This VS Code Killer Just Went Open Source (Written In Rust BTW)

[@zeddotdev]

Hey Theo, I'm Nathan, one of the founders. Awesome video, and thank you! You're absolutely right that catering to the needs of content creators is a no-brainer. It's one of the things I was excited about with channels, where you could write code and invite a live audience that you can put on stage. It's like participatory streaming. I think all of your critiques were pretty valid, and the team is taking a look at addressing your feedback. As for `div`... We use a layout engine called `taffy` that implements a subset of the layout model used in browsers. The name `Element` is used by the `Element` trait, and I really wanted GPUI to have a single namespace. So I thought, what the hell, "div" is as good a name as any other for a generic element. "Atom" was suggested, but we decided it felt too connected to our last editor. Thanks again! P.S. We're taking a deeper look at scrolling. There's no reason it shouldn't feel smooth. Maybe we need to raise our standards.

[@tombyrer1808]

Windows & Linux ETA?

[@petter9078]

Container

[@severgun]

@@tombyrer1808never

[@Evait-hh4un]

I would move Zed to the trash instead of VS Code. It's fortunate that the creator of Zed @zedindustries4498 is here. As a developer with over 10 years of experience, Zed appears to me like a first-year student's homework. I don't understand why it's so poorly developed. Personally, I wouldn't use it even if it were free. I highly recommend improving its stability and quality first; it's currently far from being suitable for production use. At this point, I can't advise using such an unstable and buggy product like Zed. Theo, if you aim to be a more respectful tech blogger, please promote better products

[@TheNewton]

Block, Container, Context, Layout, VirtualDiv, TDiv ZDiv (for Taffy div or Zed div, ala QT layout class naming convention) naming is hard but Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo can make communication impossible.

[@ashneilroy]

Your shirt used 3GB of my data

[@maxwebstudio]

omg 😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅

[@alexmercerind]

LMAO

[@randombleachfan]

lmao

[@mdxggxek1909]

This joke has so many layers 😂😂😂

[@Gunzy83]

Hahaha

[@jbritain]

As much as I'm against Electron, the fact that it allows vs code to run on pretty much any platform is a big part what makes it so widely used. Zed really needs to get support on Linux and Windows before it can be a 'vs code killer'.

[@chrikke]

Yeah, VS Code is so big because it is easy to use for beginners, with shitty laptops

[@gamezoid1234]

Didn't realize it didn't support Linux, or Windows. I find that absolutely astonishing. I can't imagine they're stuck on macos. I've never thought rust could be dependant on that of all platforms.

[@electric26]

​@@gamezoid1234it's not Rust, but Zed, that is causing that. They seem to be implementing a lot of things themselves instead of using cross-platform abstractions. That includes not using winit for cross-platform windows, etc. Definitely unusual

[@uzairhaider1146]

I just saw your comment. you stole my words exactly. not only vscode have multi OS support, it can also run on browser as well. it is the only thing I like about microsoft.

[@rGunti]

Exactly. All the IDEs I use on a day-to-day basis are cross platform. My work machine is a Windows laptop, but I do some personal dev work on a MacBook (and sometimes I use some flavor of Linux as well on my desktop machine). The fact that I don't have to think about if my editor is available makes everything a lot easier.

[@henri6764]

Zed looks promising but I wish they would focus on getting the base functionality ready first before some more advanced features

[@MrManafon]

Yeah 100% this. I really like how JetBrain's Fleet looks (almost the same as Zed) but their priorities are completely wrong and half of the time it isn't on-par with even the major frameworks like Next or Tailwind or TS in some cases, they have no extensions and need you to write language server mappings in Java. Meanwhile they hyperfocus on AI crap as if that is what will make me change editors.

[@coolemur976]

And when it makes more advanced features it won't be as performant as advertised today. ^^

[@severgun]

First you will need to pay.

[@phrasedparasail9685]

This is typical of many devs these days. Too focused on making something "advanced" instead of what people actually want.

[@andrewgrant788]

So true. I love the performance focus but the collaborative and AI features seem a little premature given they haven’t covered the basics yet. It’s MacOS only for example but doesn’t support Swift. So it’s only useful for MacOS developers who don’t use Apple tools to target their ecosystem. VS Code is a horrible sluggish resource hog but it does support all three major OS platforms and popular languages on those platforms such as Swift, C++ and C#.

[@JohnBuildWebsites]

So sick of all these Mac only tools claiming to be the next greatest thing. If they are not cross platform, they aren't killing anything.

[@MrManafon]

More often than not - it is true. :P

[@BillClinton228]

@@MrManafon 69.88% of the global mobile market is Android. Windows has 70% of the PC market. Unless people are installing Android on their iPhones and windows on their macs (which isn't a good reflection on Apple anyway) then they aren't killing anything.😂😂😂

[@gilatron1241]

I didn’t read that as Mac only, I read it as Mac for now while they prove the product

[@rdwok14]

No Linux means not even relevant!

