to consider:

- The build system is finicky and can easily take hours to figure/fix.

- The error-reporting is severely lacking. You can be lost why something internal isn't working and go on a rabbit-trail with your favorite AI-copilot, etc.

- Documentation is lacking. You have to dive into the platform code to actually figure things out.

- This can be seen positively but there are quite a few new things being introduced regularly (especially AI-related) which, for a platform, isn't always ideal.

[blackoil]

They use vscode extensions and the repository in discussion, so not sure how much derisking it is than vscodium .

[sergiotapia]

Why in earth would they stain their efforts with the "eclipse" name. Screenshots look great!

[mdaniel]

I in some sense empathize with you, in that Eclipse have a minor branding problem, a major discoverability problem for all of their projects of subprojects of projects to track the projects. That said, Eclipse the editor was all in on building a platform[1] upon which other people could build their own editors. It was quite popular before Electron arrived and sucked all the oxygen out of the rich text delivery space

Eclipse the IDE also sat on their laurels and got their lunch eaten by JetBrains on the functionality front and VSCode on the extensible platform front

1: <https://wiki.eclipse.org/Rich_Client_Platform/> or <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(software)#Rich_client...>

[exceptione]

I have to somewhat defend Eclipse as the Java platform too. Twenty years ago people had hardly any RAM in their machines, and Eclipse definitely suffered for that, because without RAM you run into lots of disk i/o.

The JRE was born in a time of scarce cpu power and low RAM capacities. It has put tremendous optimization pressure on the project. I develop on .net nowadays, but I have the utmost respect of what they pulled off.

I dare you to install an Eclipse product these days. It will run circles around any Electron offering, while offering real parsers (not treesitter), and reliable code intelligence across vast source projects.

[bobmcnamara]

As an embedded developer, it's still painfully slow, every CPU integration (half a dozen) are half baked, never comes with platform appropriate hotkeys, and eventually consumes enough RAM my iGPU can't allocate textures, and has been doing so since 2008.

[zdimension]

> while offering real parsers (not treesitter)

Honest question, what's wrong with treesitters?

[exceptione]

Very short answer: because a treesitter will do an approximately correct parsing, while a hand written parser will do a correct parsing (and if not, it is a bug).

For a full, balanced overview, see: https://blog.jez.io/tree-sitter-limitations/

[bsder]

> MS is under no obligation to provide an OSS editor, but playing tricks after luring people in is not nice.

Microsoft is partly to blame, but people have been warning about this over and over and over ad nauseam and people still choose to use VSCode. You couldn't even get people to not use the proprietary extensions for C/C++, Python and remote development.

The problem is that Microsoft dedicates enough resource to development that everybody else looks like a rounding error.

For example, anybody could have produced the Language Server Protocol, but nobody had the critical mass until Microsoft shoved it down everybody's throats.

Until somebody puts a significant amount of money behind an alternative, Microsoft is going to continue to win this battle.

(I was going to also say "or the OSS guys all unify behind a choice" but Hell will freeze over before that happens.)

[owebmaster]

> (I was going to also say "or the OSS guys all unify behind a choice" but Hell will freeze over before that happens.)

The editor war is going as strong as ever, emacs vs vim will still be here in 20 years. Compared to 10 years ago, the amount of people using emacs and vim only grew, although VSCode growth was 1000x faster.

[skydhash]

I was watching the "Simple Made Easy" talk by Rick Hickey, and while he was talking more about programming languages, the talk could extend easily to editors and other type of tooling. People are always going for easy, not simple.

Vim is very simple (a composable language for editing, straightforward integration with cli tools, easily extendable,...). Emacs is simple (Major mode that dictates main operations and display, minor modes for additional features, integrations between them can be described more as a complex web than a simple graph...).

VS Code is easy (helpful suggestion for plugins, Familiar IDE-like interface, default setup, ready to hack on projects,...), but scratch that surface and the complexity appears (behemoth web engine, settings all over the place, app store like marketplace, extension are full blown software project,...). All the cons of IDE with none of the pros.

[throwy63658]

People will opt for what's accessible. Vim requires you to learn an alien control scheme to even navigate through code, and Emacs requires you to learn an incredibly unique programming language — one that sees no real world use, let's be honest — for basic tasks. Is it any surprise, then, that Microsoft had no issue swooping in and dominating the editor market when Emacs and Vim users believe that these are "features"?

VSCode does a great job keeping the complexity away from the user. Vim and Emacs shove it in your face. I prefer VSCode's approach.

