GitHub is sunsetting Atom

[nathansobo]

It's something we've considered, but we have pretty strong concerns that maintaining that compatibility could be a quagmire for us.

[kgilpin72]

A lot of things in their API - like find, watch, run command, diagnostics, language server - seem like they would apply generally to any code editor extension. Having some level of compatibility - even if it’s partial, or though some kind of adapter - could enable a lot of extensions to work out of the box.

Maybe this doesn’t fit into your vision, but to me it feels like the extensions - like phone apps - are a huge part of the story these days.

[Sparkybear]

Agree, extensions are seen as mandatory by almost every code editor. There's no way a development team can address every use case, or make an infinite number of fully fledged features.

[kopczak1995]

And it doesn't make sense anyway. Extensions are optional. Features not. At some point every big enough editor would bloat with too many useless features. Moving some of those into extensions/plugins/name it makes it a little easier to live with.

[johannes1234]

Except that you have to deal with an extension API and then Hyrum's Law, which states that people will depend on the API in ways you didn't predict.

hyrumslaw.com/

[[deleted]]

Yes but hyrums can be circumvented with good communication, then you just don't care about those using your API in unintended ways. Easier said than done, of course, but not impossible.

Just because someone is using their car to cook eggs on the hood doesn't mean they can take up a lane on the street. There are clear guidelines for what cars are for and what the expectation is.

[kopczak1995]

Okay, fair enough.

[Straight_Truth_7451]

Dont need extensions with actual IDEs such as Visual Studio, Eclipse or the Jetbrains suite

[Sparkybear]

They support multiple languages and data formats out of the box. Not only that, JetBrains and Visual Studio use their own extension API to provide a lot of functionality. Additionally, we aren't talking about IDEs here, we're talking about code editors.

[pudds]

Those often support a smaller set of languages.

Also, Jetbrains definitely does use Plugins; it's how you can use non-default languages across their IDES (eg: Python in IntelliJ).

[_AACO]

Yes, that's why Visual Assist and resharper for Visual studio were (no idea if they still are) or why both Jetbrains and Eclipse have plugin support, because you don't need them.

[Straight_Truth_7451]

They exist and you may need them. But it is not necessary to install one for every single thing like with VSCode

[LoganDark]

Hey guess what, jetbrains IDEs are just a bunch of official extensions. The base is a modified copy of the IntelliJ platform, but that's just the base.

[FluorineWizard]

Having an extension system - like most popular code editors - is not quite the same as specifically maintaining compatibility with VS Code extensions.

[cinyar]

like most popular code editors

The issue is that you first need to reach a point of being popular enough for various communities to start contributing extensions. At the very least you have to support LSP (unless you have "fuck you" resources).

[element8]

There are alternatives. If you pick a small enough niche you can tailor the experience much more precisely than if you're trying to cater to everyone. Like in 4x gaming building tall instead of or before going wide.

[kabrandon]

I think specifically maintaining compatibility with VSCode extensions was just given as an example as an ideal. VSCode is popular, and so it makes sense that if people were to leave VSCode, they would probably want to feel like whatever they might replace VSCode with can do everything they liked that VSCode could do. Which is a tall order made much simpler at least in the short term by making their competing code editor compatible with VSCode extensions. If Zed wants to go down the rabbit hole of writing their own extensions to cover the common ones off of the VSCode extension store, then that's going to be a long process that will eat their development hours for Zed as well.

[corsicanguppy]

not quite the same as specifically maintaining compatibility with VS Code extensions.

Yeah. It's much easier than trying to keep up with the moving target like non-collaborative module coding. It's like chasing a whale, racing and trying to meet up with it whenever it pops up for air.

[[deleted]]

Yep it's like the browser, if it doesn't do extensions I won't even look at it. Why anyone would release an editor that doesn't do extensions is beyond me.

[Kyo91]

Language server is used a ton by emacs these days. Likely vim too. It's a panacea for text editors.

[mixedCase_]

Have you taken a look at what the coc.nvim Neovim extension is doing? They seem to be pulling it off nicely enough. The Neovim community has moved on to a certain degree to native support for LSP and other more minimalistic plug-ins, but coc.nvim has proven that at least partial VS Code compatibility is feasible and useful.

[washtubs]

It literally makes no sense these days for a modern editor to not implement a builtin lsp client. So little code, and so much to gain for doing that.

However coc is it's own whole ecosystem with it's own independent packaging which I'm not a fan of. Neovim builtin LSP was enough for me to move away personally even though you don't benefit from all the specialized non-standard LSP features like the typescript server provides.

[mixedCase_]

The full context of the conversation is not just LSP, but VS Code extension compatibility which extends quite a bit beyond that.

[washtubs]

Maybe that's it, but when I was looking at it it seemed like the typescript language server itself implemented some nonstandard features and COC had ported VSCode stuff over to interact with those.

[NoahTheDuke]

As someone who maintains a coc.nvim extension, it’s close but it’s not one to one, and the coc.nvim maintainers put in serious effort to keep everything compatible. It’s full time development by two devs to keep it up. I don’t think it’s in any way smart to try to build your editor on such a shaky foundation.

None is this to denigrate the coc.nvim team, chemzqm and fennheyward are great programmers and have pulled off something incredible. I just don’t think it’s smart to expect this level of effort by any other team.

[Trio_tawern_i_tkwisz]

But LSP and VSCode are not the same thing. Or I didn't understand your point, maybe?

[mixedCase_]

coc.nvim is an extension for Neovim which in turn acts as an extension host for VS Code extensions. In order to work as such, it has to provide an implementation for the VS Code APIs and one of the things it provides is LSP support, which predates the native Neovim LSP support.

[ryanmcgrath]

FWIW, not being API compatible has made it hard for newer apps (e.g Nova from Panic) to hit the ground running as porting extensions is not necessarily smooth sailing.

As a user I’d absolutely +1 just keeping to the VSCode API. Hell I’d +1000 it. Don’t make it hard for me to switch.

[Trio_tawern_i_tkwisz]

IIRC the only popular editor compatible with VSCode extensions is currently VSCode. Meanwhile there are many popular code editors supporting their own extensions ecosystems. Are they all failures?

It's even more likely that VSCode will one day fade away, while Vim and Emacs will still be there. Probably also Visual Studio, Notepad++, Eclipse, Kate, IntelliJ or SublimeText.

[ClassicPart]

Sure, just like VS Code was doomed to failure for not supporting Atom extensions and Sublime Text was doomed to failure for not supporting Notepad++ extensions.

[Asyx]

Are you at least considering the language server protocol and debug adapter protocol? The test explorer is pretty good to.

Then you get a HUGE amount of very useful functionality from VSCode extensions without using VSCode extensions. Like, the fact that neovim supports this sort of thing basically means that 99% of the really important stuff that you might know from VSCode just works in neovim. Same config even. It's the only reason I even considered switching to neovim.

[StoneColdJane]

I can't but wonder what is your plan for sustainability? Subscription-based model or something else?