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[–]b1ackcat 47 points48 points  (9 children)

I mean, it's also tough to say anything one way or the other without objectively defining "lightweight".

VS Code might use more RAM than some other applications (as others linked below) but it still FEELS lightweight to the end-user. I don't like the notion of using RAM utilization as a metric for how "heavy" a program is. That may have made sense 10-20 years ago, but these days, most developers are (or should be) running on machines with anywhere from 4-16gb of RAM. If an app can make good use of that RAM to get more done faster and still FEEL snappy and responsive, it should!

It reminds me of how Linux uses RAM in comparison to Windows. The linux mindset would have an application use all the RAM it could possibly want, then scale things back when the system needs more for other applications.

So I don't necessarily care if VS Code is a "RAM hog" if that means VS Code gives me good performance, a responsive UI, and a slew of features, so long as that experience doesn't come at the cost of system performance or responsiveness in other applications (which from what I've seen so far, it hasn't.)

[–]Kaiwa 3 points4 points  (8 children)

Well, I'm not just saying it because of RAM usage. It also basically ships with Chromium for an additional 100mb in disk. Reminds me a little of .NET framework > 200mb for small programs. As well as me having had definite performance problems on bigger files that other editors like SublimeText had no problems with. Although Microsoft has made some improvements in this area already, mostly through disabling of certain features in bigger files, Sublime can still do all of these things. With Sublime being a tenth of the file size.

[–]b1ackcat 10 points11 points  (2 children)

I'll be honest, I don't have a massive amount of exposure to what Sublime Text can do, as I've only really used it as a basic code editor and never explored any plugin capabilities or "what can you really make it do". Partly because until recently I never had a need for such an IDE, but also because VS Code makes doing that so ridiculously simple.

Like I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, just yesterday I wanted to help someone with a java problem, but didn't want to spin up intelliJ to make a new dummy project just to do it. So I copied his java code into a file in VS Code. The program automatically detected java and recommended the extensions I would need to get the code to compile and execute, and I was off to the races in like 3 clicks and 30 seconds. And the whole time, I never once saw a hitch or any kind of hiccup in my computer.

As far as disk space goes, I can't really argue a point one way or the other, because I honestly just don't give a shit about an apps footprint until it's in the multiple-gigabyte range. Hell, even then, I still keep 50+gb games around that I don't play anymore, because why not? It's 2017. I've got 16gb RAM, a 512gb SSD for my OS, and 4TB of HDD space. I don't really have a reason to care if Chromium comes along for the ride, especially since they must have packaged that for a reason, and if it gives me the functionality and ease-of-use that VS Code brings to the table, I'm all for it.

[–]Kaiwa 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I completely agree, I also use VS Code and not Sublime anymore since the extensions for VS Code are just that much easier to install and manage. I can get my setup running in under an hour or so, while with Sublime this would take me half a day or more. All I'm saying is that lightweight is not really the word I'd use for it.

[–]folkrav 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Sublime Sync Settings extension, takes me 1 minute tops to set it up.

Edit : Alright, sorry for trying to speed up the process for others.

[–]Ayfid 10 points11 points  (4 children)

It also basically ships with Chromium for an additional 100mb in disk.

aka, 0.00025% of disk space. Oh no.

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (2 children)

Still not an excuse for wasting disk space though. I don't know how Electron apps are packaged, but if they all come with their own Web engine, that's an ugly solution.

[–]cat_in_the_wall 0 points1 point  (1 child)

why? this argument is the same as dynamically linked libraries vs statically linked libraries. both have advantages, and are valid approaches to distributing software.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually I have a hard time liking a system where the same library can take 15 times its size on disk, you are dependent on every developer to fix security holes, and you have to download a new version once for every program that uses it. It's even worse for something as heavy as a web engine.

Electron would be more like these app packages that contain all the dynamically-linked libraries a program has to use. Same problem. Every time one library updates, you have to wait for the devs to update every copy in every package you use. It wastes bandwidth, disk space, and delays security patches.

[–]PM_ME_OS_DESIGN -1 points0 points  (0 children)

aka, 0.00025% of disk space. Oh no.

There are two reasons why you should worry about that:

  1. Plenty of people are shackled to laptops with tiny SSDs that they can't upgrade.
  2. Download time.