[HN Gopher] VSCode config to disable annoyances - telemetry, not...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       VSCode config to disable annoyances - telemetry, notifications,
       welcome pages
        
       Author : thunderbong
       Score  : 262 points
       Date   : 2023-05-15 06:05 UTC (16 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (gist.github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (gist.github.com)
        
       | klaussilveira wrote:
       | Any configs to make it faster and lower the latency? Because it
       | feels like a turtle compared to Sublime.
        
         | mattgreenrocks wrote:
         | Yeah, I feel this. I'm not normally someone who notices these
         | things, but on my 2019 MBP (the last Intel one), when using the
         | iGPU, there's a perceptible sluggishness in VSCode that makes
         | it fairly unpleasant to work in. Things get somewhat better if
         | I force the discrete GPU, but that sucks power and really is
         | only an option when plugged in.
         | 
         | I'm normally someone who gets 7 years or so out of a computer
         | but I definitely am looking forward to replacing this with an
         | M-series Air. :(
        
           | TheRealDunkirk wrote:
           | I'm on the same kind of machine. My biggest problem with Code
           | is that I can see the sluggishness when I open a file, and
           | watch it render the syntax highlighting. I didn't know about
           | this setting. Forcing the GPU "on" has made this go away. Now
           | I can only detect a tiny bit of rendering in the minimap. I'm
           | always plugged in while coding anyway, so I can leave it, but
           | it seems like Code should be able to tell you're plugged in,
           | and do this automatically.
        
         | dr_kiszonka wrote:
         | I find it useful to disable or uninstall extensions that I
         | don't use every once in a while. Additionally, if your project
         | directory has tons of files, it helps to minimize the explorer
         | pane or switch to a different one.
        
       | johnea wrote:
       | Where's the setting that stops it from sending telemetry to M$?
        
         | jdrek1 wrote:
         | The ones that start with `telemetry`
        
       | vehemenz wrote:
       | This is great news. Credit to Microsoft for finding new ways to
       | improve its good will with developers.
       | 
       | Now if Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube could stop reminding me of
       | the app. I know there's an app. I don't use it because I'm not
       | braindead.
       | 
       | Edit: Credit to the guy who created this config. It's too early
       | to read apparently.
        
         | hyperupcall wrote:
         | Glad I could help! It's too bad that my HN post didn't take
         | off.
        
         | morning-coffee wrote:
         | That's what the title sorta implies, but that's not what this
         | is. It's just someone's configuration set to turn off telemetry
         | for vscode and some of its known plugins, AFAICT.
        
       | tremere wrote:
       | What bothers me most about VScode is that linters and other
       | annotating plugins will underline and box text and make it really
       | hard to read. It's not graceful the way error highlighting was in
       | Eclipse and Visual Studio and it makes me miss the old tools.
       | It's really really ugly, especially the box. Everyone says "just
       | get a plug-in like ErrorLens" but I would rather just have a de-
       | lint button. I honestly turn off the linter nowadays and run it
       | manually in the shell (fortunately VSCode has a shell built in).
        
         | criley2 wrote:
         | I know people hate them but lint as a pre-commit hook is nice.
        
           | mooooooooooooo wrote:
           | You can always bypass the hook. Better to enforce standards
           | and make exceptions when necessary.
        
           | lelandfe wrote:
           | I turn them off. I commit early and often, and hooks just get
           | in the way.
        
             | smcleod wrote:
             | Local hooks should be fast. I do that too if they take more
             | than 5-10 seconds and it's not mission critical software.
        
             | 12345hn6789 wrote:
             | Early and often doesn't change code standards.
        
               | lelandfe wrote:
               | It sure does. The repository's standards don't matter one
               | whit until I'm ready to submit my code.
               | 
               | I squash, amend, and delete history with aplomb as I
               | develop. I simply do not need to be informed of adherence
               | to code standards during that.
        
         | rcme wrote:
         | Why use a linter if your code has so many errors?
        
           | bjornasm wrote:
           | Where did he say he had a lot of errors?
        
