DEV Community

โš”๏ธ Moving from VScode to Webstorm โš”๏ธ

Adam Crockett ๐ŸŒ€ on February 20, 2020

Yep it's one of those posts where I talk about how big my hammer is ๐Ÿ”จ and how much it wieghs and how many nails it can hit per hour... Oh right, no...
Collapse
 
exadra37 profile image
Paulo Renato • Edited

I enjoy Sublime Text, and run it from inside a Docker Container.

I tried VSCode for several times, but is to slow for a Sublime Text user.

Jetbrain products are even slower for a Sublime Text user, and it looks like you need to take a course just to learn to work with them... I am looking at you Android Studio ;)

One of my required questions when being interviewed for a new job is about the tools being used, and if I am free to choose what Operating System and editor I will use. If I am not free to choose them then I drop the offer at that stage. In my opinion each developer should be free to work with the tools he feels more productive with.

Collapse
 
rolfstreefkerk profile image
Rolf Streefkerk

This is imo pretty extreme, in a lot of cases a company can have a reason to harmonize tooling and to just dismiss this because of your preference makes you look inflexible.
There are more tools that work than just Sublime editor

Collapse
 
exadra37 profile image
Paulo Renato

There are more tools that work than just Sublime editor

Not saying the opposite.

This is imo pretty extreme, in a lot of cases a company can have a reason to harmonize tooling and to just dismiss this because of your preference makes you look inflexible.

I recognize it can be seen as an extreme position, but I am a Developer because of passion, not just because it's on more profession, therefore I prefer to work with the tools I like, provided that they do not affect the expected results from me.

This being said I don't see why I can't use my preferred editor where I feel it is better for me. For example to code Android Apps I just use Android Studio(see my orignal comment), despite my dislike of it, I recognize that is more productive to use it, then using Sublime.

What is "extreme" is companies "forcing" developers to use certain Operating Systems, I am looking at using MACs to develop for Linux, and then resorting to VMs to run the code, really!!! Ok I forgot that using a MAC is often more about status and aesthetics then about using the right tool for the job.

My philosophy is that If I need to code in .net I will use a Windows OS, If I need to code an iOS App I will use a MAC computer, and for the rest I will use a Linux OS.

Thread Thread
 
adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett ๐ŸŒ€

I have a Mac, I don't like it but I do use it and it's 8 cores and does fine. I long for a Linux machine. But it's all about the same to me.

Collapse
 
adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett ๐ŸŒ€

If we race editors there would be a clear winner ๐ŸŒ๐ŸŒ๐ŸŒ๐ŸŒ, but as a choice thing I choose the greater good haha.

I totally agree it should never be enforced, and wasn't for me. But there is a lot to be said for flexibly switching tools. Am I as productive right now, probably at about 50% but it's not too much of a stretch that I will be next month. I am new anyway so perfect time to re-evaluate.

Collapse
 
exadra37 profile image
Paulo Renato

I forced me to work with VSCode for two months in a row, but when I went back to Sublime to open a huge file***, and felt it's difference in speed I was simply not able to go back to VScode again.

*** Sublime Text is the only editor I know that really handles huge text files, like csv ones, VSCode just freezes.

I am new anyway so perfect time to re-evaluate.

I keep doing it time to time, but I always go back to Sublime Text, but I will give another try to VSCode in the future.

Collapse
 
fdrobidoux profile image
Fรฉlix Dion-Robidoux • Edited

This reminds me that I really wanna get back into Jetbrains products. I used to swear by them when I studied web development back in 2013 all the way until 2017 when I had to switch to writing C#, and Rider was not a good alternative to Visual Studio at the time. Since then, I got used to Visual Studio, but neither VS2019 nor VS Code feel as robust and "complete" and as I want them to be for straight up web development, sadly.

I think you just convinced me to grab a personnal Jetbrains subscription once again. Hopefully they ironed out the problems with Rider by now.

Collapse
 
deciduously profile image
Ben Lovy

Seconding this. I've never had a bad experience with a Jetbrains product, and honestly don't really know why they never stuck for me. This is prompting me to try again.

Collapse
 
adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett ๐ŸŒ€

If you make it like what your used to it might just feel a very small amount of discomfort, but it does have some very strong Git powers.

