DEV Community

Discussion on: If you've recently switched code editors— How's it going so far?

Collapse
 
iamschulz profile image
Daniel Schulz

Honestly, I don't understand the hype about switching IDEs. I've been on PHPStorm since I started web development professionally and used sublime for small scale projects before.
I tried VSCode occasionally, but found myself always switching back. All those features that Atom and VSCode list as hot new features have been in PHPStorm for years. I also tend to miss the double shift feature in other IDEs. Since Jetbrains provides free licences for open source projects, I can't find a reason to switch.
I still use sublime as a simple, fast text editor on the side, though.

Collapse
 
vignesh0025 profile image
Vignesh D

PHPStorm is a full fledged IDE whereas VSCode is just an editor. You can't compare a full fledged IDE with code editor.

Collapse
 
david_j_eddy profile image
David J Eddy

Agreed Vignesh D. Where is the line between an IDE and a text editor for you? I struggled with this question during a conversation recently.

Thread Thread
 
vignesh0025 profile image
Vignesh D

In an IDE,

  • IDE always focuses one Particular Framework/ Platform (For eg. You cannot work on Ruby on rails project in PhpStorm)
  • IDE contains most features already build in for that platform.
  • IDE always contains a single project file that lists the project code files and related actions

In a Code Editor,

  • Code editor doesn't focus on any specific Platform or framework. Code Editor can work across all frameworks (For Eg. VSCode can be used with Assembly programs that runs in Arm and also HTML Code that runs in a browser)
  • Code editor is bare bone and contains minimal features like syntax highlighting out of the box. Most Features are provided via plugin. Users, depending on the technology they work, should install necessary plugins
  • Code editor doesn't have a central project file as such (This feature is available via an extension anyway)