           | tremere wrote:
           | Lol. To fix them? They are not errors as much as warnings
           | that are still helpful and I would like to keep. I just don't
           | want the ugly box and underline which makes text unreadable.
           | 
           | Even when the error involves balancing parentheses the ugly
           | box gets in the way. VScode has a neat trick of color coding
           | parens so that balancing them is a bit more efficient, but
           | with a tight box around your text and a squiggly underline
           | it's just an unreadable mess.
           | 
           | Honestly turning off the linter has been the most helpful.
           | Now I avoid forgetting semicolons and not balancing parens
           | simply because of how painful using the linter is, that I
           | would rather avoid it altogether. But it didn't have to be
           | this way. They could have just not made error highlighting so
           | terrible. It's garbage and everyone knows it is, anyone who
           | tells me errors don't look absurd on VSCode is someone I stop
           | taking seriously. It would be as if your teacher used a thick
           | sharpie to black out what she thought were your mistakes in
           | your essay, rendering you unable to even figure out what
           | mistake you made in the first place.
        
           | specialist wrote:
           | The errors are in other people's code.
           | 
           | My own code, FWIW, is flawless. Natch.
        
             | rcme wrote:
             | Why are you running linters on other peoples' code?
        
         | SamuelAdams wrote:
         | You can change a setting to have VS Code auto-lint on file
         | save. It will auto-fix as much as it can, anything that
         | requires decisions will still need to be manually fixed.
         | 
         | https://stackoverflow.com/a/68016089
        
       | noisy_boy wrote:
       | On a lighter note, I wonder if I'm the only one that gets a mild
       | sense of FOMO when I see the welcome page that lists out the
       | features they have released after every update? Like these guys
       | are cranking out so many new things and I just don't have the
       | time to try them out :(
        
         | rjh29 wrote:
         | Yeah. I get the same with Chrome. It's like, can you just slow
         | down a little?
        
         | maccard wrote:
         | I get it a little. As a professional it's my job to keep on top
         | of advancements in tooling, so I try to watch the change log
         | for my tools and pick 1-2 things to try. Some of them stick,
         | some of them don't.
        
         | w4rh4wk5 wrote:
         | I actually enjoy the monthly release notes. Usually, most of
         | the features do not affect me, but sometimes there are one or
         | two gems that really make me appreciate the active development
         | on VSCode.
        
           | smcleod wrote:
           | Yeah me too! I get excited about new features and to get a
           | feel for where the software is going. At times when I feel
           | impressed by the devs that maintain some of my favourite
           | software I take a moment to drop them an email or tweet (now
           | toot) to thank them and congratulate them on major releases.
           | It only takes a small moment of my time but genuine
           | appreciation can really brighten peoples days.
        
         | duped wrote:
         | Not really, since it doesn't feel like they listen to the users
         | or developer community on features that people want to see roll
         | out. It's a lot of icing on a pretty well decorated cake at the
         | moment.
         | 
         | I won't get excited by a VSCode update until they fix the
         | webview crash that happens after every update (0) and support
         | multiple windows in the same workspace (1). The latter has been
         | the most requested feature for 6 years!
         | 
         | (0) https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/125993
         | 
         | (1) https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/10121
        
       | impulser_ wrote:
       | I recently been annoyed by VSCode. The biggest annoyance is that
       | you often have to reload the window because things break or spot
       | working.
       | 
       | I switched to the beta of the Zed editor and it been really nice.
       | It's just you, the editor and a language server. It's super fast
       | and has really nice features built in.
       | 
       | I would suggest to try it out if you are annoyed by VSCode.
        