[teddyh]

> Emacs requires you to learn an incredibly unique programming language — one that sees no real world use, let's be honest — for basic tasks.

Exactly what basic tasks in Emacs requires Emacs Lisp? Give me your best/worst example. I can’t think of one.

[skydhash]

Yep. Emacs may be unfamiliar, but almost everything is accessible with the mouse and the keyboard. From installing packages to configuring the software.

[genewitch]

I am not proud to admit that basically the only thing I know how to do in vim is edit the network configuration so I can install nano - in much the same vein as using iexplore.exs to download firefox back in the day.

[bsder]

"Not broken" trumps both simple and easy.

Syntax highlighting on the open source editors was a pile of regex fail before VSCode came along and forced everybody into the LSP.

[harshitaneja]

Genuinely curious, how did Microsoft "shoved it down everybody's throats"? And weren't Jetbrains, Eclipse, Vim, Emacs dominant enough(especially Jetbrains) to have done so before Microsoft?

[bsder]

VSCode garnered such a significant market share that supporting VSCode almost immediately becomes your #1 editor (see Rust surveys: 2016-3%, 2017-30%, 2018-45%, 2020-54%, 2023-62%--note: VSCode was only released in 2016!).

Since the LSP was the only effective way that you could support syntax highlighting in VSCode, languages had to create an LSP or they didn't exist to VSCode users. Once the language supports VSCode, anyone not already steeped in the editor wars switched.

At that point, the editors had to support the LSP or get left behind.

With JetBrains, the issue is that they would have almost certainly considered an LSP as a competitive advantage. It would have taken some amazing foresight to release something like that as OSS and not be afraid of losing market share if you get vim/neovim to adopt it (you can ignore emacs market share--the editor wars are all but over and emacs lost badly).

[mdaniel]

> With JetBrains, the issue is that they would have almost certainly considered an LSP as a competitive advantage

As a point of comparison, the value that I get from JetBrains products is about 35% UX niceties[1] and 1500000% code intelligence, which no LSP that I have ever seen even strives to do that. They all appear to be focused on "jump to declaration", "what can I type here", and some of them ferry "linter" results back to the user but that is just using LSP as a conduit not that the LSP itself is doing anything intelligent

That's why I throw up in my mouth when someone claims their vim+lsp is a python powerhouse because, sure, it's better than nothing but even PyCharm open source blows the doors off of any LSP

1: and even that has been under constant attack over the past few years from their gravely misguided product management team, culminating in the "you are committing code wrong" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43710699

[imcritic]

Why would I switch from vscodium to theia?

[bangaladore]

Theia is not a fork of vscode (even though it looks like it). It uses VSCode's code editor (Monoco) and is written from the ground up. Presumably allowing it to support extensions, that for example, vscode does not.

However, its early days.

[imcritic]

This doesn't answer my question in the slightest. What does it offer so nice that vscodium doesn't have and that would push me to switch to theia?

[dspillett]

As an outsider to the conversation I'd say it answers it vaguely at least.

Perhaps you could ask a question less vague than the reply it incited? What is it that you want that keeps you with vscodium over other options? Or if you don't have enough information/experience of them, just what do you like about vscodium enough that you aren't particularly feeling any need to consider alternatives?

[exceptione]

- Certain core, built-in plugins do still contact MS servers.

- Vscode has limited what extensions can do on the platform. MS own extensions can do things that others cannot.

- Theia extensions can do what oss vscode extensions cannot. Theia supports all the non-ms specific extension API's so it is fully compatible with all/most vscode extensions. But Theia goes further. Part of Theia's vision is that you could ship your own Theia, the whole platform is open.

So, Theia is a safer bet. There is no rug to pull.

Also, think about chrome <-> chromium. When Google pushes for a new API that limits what ad-blockers can do, then Chromium has a problem. Because then it becomes a fork, as upstream becomes incompatible with chromium.

[mappu]

> However, its early days.

Theia has been out for eight years now,

[bangaladore]

Came out of beta less then a year ago. What I mean is adoption is slow (if even there), so I'm sure there is quite a lot missing.

But that's probably fine, Theia seems to be focused more on the current audience of Eclipse which is vendor tooling (chipmakers, FPGA, custom toolchains) rather than being an editor you are supposed to use by itself.

[TiredOfLife]

Theia is not a fork except all the parts that are.

[bangaladore]

What parts are forked? Genuinely curious.

Based on my quick reading they are just using Monaco code editor. That is 100% freely licensed as MIT. Monaco is just the line based text editor.