VS Code or Xcode?

[KhakiHat]

So, I am making the switch from Windows to macOS.

 

I have some experience with using VS Code in a windows environment but because I am making the switch, I was curious if using the native Xcode would maybe result in better performance.

 

Anyone have any opinions of one over the other? I know that choosing an editor/IDE to work with depends on the individual's requirements but I would like to consider the idea of just overall use in general settings.

[Sauron]

VSCode is going to perform about the same on macOS as it does on Windows, XCode is a native app so in theory it should be faster but it's possible the feature difference will negate that advantage. You shouldn't be able to tell the difference in everyday use anyway.

[DevBlox]

I'd dare say VS Code is more flexible, the amount of extensions is vast. It works great on all platforms too, it's not vim, but it's definitely fast enough.

[tnings]

11 hours ago, KhakiHat said:

So, I am making the switch from Windows to macOS.

 

I have some experience with using VS Code in a windows environment but because I am making the switch, I was curious if using the native Xcode would maybe result in better performance.

 

Anyone have any opinions of one over the other? I know that choosing an editor/IDE to work with depends on the individual's requirements but I would like to consider the idea of just overall use in general settings.

Both are bad, but for any apple device Xcode is better, both are resource intensive, both take up a shitload of storage.

[Eigenvektor]

I'd say it depends on what you want to do. Unless you're developing for macOS or iOS I don't think XCode is going to have an advantage over VSCode for you.

30 minutes ago, tnings said:

Both are bad, but for any apple device Xcode is better, both are resource intensive, both take up a shitload of storage.

Xcode on my Macbook is 16.85 GB in size, VScode is ~250 MB. I'd say that's quite a big difference. VSCode is also a lot faster on startup, too.

[KhakiHat]

1 hour ago, tnings said:

Both are bad, but for any apple device Xcode is better, both are resource intensive, both take up a shitload of storage.

I'm pretty sure Xcode recommends around 20gb

[fake_brogrammer]

recently ( january ) moved to OSX from using Visual Studio on Windows, and Vim on Linux. started using VSCode ( and OSX ) for work, and have been using it for personal projects.

haven't found a good reason to switch from VSCode yet. memory usage is generally better than Spotify after a few days of no shutdowns,and can be a bit sluggish at times but that's likely due to a crappy CPU + compiling half a million line of code at a time.

as you said, it does depend on YOUR usage, but your usage really is the most important thing for determining an editor. 

like to play around with lots of languages and don't want to relearn new UIs ? vscode

only use java ? eclipse

only using Windows, and ASP.NET ? visual studio 2019

like driving yourself insane and hate using the mouse ? vim

like driving yourself insane and hate using the mouse and like lisp ? emacs

[KhakiHat]

8 hours ago, fake_brogrammer said:

recently ( january ) moved to OSX from using Visual Studio on Windows, and Vim on Linux. started using VSCode ( and OSX ) for work, and have been using it for personal projects.

haven't found a good reason to switch from VSCode yet. memory usage is generally better than Spotify after a few days of no shutdowns,and can be a bit sluggish at times but that's likely due to a crappy CPU + compiling half a million line of code at a time.

as you said, it does depend on YOUR usage, but your usage really is the most important thing for determining an editor. 

like to play around with lots of languages and don't want to relearn new UIs ? vscode

only use java ? eclipse

only using Windows, and ASP.NET ? visual studio 2019

like driving yourself insane and hate using the mouse ? vim

like driving yourself insane and hate using the mouse and like lisp ? emacs

Really the only language I am using is JavaScript. I'm starting into web dev and while I know a lot of the basics, I wanted to semi prepare for things that might require more compiling(still in the field of web dev tho).

 

I've only ever used vscode & eclipse(long, long ago) so that is what I am most familiar with, I was just curious if switching to xcode could offer any benefits being on its native os.