[@max-diaz]

For real. I wanted to try Zed until I realized it only works in Mac and after reading the GitHub issue regarding the support for Windows and Linux, I think Zed will be available for these platforms maybe in 2025?, but it's likely I'll forget about Zed by that date.

[@badumtsy]

From the creator of Atom AND TREE-SITTER, wow, that's a very huge plus! The tree-sitter grammars are a lot more powerful than what current VSCode supports (text mate?). Anyone familiar with "wtf, why can't I get syntax highlighting inside inline styles attribute in a html tag" should really appreciate the change! Oh... it's mac-os only for now. Yeah...

[@bhavyakukkar]

just compile it yourself

[@DanWalshTV]

@@bhavyakukkar Just compile it yourself to accomplish what exactly? The current implementation heavily relies on macOS's Metal API. Compiling for a different target won't magically change that.

[@bhavyakukkar]

@@DanWalshTV my bad

[@eldarshamukhamedov4521]

If I were then, I might brag about Tree-Sitter, but I wouldn't brag about Atom.

[@jd4rce]

Compile it and implement it to works in wayland 🤣​@@bhavyakukkar

[@06kellyjac]

AGPL isn't Apache, its the Affero version of GPL which is specifically designed for server-side applications. So it's a quite expected and correct license split for a GPL project like this. :)

[@naturesarmy9]

Was looking for this

[@maacpiash]

Came here to write this.

[@maacpiash]

Came here to write this.

[@etexas]

I came.

[@justsomeonepassingby3838]

I came, I saw, I lived

[@richardikin]

Zed cannot be anywhere near a "VS Code" killer until it's available for Windows. Being MacOS only makes it extremely limited, and destined for the sidelines.

[@okoyl3]

You mean Linux.

[@codemonkey6173]

@@okoyl3 both

[@komakaze1]

Both Windows and Linux

[@lu2000luk]

Making a code editor avalable only on MacOS is just a bad choice. Making it for linux from the start is the bewst way as MacOS is based on it and windows has WSL it will be able to run anywhere. Then they should release for windows and mac

[@JohnBarbaque]

@@okoyl3 Literally making this comment from a Linux machine, and I understand that a windows release is probably more important for Zed's success than a Linux release. You just cannot argue with 70% market share of the desktop space.

[@martiananomaly]

I scanned your shirt and got a link to the create-t3-app repo

[@everyhandletaken]

😂 well played friend.

[@JEM_GG]

I love how Theo learning an IDE has the exact energy of someone learning a new fighting game character xD

[@derzw3rg]

That was super specific AND accurate.

[@flipperiflop]

Ok, trying to write some Rust and Go code with the editor, and the experience is pretty damn good - I got autocomplete and syntax highlight out-of-box, JetBrains keybindings, a nice light theme and font customization and vim mode... I absolutely love the responsiveness of it. I'd love to see cross-platform tackled, I wanna use this editor on all my machines.

[@DiegoMendoza-br4ol]

You had me till , “light theme” Jk loooks very promising

[@zeddotdev]

Nathan here: Thanks so much! What kind of Rust are you writing? What are you missing from JetBrains? I have a lot of respect for the JetBrains devotees but it's a very demanding crew.

[@forKotlinsky]

@@zeddotdev we miss crossplatform

[@mascot4950]

I'm at work so I haven't had the opportunity to watch the video yet, but here's my prediction of what this will turn out to be. A promising editor, that's missing _the_ feature that VS Code has, that no one else currently has to anywhere near the same extent: the extensions. Open a file, almost any kind of file, and VS Code fetches everything needed to just make things work the way you expect them to. If a language has official support for an editor, it's going to be VS Code. My preferred editor is Sublime Text, but I still end up using VS Code quite a bit because of this. While I would be quite happy for something better to take the crown from VS Code, it's a hella tall mountain to climb. Starting mac-only makes it seem like they're aiming for a niche following rather than a broad one, so my expectation is I won't hear much more about this one.

[@mharley3791]

Honestly you were spot on

[@remy8587]

I kept Sublime and honestly nothing compares. You have all the plug-ins you need and the native speed makes up for a huge chunk of my daily DX

[@boccobadz]

Mac only, so it's a big no-no from the get-go.

[@andru5054]

How are more people not talking about this?

[@bartoszkrawczyk4976]

There is also lapce, it's also written in rust. AFAIK it doesn't have any financial backing so Zed will probably become more popular. If you want native performance there is also Nova (from Panic), but paid and mac only.

[@muffinhydra]

Zed is also mac only. Lapce is multiplatform.

[@OldKing11100]

Lapce is more promising to me.

