Well, isn't that the best of both worlds then, and a smart strategy? Use native code for stuff where it matters (the language servers), and JS where it's more than adequate (the UI) ... it's the end result that counts, and we can't complain there about VSCode.
Maybe to some degree. I was responding to the "it's a glorified browser app" assertion I hear all the time. Electron is only superficially similar due to sharing some components of the webkit.
As to C/C++ vs. Java or Javascript: an assembled language is always going to be capable of better performance than an interpreted language. A JIT- or AOT-compiled (to machine code) language implementation will be close to an assembled language in potential performance, although the startup time will be by nature slower.
What complicates that is how well the code is written in terms of performance. Badly written C++ will still be slower than well-written Python (specifically CPython) purely because of the principles of algorithmic efficiency.
VSCode is faster than some C++-based IDEs for that reason, not because Electron is particularly prone to being greased lightning.
Sure, we all know about compiled versus interpreted and the pros and cons of those, but Javascript running in V8 is not entirely just "interpreted" or it would be slow as molasses (which it isn't) ... it's a JIT compiler :-)
What I see (and what you concede) is that the speed of VSCode is more than adequate in the great majority of cases. But, I think the whole premise of this article that there is an "IDE problem" is flawed ... I've elaborated that in another comment, so I'm not gonna repeat that here. I think that discussion is more interesting than whether your IDE has to be coded in JS with Electron or in Java, or in C/C++, or in Rust, or in ... :-)
Well, isn't that the best of both worlds then, and a smart strategy? Use native code for stuff where it matters (the language servers), and JS where it's more than adequate (the UI) ... it's the end result that counts, and we can't complain there about VSCode.
Maybe to some degree. I was responding to the "it's a glorified browser app" assertion I hear all the time. Electron is only superficially similar due to sharing some components of the webkit.
As to C/C++ vs. Java or Javascript: an assembled language is always going to be capable of better performance than an interpreted language. A JIT- or AOT-compiled (to machine code) language implementation will be close to an assembled language in potential performance, although the startup time will be by nature slower.
What complicates that is how well the code is written in terms of performance. Badly written C++ will still be slower than well-written Python (specifically CPython) purely because of the principles of algorithmic efficiency.
VSCode is faster than some C++-based IDEs for that reason, not because Electron is particularly prone to being greased lightning.
Sure, we all know about compiled versus interpreted and the pros and cons of those, but Javascript running in V8 is not entirely just "interpreted" or it would be slow as molasses (which it isn't) ... it's a JIT compiler :-)
What I see (and what you concede) is that the speed of VSCode is more than adequate in the great majority of cases. But, I think the whole premise of this article that there is an "IDE problem" is flawed ... I've elaborated that in another comment, so I'm not gonna repeat that here. I think that discussion is more interesting than whether your IDE has to be coded in JS with Electron or in Java, or in C/C++, or in Rust, or in ... :-)
Agreed.