[jdfthetech]

just use vscode, it's becoming a standard since it works on OSX, Linux, Windows and is now being incorporated into github.  Don't niche yourself, learn the standards

[fake_brogrammer]

If you're doing front end work, go with VSCode. it integrates with testing frameworks like Jest, has first class TypeScript support, and the plugin ecosystem helps make writing front end code easy as pie.

[Dat Guy]

On 5/6/2020 at 9:25 AM, KhakiHat said:

Anyone have any opinions of one over the other?

Try GNU Emacs. It's what I use on macOS. VS Code might be a decent editor, but it is based on a full-blown web browser, limiting its performance and versatility. There is nothing you can do in VS Code that cannot be done with GNU Emacs.

[fake_brogrammer]

On 5/17/2020 at 12:33 AM, Dat Guy said:

Try GNU Emacs. It's what I use on macOS. VS Code might be a decent editor, but it is based on a full-blown web browser, limiting its performance and versatility. There is nothing you can do in VS Code that cannot be done with GNU Emacs.

I'm assuming this is a meme, but incase it's not and OP hasn't heard of emacs before - emacs is a fully text based program/editor/everything. It uses exclusively esoteric keybinds to do anything, but is super extensible. I've heard it called the best OS you've ever used, it just contains a terrible editor - take it as you will.

EDIT: Not responding to you directly Dat Guy, I'm aware you're probably pretty damn familiar with ecmas just said this for OP's benefit

Edited May 21, 2020 by fake_brogrammer
To clarify who I'm targeting this message towards

[Dat Guy]

3 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

emacs is a fully text based program/editor/everything

The point with a programming environment is that it is used for doing things with text. There is a GUI included though.

 

3 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

It uses exclusively esoteric keybinds to do anything

Indeed: Ctrl+S for saving, for example. (Which is configurable.)

 

5 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

I've heard it called the best OS you've ever used

Which is not wrong, given that GNU Emacs is (mostly) a virtual Lisp Machine.

 

5 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

it just contains a terrible editor

The editor component is awesome.

[fake_brogrammer]

12 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

The point with a programming environment is that it is used for doing things with text. There is a GUI included though.

It's got a UI, but it's a TUI, not a GUI. that has a set of feature and niceties that a TUI cannot have ( with enough work you could, but you'd just be recreating a GUI in code anyway )

Quote

Indeed: Ctrl+S for saving, for example. (Which is configurable.)

Great cherry picked argument, except that's not the default. C-x C-s is the default save binding. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/refcards/pdf/refcard.pdf 

Quote

Which is not wrong, given that GNU Emacs is (mostly) a virtual Lisp Machine.

 

The editor component is awesome.

It is awesome, I definitely think emacs is awesome. But, having to learn the above mentioned keybinds, or setup your own, is detrimental to performance, which OP's entire question was about. Needing to install plugins, setup configs in LISP, and learn new keyboard shortcuts to be comparable to VSCode OOTB isn't a great argument to switching to Emacs. It's cool, but a bad substitute for someone already learning a new operating system

[Dat Guy]

7 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

It's got a UI, but it's a TUI, not a GUI.

How is a Gtk-based user interface not a GUI? Like Vim, Emacs actually has both a TUI and a GUI. The GUI is optional though. Maybe you don't have it.

 

9 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

Great cherry picked argument, except that's not the default.

It is a part of GNU Emacs by default. You only need to enable it. If "things you can configure" is not an argument, VS Code is a horrible choice as well.  

 

10 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

Needing to install plugins, setup configs in LISP, and learn new keyboard shortcuts to be comparable to VSCode OOTB isn't a great argument to switching to Emacs.

There is a plug-in manager which can even be used with a mouse. I fail to see your point with "needing to install plugins". Additionally, there are many OOTB plug-ins already coming with Emacs.

 

You don't need Lisp to configure Emacs either: It comes with a (mouse-capable) setup menu. I, personally, prefer the manual approach though, but this is not an Emacs problem.

[fake_brogrammer]

8 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

How is a Gtk-based user interface not a GUI? Like Vim, Emacs actually has both a TUI and a GUI. The GUI is optional though. Maybe you don't have it.