[@samuelgunter]

as a comp sci major, I am mortally scared by the fact that my ide could CALL someone without my direct intent

[@ShubhamRao]

+1 to the licensing for open source idea. well researched for the current scenario (oss + biz)

[@moodynoob]

Their blog post about why they did a rewrite was really interesting, and I'd be pretty keen for Theo's reaction to it

[@Coksnuss]

4:59: "Lets be honest: With the things that they are targeting, Mac devs are gonna be the majority of the users anyways". How is that? I would love to try that editor, but Mac is out of the question for me. I don't see why the editor is, in particular, aiming for Mac users. Can anyone elaborate on that?

[@jannesmeyer2972]

It’s the silicon valley bubble

[@Medre]

It makes no sense at all and I believe that Mac might be the smallest, but surely not the biggest, userbase for an IDE

[@shaunagordon4104]

As a starting platform, the tight hardware and UI control that Apple imposes reduces the number of variables to contend with, allowing them to ensure the product itself is solid before branching out to Windows and Linux, where hardware is far more variable and more likely to obfuscate bugs to the base application (as opposed to bugs introduced by some hardware/firmware combination that shouldn't cause issues, but for whatever reason does). Outside of companies that are Microsoft shops top to bottom or have specific needs, Mac is the more typical platform for engineers in the workplace.

[@TheRealZitroX]

MacBook are awesome

[@lyoneel]

Sillicon valley nonsense, and elitism.

[@evergreen-]

I just tried it with PHP. I liked that the LSP and highlighting worked out of the box. On the 10k lines file, VSCode’s highlighting crashes and editing that file feels painful. Zed, on the other hand, had no problem whatsoever. However, it felt like the UI wastes space (like tabs are tall, file path is taller than vscode’s and non-interactive). It’s impossible to hide ai and collaboration icons. A lot of small features are missing like lines indicating indentation, sticky current block names, inlay hints, no visual studio-like theme and vim keybindings don’t import nvim config. VScode used ~1GB of RAM while Zed was 200MB. Which is great but I feel like VSCode without plugins and many of its features would actually be comparable. So far Zed felt barebones and a worse experience overall. However, I’m all for the native technologies and I’ll keep an eye of the project. Hopefully, the Rust community and extensions make improve Zed’s featureset a lot!

[@afrowave]

I am a Sublime Text diehard. When I use VSCode is when I have no choice or I want to learn something that is taught by default in VSCode. I have been looking at Zed for a year and want to use it for my Rust programming exclusively. I can't wait to see where this goes.

[@semmu93]

im a sublime user too and im very excited about zed, it would be very cool to have the stability and performance of sublime with the ecosystem and community of vscode, which zed could achieve

[@tjaytje]

You might wanna take a look at Lapce which is also open source and written in rust aswell but is also available on Mac/Windows/Linux

[@d3stinYwOw]

AGPL is not "Apache GPL" but Affero GPL. According to wikipedia: It is intended for software designed to be run over a network, adding a provision requiring that the corresponding source code of modified versions of the software be prominently offered to all users who interact with the software over a network.

[@exoZelia]

"Become a standard first, monetize later" - also known as enshittification. They wanna be the Discord of editors yay

[@johanohly]

LiveShare in VSCode is quite nice. If it was built-in it could probably be more seamless but considering it's an extension, it's awesome.

[@krishgarg2806]

I don't think its possible to "beat" vscode at this point. The extension network is just way too vast. For any other software to support good number of extensions will need contributors who will need motivation, but most people wouldn't be using the editor if it doesn't have all the extensions.

[@jesse9999999]

it is possible for other communities to build themselves out. neovim's plugin ecosystem definitely rivals vscode

[@dealloc]

@@jesse9999999 Neovim and vim is also older than VSCode _and_ Atom.

[@peladno]

@@jesse9999999 vim and neovim es very old, and still very nich

[@ssshenkie]

Most VScode extensions are garbage though, maybe only a handful are actually good quality.

[@peladno]

@@ssshenkie but that's not the editor problem lol

[@AlexandruVoda]

@Theo, a correction, the AGPL has nothing to do with Apache. The A stands for Affero. The full name of the license is GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL) since v3. Before the v3 the AGPL, while being a modified version of the GNU GPL v2, was not under the GNU umbrella.

[@MarcelRiegler]

The main reason VSCode is so popular is the same reason Go is popular: A huge org is bankrolling the project. Both these projects are so high quality and featureful because they can afford to be.

[@mistymu8154]

There is more to tech stacks becoming successful that the amount of money tossed at it, but it does give companies more confidence to try new things when they know something is backed by a large company like Microsoft as they know it won't just be abandoned.

[@viniciusmachadorodrigues1724]

You could argue the same about any language.

[@okie9025]

VSCode is popular because it allow you to use a single editor for everything, instead of a separate IDE for every language, while also being streamlined and easy to use. VSCode is a "text editor" on paper, but you can do 99% of the things Visual Studio can, while also not confining yourself to Microsoft-specific tooling. For example, if you want to add breakpoints to debug a giant .NET application, you don't have to do anything special: you need to install the C# extension and to click the "debug" button. For a "text editor" which isn't even barely specialized for C# apps, this is a huge selling point.