       | mhd wrote:
       | Related: Sane VS Code[0]
       | 
       | [0]: https://datagubbe.se/vsc/
        
       | vrglvrglvrgl wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | sethgoodluck wrote:
       | Y'all need emacs or neovim
        
         | udkl wrote:
         | or webstorm or intellij - I pay for them and their modal based
         | windows allow me to retain my depth of flow vs the irritating
         | side panel based VScode implementation (especially for search)
         | ... and the modal windows are powerful allowing you to edit and
         | navigate inside the preview modal window itself thus preventing
         | small context switches .... I cannot bear vscode
        
       | justkez wrote:
       | More focussed on developer UX than telemetry, `Make VS Code
       | Awesome` [0] shares a lot of configs to clean up the
       | UI/nags/prompts. I'm not affiliated but have bought it and found
       | it significantly improved my days in Code.
       | 
       | [0] https://makevscodeawesome.com
        
         | keb_ wrote:
         | Can you summarize what the configs do exactly? Not sure I want
         | to pay $150 or even $40 for VSCode configs.
        
         | smcleod wrote:
         | $60AUD for a PDF with code examples seems more than a little
         | pricey - that's money I'd rather throw at some open source
         | projects.
        
       | Brajeshwar wrote:
       | You might be interested in VSCodium -- a community-driven,
       | freely-licensed binary distribution of VSCode.
       | 
       | https://vscodium.com
        
       | grishka wrote:
       | Am I the only one who has never tried VSCode and, in general,
       | can't take Electron-based code editors seriously?
        
         | JohnFen wrote:
         | It's worth giving it a try. I'm not a VSCode fan, but I only
         | know that from trying it out. You never know.
        
         | michelb wrote:
         | Probably?
        
         | fortyseven wrote:
         | Absolutely your loss.
        
       | aflag wrote:
       | For me the most annoying config of all is the justMyCode flag in
       | the python debugger. I wish I could disable that globally rather
       | than per project.
        
         | el_oni wrote:
         | Preach, maybe there is a way to alter the "template"
         | launch.json
        
       | qbasic_forever wrote:
       | VS code badly needs a "do not disturb" mode that disables all
       | this junk and more (like turn off all the pop up notifications
       | and autocomplete suggestions as you type too).
       | 
       | It always throws me out of flow state to have it constantly
       | barfing and spewing info on screen as I type--like, I've been
       | programming python for 20 years and I know exactly how the print
       | function works, I don't need a huge spew of doc string text when
       | I type it now. Autocomplete and such can be very handy but it's a
       | real pain to turn it off as there are about 3 or 4 random little
       | settings to fully disable it. Give me a do not disturb or no
       | distraction mode that disables and enables it easily.
        
         | MrPatan wrote:
         | It'd be nice if it that doc window could just _not_ steal the
         | focus. At least with TypeScript it does.
        
         | anonymousab wrote:
         | VSCode has a silence/DND option via the bell menu in the bottom
         | right. However it does not seem to be perfect, and I've seen
         | notifications pop up on startup of a fresh window. Better than
         | nothing though.
         | 
         | It is tremendously frustrating how every single extension
         | developer seems to think that every bit of logging (and every
         | single update changelog) is the most important thing to every
         | developer that has their extension installed, and that they
         | should disrupt flow and even open tabs and take over the window
         | context just to tell me about some new minor version patch.
        
         | adhoc_slime wrote:
         | I think I'd be interested in this as well. Maybe leave me with
         | a set of powerful macros for generating some of the boiler
         | plate code and I'd probably be quite happy. Maybe a flag to add
         | to zen mode, zen++, I don't know.
         | 
         | an aside to this, I've been playing with copilot recently and
         | its inline additions are usually so distracting while I'm
         | trying to write some really simple conditional. When it usually
         | doesn't read my mind, its more of an annoyance and I only
         | really want it when I explicitly want to invoke it, which I
         | don't think is a feature outside of enabling and disabling it.
        
           | qbasic_forever wrote:
           | Yeah I view it as a slider or dial in my mind. Maybe a dial
           | from 0 to 10 for level of distraction you're willing to
           | tolerate. The more you turn it down the more it turns off all
           | of these suggestions, autocompletes, notifications, etc.
        
       | nickpp wrote:
       | Maybe I am biased as an app developer myself but I _want_ VSCode
       | engineers to have telemetry from me so they can see how I use the
       | app and improve it. Same when Apple asks me for iOS, iPad, etc.
        