Calling it a GUI is a bit of stretch though. It's got some convenient actions in a toolbar, but the core of what you're doing is still within the TUI based editor

8 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

It is a part of GNU Emacs by default. You only need to enable it. If "things you can configure" is not an argument, VS Code is a horrible choice as well.  

Agreed, but it's still a configuration step to get a sane setup. VSCode is relatively sane by default, which is important when trying to justify switching over to a new editor/workflow

8 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

There is a plug-in manager which can even be used with a mouse. I fail to see your point with "needing to install plugins". Additionally, there are many OOTB plug-ins already coming with Emacs.

Sure, but the real value of Emacs comes from its highly extensible plugins. The same argument can be made for VSCode admittedly

8 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

You don't need Lisp to configure Emacs either: It comes with a (mouse-capable) setup menu. I, personally, prefer the manual approach though, but this is not an Emacs problem.

Sure, but most tutorials on how to use Emacs, or get it setup, describe the CLI based approach. Which is my main point, Emacs is mostly CLI, GTK toolbars and mouse support within the terminal ( which is generally worse than a normal GUI ), and _learning_ that is big thing for _performance_, OP's entire reason for considering XCode over VSCode. Text rendering and text editing is a pretty trivial task for an editor, so I'm unsure why you're suggesting Emacs for performance and front end development. 

You suggested that VSCode isn't versatile due to it's Electron backend, but haven't provided any example of how this is true. Just seems like text editor fanboying on your part fam

[Dat Guy]

16 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

the core of what you're doing is still within the TUI based editor

Just like VS Code, where the core of what you're doing is done within a glorified text area.

 

16 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

it's still a configuration step to get a sane setup

"Sane" and "insane" are very personal points of view. I find the default GNU Emacs setup a bit boring, but the default VS Code setup with all of its popup notifications, large sidebar buttons and weird configuration UI (you cannot seriously tell me that you prefer writing JSON to writing Lisp!) is on the other side of the same medal. Ugh.

 

16 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

The same argument can be made for VSCode admittedly

You see my point.  

 

16 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

most tutorials on how to use Emacs, or get it setup, describe the CLI based approach

I disagree. I saw many tutorials which claimed that the first step into GNU Emacs is the configuration menu. (Where any changes create a big mess inside your init.el file.)

I haven't counted them though. But the option is still there.

 

16 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

CLI, GTK toolbars and mouse support within the terminal ( which is generally worse than a normal GUI )

Depends. I prefer to not click anywhere inside "an IDE" (except Acme where I have no choice), so the advantage of "a normal GUI" is not there for me.

 

16 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

Text rendering and text editing is a pretty trivial task for an editor, so I'm unsure why you're suggesting Emacs for performance and front end development. 

"Text editors" which require a full-blown web browser engine to render and edit text are not doing that trivially.

 

16 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

You suggested that VSCode isn't versatile due to it's Electron backend

I suggested that the choice of backend technologies limit the flexibility of what VS Code can do and what it cannot do. As Emacs Lisp is fully integrated with GNU Emacs's core, you can do anything with it. VS Code has a rather narrow understanding of what part of the UI can be modified.

[fake_brogrammer]

12 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

Just like VS Code, where the core of what you're doing is done within a glorified text area.

Sure, but I don't switch files within my text area, unlike with Emacs or Vim. With them, EVERYTHING is the text area, which gives great screen real estate when editing, but makes navigation and other dialogs second class citizens within an editor

12 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

"Sane" and "insane" are very personal points of view. I find the default GNU Emacs setup a bit boring, but the default VS Code setup with all of its popup notifications, large sidebar buttons and weird configuration UI (you cannot seriously tell me that you prefer writing JSON to writing Lisp!) is on the other side of the same medal. Ugh.

Sure, fair. I mean "sane" as in using recognizable keybindings. Closed a tab by accident ? Ctrl+Shift+T, just like a browser ( which most people spend most of their day in anyways ).