Collapse
 
adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett ๐ŸŒ€

On the subject I might look at clion for rust.

Collapse
 
adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett ๐ŸŒ€

Time is a great healer. Haha you convinced yourself, but I'm glad I reminded you. If it doesn't feel right just go back to normal.

Collapse
 
sroehrl profile image
neoan

I work with PHPStorm almost exclusively (it has everything WebStorm has plus additional features). Many of my students use VSCode and the truth is: VSCode is probably the best Open-source IDE around but has two major flaws:

For one, it needs love. Out of the box, it's a disappointing set of features. You can tweak it to become a powerful companion, but the beginner will simply not take advantage of that, not spend enough time with it nor understand what it is that's missing. The second problem is that even if tweaked, it still doesn't compare with the JetBrain IDEs. Not that it's far off, but it just doesn't get close enough to be considered to be of the same value.

And given the fact that JetBrain offers countless possibilities to use their tools for free (easiest one by having a .edu email), it baffles me why they aren't in use way more.

Collapse
 
patarapolw profile image
Pacharapol Withayasakpunt

Reminds me of how often I have to either TypeScript: Restart TS server or Developer: Reload Window in VSCode. VSCode isn't that good, but I don't seem to have much choice with TypeScript.

I have tried WebStorm Trial, but is yet to be impressed.

Collapse
 
rados51 profile image
Rados51

Better then continous random errors from TS, that I dont even use :D

Collapse
 
patryktech profile image
Patryk • Edited

Commercial is too expensive for me to justify at the moment, and the free version of their tools, when available, is too limited, so I never tried it properly, except for IDEA (one Java project), and Android studio, which I believe is / was built upon it (it's been a few years).

Vscode works great for my needs (Django, Vue, and docker, for the most part), so i don't really see a need to waste time learning another IDE.

But it did take me a while to settle for vscode.

Collapse
 
adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett ๐ŸŒ€

Hmm going to need to look into this.

Collapse
 
miguelthedev profile image
Miguel Sanchez

I made the switch too about a couple weeks ago. VSCode is awesome, but I find Webstorm to be better and more helpful.

Like you said, Jetbrains arenโ€™t missing any features that VSCode offers. Except for the aesthetics, but thatโ€™s easily fixed with a theme, I use one dark pro.

Collapse
 
adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett ๐ŸŒ€

Following your footsteps, I have found only one thing that's slightly anoying.

Multiline shift or cloning sort of works but in vscode it's marginally better, I use this feature alot and will have to watch where I place my cursor.

Collapse
 
maciekgrzybek profile image
Maciek Grzybek

I've recently switched to Webstorm, due to doing a lot of work in IntelliJ (we do some Kotlin backend in my company). I was really impressed at the beginning, especially by amazing intellisense and refactoring options, but... I switched back to VS code. WS felt really slow very often and I had to restart few times a day for some weird reasons (eslint kept complaining about some issue which wasn't there anymore, and it was all right in Vscode).

Collapse
 
thaile011094 profile image
Thรกi Lรช • Edited

You're not an idiot, I think that's a good choice and joy. Me myself like the notepad, simple UI, not many buttons lol, and even it gives me no warnings nor errors, it's a joke ya know.

Yeah, I'm also a vscode/vscodium fan boy. But on dark theme, my plots on data science projects were really hard to watch, it mixed black point with those dark theme. So I decided to go on with Pycharm at night and vscode/vscodium at daylight. Both are good and helpful, even prevent me from boring

Collapse
 
avxkim profile image
Alexander Kim

WebStorm is a powerful IDE, everything is working out of the box. WS autocomplete/refactor features are way better than in VSC. Of course, it's slower than VCS, but on a decent machine it's not so slow. Also i'm using DataGrip inside WS, so convenient.

 
adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett ๐ŸŒ€

What horror have I unleashed, wildly off topic now.

Thread Thread
 
adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett ๐ŸŒ€

๐Ÿ‘ฎ off topic police.

Collapse
 
waylonwalker profile image
Waylon Walker

A primary reason to use a vim keymap. I can't think of an editor that it's not an option in. It gets me 80% of the way setup and at least makes a new editor usable.