         | kgilpin wrote:
         | As a VSCode extension creator - thank you! People may not
         | realize how hard it is to make a great app if you have no idea
         | what your users are doing with it.
         | 
         | On web apps there is all kinds of tracking and it's heavily
         | used to make the apps better (not just for marketing or
         | annoying you). In a code editor extension there is the same
         | need for that type of information, and telemetry is the only
         | way to get it.
        
           | whynotmaybe wrote:
           | Tell me what's in the telemetry and I might approve it.
           | 
           | Don't tell me what you're collecting and I'm suspicious.
           | 
           | Things I should know about:
           | 
           | - my usernames
           | 
           | - name of the files I'm working on
           | 
           | - what other extensions I use
           | 
           | - what kind of computer I'm using
           | 
           | Or summarized : everything that can be used to fingerprint
           | me.
           | 
           | And whatever your promises, I won't trust you with this data,
           | it's not personal but your company might be bought tomorrow
           | by another company that won't have to respect your promises.
        
           | grishka wrote:
           | How about actually talking with your users? Telemetry is a
           | poor substitute for that.
        
             | kgilpin wrote:
             | Absolutely! Please go try this and I will talk to you as
             | much as you want - https://appmap.io/docs/appmap-
             | overview.html
        
               | grishka wrote:
               | Unfortunately I don't think it fits any of the projects I
               | work on (and I don't use VSCode to begin with, never had
               | it installed, bit I do see an IntelliJ plugin as well).
               | 
               | I have one project that's a server application
               | (https://github.com/grishka/Smithereen), but since it
               | uses lots of custom stuff on top of the Spark micro-
               | framework, your plugin would probably not work on it. I
               | imagine it does expect projects to be structured
               | idiomatically for the framework they use, at least to
               | some degree. Spark also doesn't know anything about
               | databases, so that is all custom as well. Oh and I also
               | hacked it a bit with reflection to allow streaming
               | responses.
        
               | kgilpin wrote:
               | If you use process recording you should be able to get
               | maps of all your code in that project - it just won't
               | have any special framework or database markup -
               | https://appmap.io/docs/reference/appmap-
               | java.html#process-re...
               | 
               | edit: Actually I see JUnit so test case recording should
               | also work.
        
       | anonymous344 wrote:
       | I tried VSCode for few months and decided to stay with sublime
       | text 3 (infite paid license) Why ? Because every 3.rd time i
       | opened some project and wanted to do WORK there was gazillion
       | notifications and updates. I don't care. You do develmopment of
       | your product alot, I don't care. I want to update my toolset when
       | I have time, that's 1 or 0.5 per year.
        
         | rockostrich wrote:
         | Well, the nice thing about VSCode is you can disable all of
         | that...
         | 
         | Some people are working with toolsets that benefit from
         | constant updates.
        
         | kriz9 wrote:
         | You can install the portable version of VSCode and you don't
         | have to deal with this anymore - then you can update whenever
         | you need to.
        
         | eloisius wrote:
         | Number 1 reason I stick with my tools, no matter how good
         | $current_thing is: bash, tmux, and nvim. Nothing ever changes.
        
         | vdfs wrote:
         | Funny how the "What's new" message in Sublime products is what
         | hate most about them, to the point of disabling updates all
         | together for them, they also have plugins with their own
         | "What's new" messages. I guess there is always someone who will
         | abuse this
        
         | smcleod wrote:
         | It's interesting to hear how different people like to operate.
         | 
         | In general for me personally I like to ensure all software
         | updates are installed daily (not just my editor/IDE).
         | 
         | When I login in the mornings the first thing that runs is a
         | simple script that checks for and applies all updates for my
         | OS, Apps, homebrew packages, shell packages, several
         | applications extensions / plugins etc... likewise my servers
         | install updates daily. Obviously there are pros and cons of
         | (in)frequently updating software.
         | 
         | For me - with this approach of small, frequent updates I've
         | found that updating software becomes boring - which is a good
         | thing. I honestly can't remember the last time anything broke
         | (that I noticed). I've taken this approach for around 12 years.
        