[@superslash7254]

Bingo. VSCode is successfuly in SPITE of being an overglorified browser and webapp because it has microsoft going full "embrace, extend, extinguish" on it.

[@amirhosseinahmadi3706]

"Go" and "featureful" in the same sentence lol

[@Zullfix]

30:13 As someone who has written a from-scratch text renderer in C#, I can confirm this is very true. Rendering unicode text in a very performant way is very hard and I would not wish it on my worst enemy.

[@Michael-sh1fb]

Casey Muratori's refterm was doing thousands of FPS, and IDEs can make many of the same assumptions that terminals can (monospaced being the main one)

[@dealloc]

I like they chose flex as the layout primitive-just like React Native does. Designing a good layout system is hard, and using it can be even more cumbersome. The closest contender would be cassowary that, for example, Apple uses for their AutoLayout in macOS/iOS. But let's be honest it's not the easiest thing to manually deal with constraints and relations between views; and that shows in SwiftUI where you use more familiar Flex-like APIs for common layout that are then translated to AutoLayout under the hood.

[@arpitgoyal189]

i think neovim is a good alternative for vs code

[@outfl1595]

Especially if you're not part of the apple herd

[@jesse9999999]

@@outfl1595 neovim on mac is extremely good

[@z_0968]

NvChad is amazing if you want less work configuring, a solid base.

[@TheBswan]

Every neovim thing I've seen is like "here's how to spend 12 hours configuring an editor with fewer features." I'm busy shipping.

[@javierflores09]

It really isn't but people like to cope with it

[@RobertMcGovernTarasis]

Mildly amusing after your last video about Web Dev and defending electron because otherwise native apps wouldn't be on certain platforms. Be fascinating to see where Zed will go, VSCode is a large hurdle to get over BUT it does keep happing (macOS Textmate for ages, BBEdit, VSCode, Nova, and of course ATOM, Sublime and many more)

[@zanzaraloggan3713]

this KZbinr is a clown, he is one of those tendentious programmers that say "java will die" every 3 months

[@AQMPolyface]

I started using zed, and honestly, its really great. The vim motions are way better than on vs code, and when I work on multiple files, zed is my go to.

[@jd-morton]

I love where this is going, but it's not even close to "VS Code Killer" status yet. As a Rust dev, I would LOVE to find a performant tool that can surpass VSCode, but I need more than just an editor. Also, there are pretty strong rumors that VSCode (or major chunks of it) are moving to Rust. It will be interesting to see how all this progresses!

[@vladyslav1]

Helix couldn't even replace neovim yet , yet it's closer to replace vscode than this one, funny

[@lcarsos]

I don't know about features for creators, but prioritizing features that demo well definitely helps your sales team in those weird chance encounters, and also at conferences. And specifically for something like cloak (which I was unaware of), everyone is something of a content creator these days because we all share screen in zoom, or recorded lightning rounds, so these features and use cases aren't as niche as they were 4 1/2 years ago. I dunno if I'll ever trust a system to keep creds from accidentally leaking tho.

[@VladTBK]

I think the only vscode "killer" is neovim if you want to work faster and "better". The thing is no editor will get as popular as vscode in this market becouse overall is a decent editor, really easy to write and edit code, good plugin support etc.. Yes it's bloated, but from my experience you only notice it for big projects, for small / personal projects ( so for casual users ) is fine

[@peterszarvas94]

and if someone isn't willing to learn all the vim magic (which I think they should), they can pick any JetBrains IDEs

[@RogerValor]

people said that about many editors and IDEs, even tho JetBrains tools or VSCode are "inspired strongly" by other products.

[@Rudxain]

I prefer Helix

[@social_anthrax]

I’ve been wanting to use neovim for a while but I find that due to things like dev containers and remote dev that vscode provides, it’s very hard to configure nvim to have the same feature parity. I’ve found that the nvim plugin for vscode lets me get 95 percent of the way there.

[@snehanshuphukon728]

How is vscode bloated? It's up to you to install thousand plugins to make it bloated.

[@boris---]

classic "new" editor for 6x☕ before lunch users

[@MichaelWilliams-lr4mb]

It's awesome they have vim mode. I prefer Helix key bindings but I could deal with this. And if the keybindings are customizable, perhaps I can make it work like Helix. It doesn't appear to have a Linux version though. I hope they have that eventually, especially now that it's open source.

[@zekeking]

When I was learning on my own I used VScode because it was so prolifically mentioned everywhere and the plugins were helpful for my vision, but when I went to college they had us use Sublime and I definitely felt the performance you mentioned. I will have to take a look at Zed and would love to see you cover more things like this!

