If you hadn't touched either yet, would you go VScode or Atom?

Planet Earth
1

I’m leaning towards VScode, but not for any particular reason. Has anyone tried both? I’m looking for good UI/UX and ease of use.

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I toyed around with VScode, but ended up with Atom. I think if ease of use is one of your key factors, VScode may be the better choice. I’ve found Atom to be very extensible, but you kind of have to embrace the “I like spending development time on my IDE” mindset. Also, I don’t think you’ll find many that can argue that Atom’s performance suffers, especially with larger or minified js files compared to VScode or other editors.

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I used Atom for about 6 months, then switched VSCode for about 6, I’m now back on Atom – for me the configurability of the windows on Atom puts it over the top. For example in VSCode you’re limited to a few columns or rows – 3. In Atom, you can have as many windows any way you like them. Also, I like the customization and skins of Atom better.

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what do you mean by windows? You mean split screen multiple files?

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yeah the one thing I heard is VScode is better with large projects (potentially)

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VSCode. Better refactoring tools, supports large files in the editor.

We really wanted to use Atom, because it retains isomorphisity; but in the end, refactoring tools and large file support is more important on a day-to-day basis for our projects.

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Can’t speak about Atom as I only tried it briefly once and it didn’t grab me. I used to use Webstorm but switched to VS Code about a year ago. It’s great and really lightweight so I can even code away happily on my ageing laptop (something Webstorm struggled with). MS have put a lot of resources behind it as well. Every month there’s a release with a bunch of great additions.

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8

Have you had a look at Sublime Text? It’s just as extensible as Atom while being far more performant. ST rarely complains about large files

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I use sublime text now. I feel like atom and vscode have some nice little UI goodies. I don’t have any particular issue with sublime text. I suppose I’m wondering if I’m missing out.

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Which UI goodies? because there’s probably a package for that :upside_down_face:

That said, it’s worth trying the other editors just to see what works best for you

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I used sublime text 2 & 3 for some years, before trying (and discarding) Atom. I switched to vscode several months ago and haven’t looked back. It’s being developed vigorously and outperforms Atom easily. The only issue I’ve had is retraining my sublime muscle memory, although there are enough configuration options to keep the differences down to a minimum.

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VSCode hands down, for lots of reasons!

  1. it’s really fast
  2. it’s full IDE functionality has come a long way. You can run and debug your servers through it, with a complete integrated terminal
  3. You can now run all of your unit tests (and debug them by stepping through them with breakpoints) through VSCode, as well as get live updating statuses of tests see this gif
  4. Refactoring tools are really great
  5. The JavaScript IntelliSense powered by TypeScript is INSANE! Once you get used to it you can’t go back. It gives you full IntelliSense of imported npm modules (even those that are written in JS and not TS) as well as local imported modules
  6. It runs on every OS
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13

I tried it recently but it overrode my linux setings to make Caps Lock an Escape key.

That’s a showstopper for Vim (or vim emulation) users.

Back to sublime until they fix it.

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there’s a VSCode vim package and they claim that it should work https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim/issues/854

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Not an Atom user (sorry) but for what it’s worth, I used to swear by Webstorm and actively avoided VSCode until for whatever reason I started using it. When I used Webstorm again, it felt way too heavy for the added value it provides. So for now VSCode is my editor.

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VSCode was great, but I have 2 wide screens and need more than 3 windows open at one time.

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VSCode 100% Atom has a ton of performance issues & VSCode is an overall better experience.

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So funny. After having used Atom for ~3 years, I ran into an issue yesterday that I spent way too much time on – trying to use an eslint version scoped to my project instead of the global version. Thought of this thread and installed vscode, and my eslint was up and running with no config (besides the .eslintrc file).

So far, I haven’t hit any deal breakers, though there are a few things I miss about Atom, most notably the search results displaying in a new window. There’s an open issue for that, though =)

Will try to report back with an update.

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Just wondering, isn’t VSCode BASED on Atom? MS took Atom and extended it right?

Also, it is correct that I get performance issues when working in very large files (don’t do it that often). In these cases I open VSCode.

I don’t think it really matters what editor you use unless there is a very compelling reason to use one over the other – it’s better to try them all just to get a sense of taste and context if you can. They all have pros and cons.

I started out with Webstorm, Brackets (early adopter), then moved on to sublime text 2 & 3, then Atom, then VSCode (I was an early adopter here), now I’m back with Atom – I’ll probabbly jump back to VSCode at some point.

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They’re both based on Electron, but otherwise they are different projects.

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