           | jabroni_salad wrote:
           | I don't mind having stuff update, I just don't like anything
           | that steals focus / the cursor. When I am in windowsland I
           | often find myself saying something along the lines of 'let me
           | know when its my turn to use the computer'.
           | 
           | Sure, run your update. just shut the fuck up about it.
        
             | somehnguy wrote:
             | Cough Docker, Obsidian, Chrome, FireFox, Postman, and many
             | others. All will steal your focus with zero regard for what
             | you're actually trying to use your computer for. Your
             | update just doesn't matter that much to me, sorry.
        
           | ar_lan wrote:
           | I prefer stability over optimal, especially in my development
           | environment.
           | 
           | I use macOS with nix-darwin, so updating my applications is
           | never very concerning - I can always just rollback if an
           | update is bad. But macOS updates, while generally they don't
           | break anything, have broken enough that it's the scariest
           | part of my year.
           | 
           | The year they shut down any folders in the `/` directory was
           | my (and many coworkers) downfall. It took me a solid 3-4
           | hours to recoup everything in a working order, and there were
           | failing straggler scripts that were discovered months later.
           | 
           | As such I generally avoid updates as often as possible. Also,
           | to be fair, I have a history in IT and while personal
           | computer updates are generally _good_ , infrastructure
           | updates are time-consuming, error-prone, and generally scary,
           | so I do have a default aversion.
        
           | User23 wrote:
           | Next morning's standup: "And then I got nothing done for the
           | rest of the day while I fixed my development environment that
           | was messed up by an update."
        
           | JohnFen wrote:
           | > For me - with this approach of small, frequent updates I've
           | found that updating software becomes boring - which is a good
           | thing.
           | 
           | That's all well and good until an update happens that changes
           | workflow or changes the look/feel too much. Those sorts of
           | changes cause disruption that I want to schedule. Or until an
           | update is made that changes the software in a way that makes
           | it actively worse for your use case. Those are the sorts of
           | updates I want to avoid.
           | 
           | That's why I don't allow software to automatically update.
           | Most of the time I won't notice the update, but when I do,
           | it's a big deal that would have been better if I could have
           | done it on a more convenient day.
        
           | bityard wrote:
           | I used to do this, until I ran into the problem of an update
           | breaking some critical piece of my workflow the morning right
           | before I had some important work to complete. It's not a good
           | look when you have to ask your co-workers to wait for you
           | because you have to stop and fix your computer first.
           | (Although these days software is so unreliable that maybe no
           | one bats an eye anymore? Who knows.)
           | 
           | Since then, I've learned that it's not a matter of IF an
           | upgrade will break your system, it's a matter of WHEN. There
           | will always be that one bug that slips under the radar and
           | breaks something, and it's usually right when you can afford
           | it the least. These days, I do approximately weekly upgrades
           | of all my systems/gear, but I make sure to schedule it when I
           | know I will have the time to fix whatever issues come up. (In
           | an enterprise setting, the expanded version of this is called
           | Change Management.)
        
         | cantSpellSober wrote:
         | Funny, I switched from ST in part because of the popup that an
         | upgrade is available.
         | 
         | You could have just configured VS Code instead of completely
         | changing editors. In fact, you're commenting on a post with a
         | _really_ fine-grained list of how to! Do you ever configure ST?
        
           | keb_ wrote:
           | Funny, you could have just configured ST to disable the
           | update check instead of completely changing editors. Add
           | `"update_check": false` to your preferences.
        
             | cantSpellSober wrote:
             | > _Do you ever configure ST?_
             | 
             | Agreed, both editors require configs to turn this off. ST
             | is updated so rarely at least it was less annoying.
        
         | gliptic wrote:
         | Somehow the most annoying thing to me is this long-standing bug
         | where "Exit" doesn't mean "Exit", but "Exit, unless there's
         | updates, then restart".
        
           | bityard wrote:
           | I install VSCode from the apt repo, so it doesn't update for
           | me unless I update the rest of my system. (Or I can choose to
           | update everything else in VSCode if I know there's a problem
           | with the current version.)
        