[@helleye311]

Looks pretty nice. Maybe in a few years it'll be at least competing with VsCode. I mean, performance is nice, but it's not that annoying to me most of the time. But all the plugins, different languages and things like that, it's definitely necessary. Small things you can't live without win over "wow autocomplete is so fast it's annoying" :P

[@marwellus1]

Great channel with an awesome host, mustache fits you perfectly. :-D And your thumbnail grimaces are top notch too. And btw thanks for mentioning two great plugins for VS code. Regarding Zed, I'll give it some time till it gets some traction. :-)

[@simonfarre4907]

Strange that they started with Mac only support. Really strange, even.

[@shaunagordon4104]

Not really. Outside of companies that exclusively run Windows, Mac is where devs live for their day jobs. Combined with the tight control Apple has on hardware, and Mac is a good target for piloting tools aimed at developers if a project is going to pick one platform to start with. Will it be a "VSCode killer"? Certainly not until it becomes cross platform, but that's on their roadmap. It's not like anyone is expecting that to happen while it remains only a Mac application.

[@rand0mtv660]

@@shaunagordon4104 "Mac is where devs live for their day jobs" lmao that is so untrue. So many people run Windows and Linux machines for their daily work, macOS is definitely not the most dominant. World is more than USA, you know. And also twitter and youtube would let you to believe every dev uses a macOS machine, but that represents the 1% probably. In USA Apple has a decent market share, but where I work in Europe maybe 1 in 20 devs has a macOS machine, others are mostly Windows. Regarding the cross platform stuff, according to their roadmap, only Linux version is planned for 2024. Not sure why they wouldn't plan a Windows version sooner to bring the editor to the most used OS for development.

[@happygofishing]

isnt arc just chromium.@@npc-drew

[@simonfarre4907]

@@shaunagordon4104 Mac holds a 23% marketshare in enterprise environments. Anecdotally, for every Mac developer I know, I know a developer that is either Posix or Windows based as well. Given that there exists cross platform tools, building exclusively for Mac seems counter productive and a huge missed opportunity. Your talking points sound almost cult like. I am extremely averse to that, unfortunately so if that was your elevator pitch for Zed you have lost me.

[@cmaxz817]

​​​@@shaunagordon4104 you talk bullcrap when you say "MacOS is where devs live for their day jobs". Out of 60 guys in my workplace developing games, only ONE guy uses MacOS. To be fair, out of 60 guys, I'm the only one who uses Linux. The rest of them use Windows 10 or 11.

[@Rubatissimo]

I suggest taking a look at Lapce, which is also an IDE written in pure Rust, which uses tree-sitter as well. I think it's more advanced than Zed right now (supports all major platforms) and is also open source

[@FaraazAhmad]

The great thing about using (neo) vim/Emacs is that all editors come and go while you can just add a plugin to add some novel feature introduced in these hip editors

[@auntiecarol]

Solid point. I invested time in Emacs in the 90s when writing my thesis… that editor (OS?) is still with me today, and probably will be long after I am dead. How many other toosl have this kind of longevity.

[@tabdig]

Really like that zed has build in support for tailwind css 🔥

[@mble]

2:25 AGPL has nothing to do with apache 😅 it is from Affero (startup that existed somewhere in the past)

[@tibbydudeza]

Mac only = pfft.

[@Kofferino]

I dont understand what you mean @ 4:58 .. why would mac be the main target group for a fast and collaborative code editor?

[@davidskidmore3442]

I guess those of us on Windows can just use native Visual Studio, though it has a lot of the same issues as VSCode regarding feature bloat.

[@RogerValor]

Lapce is where my eyes are at on this front.

[@beniaminmalinski7597]

Terms of service are a blocker for me to use it unfortunately. It looks promising, but I will hold fire for now. "INVESTIGATIONS, MONITORING, & NO OBLIGATION TO PRE-SCREEN CONTENT. Zed may, but is not obligated to, investigate, monitor, pre-screen, remove, refuse, or review the Service and/or Content, including Your Content and User Content, at any time. By entering into the Agreement, you hereby provide your irrevocable consent to such monitoring. You acknowledge and agree that you have no expectation of privacy concerning the transmission of Your Content, including without limitation chat, text, or voice communications. In the event that Zed pre-screens, refuses or removes any Content, you acknowledge that Zed will do so for Zed’s benefit, not yours."

[@everyhandletaken]

Wow, that’s bad.

[@tarakivu8861]

Interesting.. such terms are illegal in my country as it unproportionately gives one party an advantage

[@Timely-ud4rm]

This seems really cool! I would love to use this instead of VSCode, but I am on Linux. I wish they had made it available for Mac and Linux since these are the two hottest platforms for developers to work on. The moment they support Linux, maybe with an AppImage or a distro package like .rpm and .deb, I will instantly switch over. For now, I will watch and see where this goes.

[@coolmn786]

Only issue: I’m on windows… :(

[@modernsolutions6631]

and you are Kurito.

[@darukutsu]

why?