Why would I write a configuration in runtime language syntax, compared to a syntax built around key value and array storage. It's objectively easier and simpler to write JSON

12 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

You see my point.  

Yea, but for a front end developer ( once again, that's what OP said he'd be doing, and this was a recommendation for him ), VSCode's extensions are better 

12 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

I disagree. I saw many tutorials which claimed that the first step into GNU Emacs is the configuration menu. (Where any changes create a big mess inside your init.el file.)

I haven't counted them though. But the option is still there.

The option is there, but it's not the most popular way to do things, and that matters for something like Emacs as it determines the amount of support you'll get for your issues

12 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

Depends. I prefer to not click anywhere inside "an IDE" (except Acme where I have no choice), so the advantage of "a normal GUI" is not there for me.

Cool, I prefer not to click anything either as I come from a Vim background, but being able to click when I can't remember some specific keybind for some issue is convenient, you can't really argue that

12 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

"Text editors" which require a full-blown web browser engine to render and edit text are not doing that trivially.

What's your definition of full-blown ? It's got an HTML renderer and a JS engine, which is unique to a browser, but your Emacs setup has LISP embeded, a plugin system, a networking system. You're just repeating memes at this point with little to no explanation on why that would even be a bad thing. 

And surely something is trivial if an entire "bloated" web browser can do it efficiently ?

12 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

I suggested that the choice of backend technologies limit the flexibility of what VS Code can do and what it cannot do. As Emacs Lisp is fully integrated with GNU Emacs's core, you can do anything with it. VS Code has a rather narrow understanding of what part of the UI can be modified.

Why are you stuck on the UI and thinking it's a limitation? I can embed an IRC channel in VSCode as a dedicated tab, or connect to WeeChat from the embedded terminal, or use it to manage Bitbucket PRs and Jira tickets. You mention having LISP being embedded within Emacs, but JS is embedded within VSCode. Sure, there's probably somethings that Emacs can do that would be nice to do in any other editor, but the sentence shows before that most developer tasks can be handled within VSCode.

 

Once again, you haven't shown any versatility that Emacs has, or shown how it's more performant for VSCode, especially for a new user, or addressed that Emacs is unintuitive to someone not used to 80s TUI interfaces. Turn that fanboi-ing up mate

[Dat Guy]

2 hours ago, fake_brogrammer said:

Sure, but I don't switch files within my text area, unlike with Emacs or Vim.

Both support tabs. What’s missing for you?

 

2 hours ago, fake_brogrammer said:

Why would I write a configuration in runtime language syntax, compared to a syntax built around key value and array storage. It's objectively easier and simpler to write JSON

Lisp configuration is a key-value pair with exactly one type of parentheses. JSON has too many special characters for my liking.

 

2 hours ago, fake_brogrammer said:

Yea, but for a front end developer ( once again, that's what OP said he'd be doing, and this was a recommendation for him ), VSCode's extensions are better 

Which ones, compared to which ones?

 

2 hours ago, fake_brogrammer said:

The option is there, but it's not the most popular way to do things

It is the way popularly recommended by GNU Emacs’s very own tutorial, displayed right at the start.

 

2 hours ago, fake_brogrammer said:

being able to click when I can't remember some specific keybind for some issue is convenient, you can't really argue that

Which specific button do you miss in GNU Emacs?

 

2 hours ago, fake_brogrammer said:

your Emacs setup has LISP embeded, a plugin system, a networking system.

And three web browsers!

 

2 hours ago, fake_brogrammer said:

You're just repeating memes at this point

I don’t know these memes, I’m afraid. My primary problem is that I prefer a low attack vector in my text editor, and I think nobody would argue that VS Code’s always-behind Chrome codebase is inherently less secure than Emacs’s Lisp runtime.

 

2 hours ago, fake_brogrammer said:

And surely something is trivial if an entire "bloated" web browser can do it efficiently ?

A text editor that requires half a gigabyte of RAM while doing nothing is the very opposite thing to a trivial application.

 

For.

Editing.

Plain.

Text.

 

How can you not see that?