         | EnragedParrot wrote:
         | I never receive intrusive notifications from VSCode. It quickly
         | and silently updates every once in a while when I close the
         | program. I'm not sure what kinds of malicious extensions you
         | must've had installed.
        
           | elboru wrote:
           | > It quickly and silently updates
           | 
           | What about the "What's new tab" that opens right when you
           | want to have some work done?
           | 
           | Or the notifications you get at the bottom-right corner
           | suggesting to install extensions when you just want to see
           | inside a file.
           | 
           | I mean, many people don't care that much, it's just a little
           | annoyance to me, as little to not spent 5 mins to find a
           | solution.
        
             | Jcowell wrote:
             | love those, let me know if a new feature is available and
             | how to better vote a new home type and if I don't care?
             | instant close. No nagging of "are you sure" just straight
             | and to the point.
        
               | JoBrad wrote:
               | That's my view, too. At one point I set all of my
               | extensions to manual updates only. But that became
               | cumbersome when I started enabling extensions by
               | workspace, so I just use auto-update now. I appreciate
               | the "what's new" notes, especially when I learn about new
               | features.
               | 
               | Edited for clarity
        
             | qwertox wrote:
             | I used to find the "What's new tab" tab useful because of
             | the list of recent projects it has, but I've moved on to
             | creating desktop shortcuts to project directories so that I
             | can open them in one go. This also works with ssh-based
             | projects. (`--folder-uri=`)
        
               | Lalabadie wrote:
               | Heads up that the list of recent projects can also be
               | invoked with a keyboard shortcut or the command palette
               | ("Open recent...").
        
             | EnragedParrot wrote:
             | The "What's New" tab only opens when I don't open Code into
             | a project directory, usually it opens right into the last
             | file I was working on. The extensions notifications I
             | suppose could be an annoyance, but I seldomly encounter new
             | file types, so it's a non-issue for me and I suspect most
             | users.
        
             | webstrand wrote:
             | Sublime text has this too, except it's a popup. And Package
             | Control, too, has a tab that pops open a few seconds after
             | you've started writing. In my opinion they're not really a
             | problem.
        
             | justinclift wrote:
             | Yeah, these are a turn off for me too.
        
       | michens wrote:
       | Annoying notifications are a thing for most of the MS stack.
       | Outlook, Teams, Word. Recently I had to dig into some cryptic
       | Registry options to disable some stupid balloon notifications in
       | outlook that pop up every time I open the app. I don't care about
       | your tips and your new interface, I just want to be able to
       | search for a specific email and go back to work quickly.
        
         | potemkinhr wrote:
         | Care to share that one?
        
           | michens wrote:
           | Yes, I mean - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
           | us/answers/questions/186354/o...
           | 
           | First comment about modifying - `HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\M
           | icrosoft\Office\16.0\Common\TeachingCallouts`
        
         | mattgreenrocks wrote:
         | "New Outlook," which forgot to remind me to be in a meeting
         | once, and doesn't support contact groups still because there's
         | no simple server-side notion of that.
        
         | JohnFen wrote:
         | > Annoying notifications are a thing for most of the MS stack.
         | 
         | This. The whole notification mechanism is just awful and not
         | actually very useful. I disable all of it, from any
         | application. I don't want notifications, period.
        
       | thecleaner wrote:
       | Download vscodium
        
       | nmartx wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
         | xk_id wrote:
         | I'm just here to say that as a vim user I understand your
         | sentiment and concur. There's not much I can do to change
         | people's minds. But vim and the console will be there waiting,
         | whenever they are ready.
        
         | KyeRussell wrote:
         | If you don't understand how VS Code is different to vim or
         | emacs -- not better, just different -- and that some people
         | might prefer the former to the latter, then you are incredibly
         | inept. There's no other way to say it. I can't imagine wanting
         | to hire or even work with someone that said this with even a
         | remotely straight face.
        
           | jklwx wrote:
           | [flagged]
        
           | bheadmaster wrote:
           | > I can't imagine wanting to hire or even work with someone
           | that said this with even a remotely straight face.
           | 
           | I can't imagine wanting to work for someone who doesn't
           | tolerate different opinions.
        