[@everyhandletaken]

Definitely an issue. Also means you can’t use this editor 😉

[@AlexusMaximusDE]

@@everyhandletaken Yeah, you'd have to be on Mac to use this editor and I am not sure how good your code can be when you are lobotomized

[@_HMCB_]

I love Zed. Been using the Preview (not Beta) for months now and it’s so fast and beautiful. My needs are light: HTML, CSS, and a sprinkling of PHP so I am more than happy for its current state and look forward to seeing it evolve.

[@home852]

Could you share the c alias that you use to open vscode directly to skip the inefficient parsing? 😃

[@home852]

For anyone who's looking, I found a solution (i think!), adding: alias c='VSCODE_CWD="$PWD" open -n -b "com.microsoft.VSCode" --args $*'; to your shell startup script worked for me in zsh!

[@ehllie]

@23:53 Tailwind autocomplete and hover is a tailwind-css language server feature. It's a language server just like tsserver hover and auto complete. The class name formatting is just about configuring prettier with correct plugins, and running it as a formatter according to that specification. It's not really an editor specific feature, since I have those exact same things inside my neovim.

[@AnnasVirtual]

it's written in rust and mac only what

[@hazemturki]

That icon for sure looks like source control. Will be test driving it for a while. Initial impressions are very good tho

[@sobanya_228]

I really don't get this obsession with Apple. You would think, that the developers are more independent thinkers.

[@mechaD]

Yes. This is annoying. It reflects the bubble of Theo. He seems to believe every reasonable developer uses a Mac. 🤷 I code on a Chromebook with GitPod whenever I can. With this I have a remote Linux environment and my editor runs in the browser most of the time. Sometimes I use a local vscode connecting to my remote workspace. The local editor runs on the Chromebook's Linux. Some corporate customers require using their hardware and systems. There I have for instance a Windows notebook and I develop with vs code remotely connecting to WSL. There is a loud bubble of apple fanboys who suggest everyone is coding on a Mac. But that's just not the case and it would be great if Theo would appreciate this more.

[@SteffenF]

it is bad, but if you threw out a lot of money for such a system you talk it good for yourself.

[@pyrosar3517]

If you never tried mac, that's understandable to not get that obsession. Im not saying macs are mandatory or better than other options, they're just really convenient and well-polished. And then there's also powerful hardware to complement that polished software. But sure, i am aware that if i were to use linux - i would still have all my tools in here. And macs are overpriced AF, that's true.

[@sobanya_228]

@pyrosar3517 I've tried mac. But I still prefer to be more flexible.

[@SteffenF]

@@pyrosar3517 I've tried Mac. It's not well polished. You see the cracks everywhere. The same is for iPhone. I'm stuck with one for work and it is just bad. For example keypass on iPhone is fast but unreliable and I only use it in read-only mode on android I can trust the app. Apple is well hyped but not good. I prefer Linux and or windows depending on the task at hand

[@joffreybluthe7906]

I've been using helix, a neovim alternative in Rust, and I'm very happy with it. The transition from neovim wasn't easy but I prefer the defaults in helix, plus it has almost all the features I want from my editor out of the box without having to install a dozen plugins which I really appreciate!

[@gucciburg]

A text editor not being shipped with a plugin system upfront is crazy.

[@maxwelldemaio]

Yes! So glad you made a video on this when I saw the open sourced they project yesterday. Really looking forward to what comes next for Zed.

[@funkdefied1]

I don’t get Electron hate. VS Code is way more responsive and quick to load than any of the native IDEs I’ve used (I’m talking about you, Oracle Developer and Spyder). Sure, it’s no VIM, but I don’t think that’s necessarily Electron’s fault.

[@opensauce04]

Starting out Mac-only when you're trying to be a vscode killer is definitely a choice

[@juan_w_fer]

Disagree on the millisecond debounce for the autocomplete. I'd rather train myself to ignore the suggestions until I decide to look at them for help, rather than train myself to WAIT after each keystroke. I'd focus on making it less of a photosensitive epilepsy liability rather than artificially reduce the impressive responsiveness. (Can we have both?)

[@kaustubhpatange]

Nothing beats the collaboration experience with tmux

[@Tackgnol]

Important to note that it is at this point not available for people who understand value of items and are not willing to pay 3x their PCs value for a logo ;)

[@everyhandletaken]

Original.

[@Pismice]

Hey what is that "c" alias you are using instead of "code", i would love to have the solution since i struggle a lot with those 1sec+ opening time everytime ty :)

[@fluentmoheshwar]

Same question

[@highmastdon]

Yes plz!

[@NikitaDrokin]

Yes, please make a video about the licenses in open source. I have no idea how they work except that some of them are more restrictive than others. Clearing that up for me and similar viewers would be a game changer!