 

2 hours ago, fake_brogrammer said:

Turn that fanboi-ing up mate

You misunderstand me. I use quite a bunch of text editors. It’s just that I cannot stand bloatware.

[KhakiHat]

@Dat Guy @fake_brogrammer I'mma just continue to use vscode to sum things up.

[fake_brogrammer]

On 5/21/2020 at 11:59 PM, Dat Guy said:

Both support tabs. What’s missing for you?

TUI tabs and GUI tabs are different but

On 5/21/2020 at 11:59 PM, Dat Guy said:

Lisp configuration is a key-value pair with exactly one type of parentheses. JSON has too many special characters for my liking.

Special characters ? [] to differentiate array, and {} to differentiate a new level of key value pairs

On 5/21/2020 at 11:59 PM, Dat Guy said:

Which ones, compared to which ones?

? You can't just drop a "why" as a response. VSCode is generally regarded as a better option for front end / new developers, same as how most people would develop LISP within emacs.

On 5/21/2020 at 11:59 PM, Dat Guy said:

It is the way popularly recommended by GNU Emacs’s very own tutorial, displayed right at the start.

Which specific button do you miss in GNU Emacs?

See my comment about CTRL+S. It ain't the default, and that matters when adopting a new editor.

On 5/21/2020 at 11:59 PM, Dat Guy said:

And three web browsers!

 

I don’t know these memes, I’m afraid. My primary problem is that I prefer a low attack vector in my text editor, and I think nobody would argue that VS Code’s always-behind Chrome codebase is inherently less secure than Emacs’s Lisp runtime.

Low attack vector ? Noone's talking about security, and it's pretty irrelevant for a developer. A arguably, browsers have the best general sandboxing environments of any framework/application every. OP's question was performance btw, not security.

On 5/21/2020 at 11:59 PM, Dat Guy said:

A text editor that requires half a gigabyte of RAM while doing nothing is the very opposite thing to a trivial application.

Repeating memes; it doesn't require half a gig of ram. Allocated memory vs used memory are very different things.

On 5/21/2020 at 11:59 PM, Dat Guy said:

For.

Editing.

Plain.

Text.

How can you not see that ?

 Sure, because syntax, intellisense, dependency navigation is all IDE's do. Stop trying to bring other browsers down to Emacs level. You wouldn't be making these arguments about IntelliJ, Eclipse, Visual Studio, etc, as you haven't taken decided to compare VSCode to these easy targets for CPU cycle "wasting", ram "hogging" blackholes. 

 

On 5/21/2020 at 11:59 PM, Dat Guy said:

You misunderstand me. I use quite a bunch of text editors. It’s just that I cannot stand bloatware.

Calling something useful for some people bloatware is pretty disparaging. Not everyone enjoys a minimal, DIY editing environment like we do 

[fake_brogrammer]

27 minutes ago, KhakiHat said:

@Dat Guy @fake_brogrammer I'mma just continue to use vscode to sum things up.

Yea, I'd say a smart idea. 

 

I'd recommend 

the Jest plugin for front end test integration,

CSS Color picker for CSS work,

The recommended Vue/React/Angular/Svelte plugin, depending on the framework you use

Gitlens for visualizing some git commands

 

 

[Dat Guy]

1 minute ago, fake_brogrammer said:

Special characters ? [] to differentiate array, and {} to differentiate a new level of key value pairs

And colons and quotation marks etc... nah, too complicated.

 

1 minute ago, fake_brogrammer said:

VSCode is generally regarded as a better option for front end / new developers

By people never having used Emacs, I would imagine. I used both quite extensively and I seriously hate that VSCode thing.

 

2 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

Noone's talking about security, and it's pretty irrelevant for a developer.

A developer is a computer user. Computer users should care about their security (or stop using a computer for the sake of everyone else's security). And if your text editor (!) can have serious security issues which can turn our computer into someone else's computer, your text editor (!) might be a horrible choice.

 

4 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

Allocated memory vs used memory are very different things.