             | PurpleRamen wrote:
             | There is a different between having a different opinion,
             | and rubbing it in your face when nobody asked for it. This
             | is more about relevant social behavior, which is important
             | for a job, than the rights someone has outside their job.
        
               | bheadmaster wrote:
               | [flagged]
        
             | dspillett wrote:
             | Just checking for clarity: like me you agree with
             | KyeRussell's preference not to interact with people who
             | can't cope with different people preferring different
             | editors (and other environment features).
             | 
             | Though the complaint that poster replied to was more about
             | stalky telemetry than editor/IDE features, rather than
             | actual editing features.
        
               | bheadmaster wrote:
               | The original comment had a valid (but unpopular) opinion
               | on VSCode - that it's a "privacy nightmare OSS trojan
               | horse". They complained that "why people [use it] is
               | beyond [them]", which is probably an exaggeration, as
               | it's obvious that people use it for convenience. But
               | still, it's a valid opinion, a little bit too idealistic
               | for most people, but valid.
               | 
               | Then, there's this boss man dude who is using the
               | business-equivalent of the female shaming strategy of
               | denial-by-proxy - just instead of saying "I can't imagine
               | dating someone who X", they say "I can't imagine hiring
               | someone who X". It's the same strategy - they pretend
               | they're the representative of all hiring managers and
               | bosses of the world, and imply that if you have such
               | opinions, you will never be hired, and therefore are
               | trash and deserve to starve.
               | 
               | I just don't like that kind of attitude.
        
               | culopatin wrote:
               | They are the same attitude, different words
        
               | bheadmaster wrote:
               | No, they're not.
               | 
               | The former is saying that VSCode is a privacy nightmare,
               | which is true. The latter is saying if you think VSCode
               | is a privacy nightmare, nobody will hire you, which is
               | false.
               | 
               | Actually, the latter is not even that - it's just an
               | insult: "I can't imagine wanting to hire or even work
               | with someone that said this with even a remotely straight
               | face".
        
         | franga2000 wrote:
         | Because...it's a good IDE? I'll take having to occasionally
         | change a setting or two to avoid some annoyances in a otherwise
         | great and fully-featured IDE over literally just a console text
         | editor any day of the week.
         | 
         | Not that it's my main IDE, I prefer JetBrains stuff, but I'm
         | tired of hearing y'all bitch about VS Code like it's trash when
         | in reality, even just out of the box, it's still far more
         | capable than most power users' Emacs setups.
        
           | aulin wrote:
           | Could you list some of these features that make VSCode far
           | more capable? I always wonder if I should move on from emacs
           | at some point to a more capable IDE. If you think emacs is
           | "just a console text editor" though you may not be the best
           | person to answer.
        
           | Nullabillity wrote:
           | Clearly (at least some) people don't trust VSCode.. or we
           | wouldn't have the OP in the first place.
           | 
           | If you don't trust something, the long-term solution isn't to
           | try to work around it (until the next version comes out and
           | they find a new way to breach your trust), it's to stop using
           | the thing you don't trust.
        
           | xigoi wrote:
           | There are many pre-made configs that can change Neovim into a
           | fully featured IDE. And it still doesn't require a full
           | browser engine and selling your soul to Microsoft to run.
        
         | darthrupert wrote:
         | If you wanna have privacy and also be fairly modern,
         | https://helix-editor.com might work
        
         | w4rh4wk5 wrote:
         | > Why people use the privacy nightmare OSS trojan horse that is
         | VSCode is beyond me.
         | 
         | Here's an example why some people (including me) prefer VSCode
         | over vim in certain cases:
         | 
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/neovim/comments/rwz9m2/how_to_impro...
         | 
         | And yes, I know that Emacs is much better when it comes to
         | discoverability, but I am just not an Emacs guy. Tried it so
         | many times already. Just can't make it work for myself.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | arp242 wrote:
         | > Why people use the privacy nightmare OSS trojan horse that is
         | VSCode is beyond me.
         | 
         | Why people care what other people run on their computer is
         | beyond me.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | slig wrote:
         | Just use `vi`.
        
