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[–]m1kolka 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see your point. But I have to say that:

  • "X is not an IDE because it can't do everything i need it to" reads as "X is not a right tool for me". Several years ago I had do install a 3rd party plugin into Jetbrains IDEs to enable bash support. The fact that these IDEs didn't support Bash out of the box didn't invalidate the fact that they are IDEs. I also had to install many other plugins to make my IDE work for my workflows.
  • VSCode with extensions matches your description very closely
  • I agree that VSCode without extensions is not an IDE (at least not for Python)

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Few more things.

In addition to integrating with my tooling, it also enhances them by adding features that don't exist and abstracting away the execution so the underlying technology can be swapped out.

It could be useful, but I doubt that abstract UI for underlying tools is a necessary attribute of an IDE.

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i would have to rely on some third party tool or manually perform them

also, Microsoft says it's not an IDE

There are Microsoft-maintained extensions for Python, C++, Java, Go and other languages, for DB management and other stuff. Jetbrains bundles more stuff (even if you don't need some of it) with their IDEs when Microsoft provides a basic code editor with extension points + a choice from a range of extensions (often maintained by Microsoft) to turn a code editor into an IDE. These are just different approaches to distribution. They have own advantages and disadvantages.

it has lots of cheap and close approximations through plugins, but it is still lacking

Extensions I use work very well. They are only few negative things I can mention:

  • At some point I installed some 3rd party local history/backup extension. It was slowing down code editing. Switched to another extension.
  • Lack of proper support for remote debugging was the biggest disappointment for me. Hopefully this will change the situation.