Both is memory which you cannot (safely) use for other tasks. It doesn't matter whether it's gone the one or the other way: It's gone, after all.

 

6 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

You wouldn't be making these arguments about IntelliJ, Eclipse, Visual Studio, etc

Because those are actual IDEs. The reason why VSCode exists is because not everyone needs a full-blown IDE.

And all you do in VSCode is edit text and call external applications. How does that require 25 times the RAM of a high-end mid-90s PC while not even having any file open?

 

 

[fake_brogrammer]

41 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

And colons and quotation marks etc... nah, too complicated.

???? Clearly you find LISP to be a clearer syntax than JSON, but JSON is more likely to be clearer than LISP given it's prevalence. 

41 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

By people never having used Emacs, I would imagine. I used both quite extensively and I seriously hate that VSCode thing.

Keybinds don't need to be learned, but can be guessed, are better for performance, which was OP's question. Please don't try and get push your agenda of editors on someone else when their question was about performance. It's detrimental to new developers, as they might think that Emacs or Vim or Nano are convenient editors for someone learning to code.

41 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

A developer is a computer user. Computer users should care about their security (or stop using a computer for the sake of everyone else's security). And if your text editor (!) can have serious security issues which can turn our computer into someone else's computer, your text editor (!) might be a horrible choice.

Browsers are arguably the most battle tested security environments ever. Don't say they're insecure ( and realistically exploitable ) unless you have a valid point. Otherwise, saying "Electron based apps are insecure" is complete FUD.

41 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

Both is memory which you cannot (safely) use for other tasks. It doesn't matter whether it's gone the one or the other way: It's gone, after all.

Do you not understand how memory allocation works on modern Operating Systems ? Memory being allocated doesn't mean that memory can't be used by other programs, and well written modern programs will over allocate memory initially before scaling back; Chrome is an example.

41 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

Because those are actual IDEs. The reason why VSCode exists is because not everyone needs a full-blown IDE.

And all you do in VSCode is edit text and call external applications. How does that require 25 times the RAM of a high-end mid-90s PC while not even having any file open?

How is VSCode not an IDE ? And once again, how is VSCode "call(ing) external applications" different from Emacs running plugins and scripts

[Dat Guy]

3 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

JSON is more likely to be clearer than LISP given it's prevalence. 

For computers: yep.

For humans: nope.

 

If you speak colons, brackets and quotation marks fluently, you might be a bot ...

We might want to agree that this is a matter of personal taste here.

 

3 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

Please don't try and get push your agenda of editors on someone else when their question was about performance.

You keep mixing up the application's performance (which is what I talk about) with the user's performance. Please don't do that.

 

4 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

It's detrimental to new developers, as they might think that Emacs or Vim or Nano are convenient editors for someone learning to code.

And because you disagree, this cannot be true?

(I mean: Ugh, Vim... but here we are, talking about taste again.)

 

5 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

Browsers are arguably the most battle tested security environments ever.

Browsers are arguably the number one backdoor for malware. Lisp runtimes are not.

 

6 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

saying "Electron based apps are insecure" is complete FUD.

All Electron-based apps are affected by all of Chrome's security problems with the additional issue that most Electron apps don't silently update themselves in the background, keeping the holes open for a longer time than you'd like them to. Anyway, JavaScript runtimes allow very different problems than Lisp runtimes, notably some like this.

 

8 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

Memory being allocated doesn't mean that memory can't be used by other programs

It depends on the implementation. Now I haven't dug into the Electron implementation, so I cannot determine which one is the case here.

So a "text editor" that allocates half a gigabyte of RAM while being idle is not "bloatware" for you?

 

10 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

How is VSCode not an IDE ?

Let me answer with a question: What is the difference between Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code?

(Hint: VS Code can use an IDE's toolset, like linkers, debuggers and compilers - but it relies on actual IDEs to provide them.)

 

11 minutes ago, fake_brogrammer said:

how is VSCode "call(ing) external applications" different from Emacs running plugins and scripts

Emacs does not need external applications to provide more functionality in less resource hogging.