[@edvorg]

To be vs code killer you need to have users

[@irishbruse]

For deleting a section click then scrollup to where you want and hold shift and click again it will select a range without you having to slow scroll up. it allows you to jump around alot faster

[@m4rt_]

I'mma stick to Neovim and GNU Emacs. Though I might take a look at it. Edit: never mind, fuck that. It only supports MacOS. This is why I stick to things like Neovim, or just normal vim... wherever I am, there likely is a way to use it.

[@abstractalgo]

thanks for bringing up swift ui and gpui comparison in as well, i found that very useful for builder pattern

[@davidsiewert8649]

Idea/Intellij is still best. Vscode is not a real IDE, more like general purpose plugin platform. Idea/Intellijs: Search, Spelling, Autocomplete and Refactoring capabilities are unbeatable to this day.

[@gilatron1241]

I’ll respond to this comment more after my ide is done indexing

[@Dainesz]

It looks exciting, but I will wait until its more polished out before I try it. I like the way collaborating is integrated but I agree the layout and the way it works at some points looks janky. Performance does look faster which is good. They 110% need to fix the way the layout and boxes flash when you type and they need to give priority to words you are spelling first. But, with this being open source now I think a lot of devs will work on this platform and speed its development up and fix a lot of the areas that need polish. Ill definitely keep my eye on Zed.

[@TheBadFred]

What I don't get, if it is written in Rust, why is there no release for Linux?

[@niamhleeson3522]

It's using native code for rendering via Metal, but it's not using native OS components like the win32 API. So it can use javascript idioms and render them on the GPU, but there's no javascript involved, and there's no expectation of it looking native. For example Blender, Godot, and Unreal all have their own UI libraries that render on the GPU and use all sorts of ways to organize the UI code. They use native code for rendering quite complex UIs but it's not like your typical native application using Windows or Qt. But most frontend programmers are used to the way things are done on the web so it's a good choice to call back to some of those idioms.

[@falxie_]

I use Mac and Linux so there not being a Linux version is a no-go for me. Honestly thinking of getting off of VSCode and trying neovim but I don't want to disrupt my workflow

[@falxie_]

@@beowulf_of_wall_st I don't think I said that

[@falxie_]

@@beowulf_of_wall_st I think you're arguing with someone who isn't here

[@itismezed]

Hi guys, it's me, the VS Code killer. I'm working around the clock to make ya'll proud.

[@AivoPaas]

4:55 - Mac only > I'm out.

[@mopishlynx2323]

I disagree with the notion that most programmers who want a non-web-based editor for once are Mac users. I've used vs code on both windows and linux, and I still feel that performance hit over just editing in neovim. I would love something more native, and while I'm aware that's difficult to pull off cross-platform, mac just doesnt have enough users compared to windows to make it worth it.

[@madsfrost9464]

How do you feel about JetBrains fleet?

[@viniciusmachadorodrigues1724]

Nowhere near Intellij IDEA quality

[@MichaelAlhilly]

Thanks for this. Zed looks promising. VS is the only MS product I use and definitely feel dependent on.

[@AlJey007]

In my experience, what makes vscode slow is not the editor itself, but, ironically, the extensions. How will they make sure that all the extensions are just as fast as the core editor?

[@diego101]

I don’t like the trend that assumes a software is automatically better just because it’s written in Rust. However, I will keep an eye on it.

[@flyingsquirrel3271]

Since Zed only runs on childrens toy computers, it's obsolete. The only potential VSCode competitor I see at the moment is lapce, but there's alot to do until it's a viable option.

[@ex0stasis72]

Looks promising. I'll check back when their "extensions" support allows for true extensions, not just themes and code highlighting. It be fun to get in on the ground floor and contribute to making some extensions before anyone else takes all the ideas I can think of.

[@krellin]

i still use sublime for everything it doesnt do there is jetbrains

[@eatmyblocks-blockchaindeve4093]

ZED is definitely available in Arch Linux via the AUR. Just putting that here since video said not available on linux. Good find though. Excited to try this out.

[@julianklumpers]

I tried Zed for a couple of weeks. And yes it is fast, but my development did not feel faster since it misses a lot of really useful extensions like eslint, priettier etc.

[@maxwebstudio]

Can't you just "npm install" them in your project ?

[@davidorbang7152]

yeah you can, but they have them integrated by just clicking the download button@@maxwebstudio

[@user-qq7yc1qp8z]

Dude thinks eslint and prettier are vs code extensions💀

[@davidorbang7152]

You are missing the point, it is much easier in vscode , that is my point. I use neovim anyways and I know what it means integrating them in other environment. @@user-qq7yc1qp8z

[@everyhandletaken]

@@user-qq7yc1qp8zthey exist 💀

[@N00byEdge]

I'm an endangered Sublime Text user, paid for it and everything. This doesn't look like an upgrade for me. I don't like the idea of a huge (135M) binary for a text editor. I'll wait this one out and see if we can't get a less bloated option. I don't own a mac either, but I probably won't get this even when it comes to Linux. Just being honest in case the devs are checking for intrest.