           | bheadmaster wrote:
           | Visual editing is completely unnecessary - human mind can
           | only read 1 line at a time, so there is no point in showing
           | more than 1 line at a time on the screen.
           | 
           | Just use `ed`.
        
             | DoctorDabadedoo wrote:
             | Real programmers flip bits directly at the hardware with a
             | jumper cable.
        
               | askiiart wrote:
               | Real programmers use butterflies.
               | 
               | https://xkcd.com/378/
        
               | tmtvl wrote:
               | As easy as _M-x butterfly RET_.
        
             | meghan_rain wrote:
             | It is best practice anyway to know what you want to change
             | upfront so using sed is perfectly sufficient.
        
               | bheadmaster wrote:
               | Please refrain from posting GPT-generated posts on HN.
               | Thank you, Megan Rain.
        
           | duohedron wrote:
           | Just use `ed`. https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html
        
       | hyperupcall wrote:
       | Oh, so _this_ is why I've been getting so many hits...
       | 
       | I was the original creator and the original post[1] was from a
       | day ago. Glad to see it is helpful!
       | 
       | [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35940043
        
       | rapnie wrote:
       | If you don't use proprietary plugins that require VSCode, then
       | VSCodium [0] is a good choice. It has a better default config
       | that removes telemetry.
       | 
       | [0] https://vscodium.com
        
         | franga2000 wrote:
         | Has anyone managed to get Copilot running on it yet? It's the
         | one proprietary extension that I use and would be a huge
         | productivity loss for me if I went back to VSCodium without it.
        
           | circuit10 wrote:
           | It can work if you make some edits to product.json, I can't
           | remember exactly what but that should help with Googling I
           | guess
        
           | dmm wrote:
           | Many of the proprietary extensions have license terms that
           | forbid use with anything other than the official vs code
           | binaries. For example from the c# extension:
           | 
           | > INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. You may only use the C#
           | Extension for Visual Studio Code with Visual Studio Code,
           | Visual Studio or Xamarin Studio software to help you develop
           | and test your applications.
           | 
           | If you don't care about the license restrictions you can add
           | the offical extension store to VSCodium and it might work.
        
             | bioemerl wrote:
             | Jesus Christ. .net core isn't open source, it's a set of
             | trapjaws pretending to be.
             | 
             | I really need to learn Kotlin sooner rather than later.
        
               | samrift wrote:
               | This license only applies to the compiled/packaged
               | extension delivered via the extension marketplace. The
               | source code to this VSCode extension is available on
               | Github and is under the permissive MIT License (as is the
               | .net runtime).
               | 
               | If you are looking for evidence that .net core is
               | maliciously pretending to be open source to move to a
               | language reliant on a JVM, I don't believe this would
               | qualify.
        
             | lozenge wrote:
             | I don't think this applies to Copilot as its a
             | subscription, but it does for Pylance, Live Share, Remote
             | and related, and the new data science one.
        
         | pkulak wrote:
         | Or, event better still ;)
         | 
         | https://github.com/AstroNvim/AstroNvim
        
       | butz wrote:
       | Any way to prevent VSCode from creating directories in home when
       | running in "portable" mode, by creating data directory? Now it
       | keeps creating .vscode-cli and .dotnet directories.
        
       | f311a wrote:
       | I also tweaked UI of my VS Code. It now basically looks like Vim
       | (all the menus, tabs and icons are hidden, except the code). If I
       | need them back, I just press a hot key.
        
         | ughitsaaron wrote:
         | I would love to see this config if you're able to share it.
        
           | wastewastewaste wrote:
           | mine is basically done to replicate my neovim as closely as
           | possible with zenmode
           | https://github.com/stechermichal/vscode-dotfiles
        
         | unfunco wrote:
         | What's the difference between that and the built-in zen mode?
        
       | guardian5x wrote:
       | I like the show release notes and other things. I would recommend
       | to check which each option does before copy&pasting. I guess that
       | is always a good advice anyway.
        
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       (page generated 2023-05-15 23:02 UTC)