[@_Titanium_]

Only available on mac, RIP

[@nightgenerator]

"vscode killer" lol

[@niZmosis]

For highlighting text like that, click to put your cursor where you want to start, then scroll to where ever, then hold shift and click again, and all text will be highlighted.

[@PenguinjitsuX]

I'd be interested in seeing your thoughts on Webstorm. I switched from VSCode to Webstorm a while ago and have been finding it way better for web development. It feels like an actual IDE rather than a text editor with a hundred plugins I have to install.

[@jollyJedi]

Same. I’ve gotten used to webstorm and I almost never have those weird one-off bugs I got in code. The inline hints are amazing and it just works for everything. Even use the data grip to view queries

[@MrQuezPL]

Same here. I use WebStorm and PHPStorm since 2018 and it's great. It's ultra powerful, most of plugins I use are for specific languages or themes. It's very easy to refactor things quickly, traverse through the code. ESLint, TypeScript, testing - all of that is built in into the dev flow. I also like VSCode, but I just prefer Jetbrains IDEs :) It's quite ugly and bloated with UI by default (at least it used to be before UI overhaul, not sure how it looks by default now), but it's all configurable. I have a minimal config with no UI or toolbars, everything I need is navigated through keyboard.

[@boccobadz]

@@MrQuezPL It's as ugly as VSCode one, but tbh nobody uses it - just memorize the most used shortcuts and you good to go. Intellij has the best vim motions in the biz. The only thing VSCode has going for itself is much better Github Copilot integration (for now), eg same prompt that works in Code, might be refused in Jetbrains (eg "write commit messages in the style provided in this http gist" fails in Webstorm, works in Code). Jetbrains has better terminal/shell integration and better docker experience.

[@JEsterCW]

I tried and still trying to convice myself to webstorm, but with my vsc setup and theme that i cant really port to webstorm my effectiveness and productivity is so much worse... There are things that i really like about webstorm more, but i dont see any value in my case and overall sadly. If I would port my theme and add few additional things I would move, but webstorm for now is much worse pick in my case and for my needs, maybe one day + its canceling bundling of my remix project from time to time, which is funny in vsc it doesnt happen

[@boccobadz]

@@jollyJedi DataGrip is probably the best multi db viewer in the biz. Back in the day, when I have to juggle between hadoop, postgres, teradata, mssql and some other dbs with Kerberos (one of the biggest telco corps in the world, with billions of new rows of raw data daily) DG was my go to and it was amazing.

[@ChristopherCricketWallace]

Definitely get into your thoughts on open source licensing. Yes! Don't forget Meta's choices for LLama, please.

[@UnhingedNW]

This sounds awesome. Havent heard of Zed before. Im not a fan of VSCode it always seemed less polished then Intellij for my limited uses but now that I am branching away from Java based apps i need a better all arounder. Plus my student license is going to disappear someday and JetBrains is pricey lol. Curious how the paid version of this will look/cost

[@zekiz774]

Intellij ultimate?

[@Kinasawa]

You don't get the price reduction after years of use on the student license? Pity. I would say is worth it, is not that much for me and after 3 years the loyalty discount mades the subscription into a no brainer.

[@UnhingedNW]

@@Kinasawa Well i didnt know that that was a thing! I only just got my IJ license a few months ago for school. I just knew that it is running out sometime this year and had heard the pricing was high. Ill have to keep a better eye on it.

[@OetziOfficial]

Can't wait for Zed to be available for Windows! Looks nice so far!

[@mistymu8154]

Available on Windows, with WSL support.

[@OetziOfficial]

@@mistymu8154 oh great! I already use WSL, perfect. Will look into it! Thanks for sharing 🙏☺️

[@GreatWalker]

4:59 Isn't Windows still the most used OS among developers? And Linux is the open source one. I know macOS is very popular in the US, relativly speaking, but it is not the most popular.

[@Kas-tle]

There’s a common stereotype of developers using MacBooks.

[@returncode0000]

Thanks Theo, great video. Again, I learned so much beside of the main topic zed. Just awesome, big thumbs up!

[@AlbatrossCommando]

Who was the business genius that decided to make the editor exclusive to the least popular mainstream OS among devs?

[@AlexWootton]

Would love to see more content on these projects and the rewrite

[@SteinGauslaaStrindhaug]

I love that they have a "How will you make money?" in their FAQ. I'm always worried when a for profit company makes something open source but theres no indication on how they are supposed to make profits; because if their business model seems to be "collect underpants ??? profit!" I'm worried they might eventually do something sneaky. Though I would actually have preferred if they also asked for donations; because then it might be viable even if they don't sell much of the premium features; and that they didn't require a contributor agreement, because as far as I understand they are legally problematic for open source (since many developers cannot legally reassign or license their copyright anyway since while at work their employer owns their copyright already) and if they contributors doesn't keep their copyright then the company is free to close source it again later.