@vulcanwm Excellent review! I'm a user of both Replit and VS Code, so I can tell this is a great comparison. Thanks for mentioning the issue you have with GH. The team is aware of it and will improve on it. Keep having fun building!
@dillonb07 Thanks for the feedback! This is really valuable for us to understand how to make Replit better for you. We are actively working on extensibility and making Replit faster. I'm curious what customizations you wanted, and which part of Replit felt slow to you - was it loading the website, navigating between the files, editing or console/shell?
There are multiple reasons why I would prefer VSC over Replit.
The shell. I use the console/shell a lot, and I really like having multiple shells. I like that I don't have to have one dedicated to running a webserver, but sometimes you need extra things running like a test script.
Git integration. Git integration in Replit is awful. Yes, you can commit files, push and pull to/from GitHub but that's it. I'd like the ability to be able to stage files, amend commits etc. I think VSC does this really well.
Files. I can't have multiple files open at the same time without using the shell in Replit. In VSC I can have four windows open at the same time. I don't think four is necessary for Replit, but two would definitely be helpful. Currently if I want two windows open next to each other, I have to open the shell and use vim.
Speed. I'm not blaming Replit for this because I don't think there's much the team can do about this, but I like using Replit when I'm at school. It's also what my school used to use in my Computer Science lessons. However, since recent updates Replit doesn't actually work on the school computers. The IDE just doesn't load. I don't know the cause of this since the Inspect menu is blocked.
Extensions. VSC has a vast library of extensions. I am aware that this feature is going to come to Replit, but currently I really like being able to customise themes, add snippets, add support for other services, etc via extensions in VSC. I think when/if this comes to Replit, it'd be much more likely for me to use it. Same for my next reason.
Autocompletion. VSC intellisense is much better than what Replit currently uses. Again, I've heard that this is going to be improved on Replit. Emmet is also a vital part of my workflow. I'm also aware that a Codemirror extension for this is under development.
However, there are some things that Replit does better than VSC.
Browser preview. Although VSC has a "Simple Browser" built into it, it really isn't very good. Replit's preview is much better.
Collaboration. I think that Replit's collaboration features are much better than VSC Live Share. Of course, Replit doesn't have audio support but that's never been important for me.
Packages? Replit manages packages quite well and does allow for manual control via the CLI. For that, it is better.
Customisation. Although customisation was one of the benefits of VSC, I really like being able to customise the tools/languages and packages with Nix.
For environmental variables, I'd like to be able to edit it as a plaintext file. Why couldn't we have this as a hidden file so that other projects can't see it, and it could be inside of a default .gitignore file. Then the secrets added in the GUI would be put inside of the file?
Thanks for the response though! I hope that the feedback helps @xyc
Thank you @dillonb07 ! Appreciate so much you taking the time to write this thoughtful review. It's pretty insightful, because quite a few of these are what we have been working on. For example, multiple file panes and making auto completion better. Replit team is actively working on improving the speed of website, and there are multiple aspects where we can tackle this problem. For Git integration, you can use git command in the shell for stage/amend, but I understand this is different from the UI which VSC provides and this is a pain point we'll need to address. Default .gitignore file is a good idea, and we might potentially add that soon! And preview, multiplayer, packages, customizing with Nix are what Replit is strong at.
Regarding using Replit at your school: Does your school block Replit? If that's the case, ask your admin if they can use firewalledreplit.com/. Also check if there are admin-override browser extensions that has conflict with the code editor. Don't hesitate to reach out if this does not resolve the issue.
Replit isn't blocked at my school. I am going to try the firewalled version tomorrow because it has less features so it might be more likely to load (lower bundle size etc). I think that the main issue is just that the computers are incredibly old and slow. As for extensions, I've looked at that before and there aren't any admin-overriden extensions.
Glad the feedback was useful! Also happy to hear that you're working on the features I mentioned. For git, I'm aware that you can use the shell, and I have on multiple occasions, but it's quite annoying having to go to GitHub and setup an access token just for using git on a repl. I am glad that it's an option though.
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@vulcanwm Excellent review! I'm a user of both Replit and VS Code, so I can tell this is a great comparison. Thanks for mentioning the issue you have with GH. The team is aware of it and will improve on it. Keep having fun building!
@dillonb07 Thanks for the feedback! This is really valuable for us to understand how to make Replit better for you. We are actively working on extensibility and making Replit faster. I'm curious what customizations you wanted, and which part of Replit felt slow to you - was it loading the website, navigating between the files, editing or console/shell?
Damn I never thought a developer from Replit would see this lmao!
Thanks!
yes Replit is for the people :)
There are multiple reasons why I would prefer VSC over Replit.
However, there are some things that Replit does better than VSC.
For environmental variables, I'd like to be able to edit it as a plaintext file. Why couldn't we have this as a hidden file so that other projects can't see it, and it could be inside of a default
.gitignorefile. Then the secrets added in the GUI would be put inside of the file?Thanks for the response though! I hope that the feedback helps @xyc
Thank you @dillonb07 ! Appreciate so much you taking the time to write this thoughtful review. It's pretty insightful, because quite a few of these are what we have been working on. For example, multiple file panes and making auto completion better. Replit team is actively working on improving the speed of website, and there are multiple aspects where we can tackle this problem. For Git integration, you can use git command in the shell for stage/amend, but I understand this is different from the UI which VSC provides and this is a pain point we'll need to address. Default
.gitignorefile is a good idea, and we might potentially add that soon! And preview, multiplayer, packages, customizing with Nix are what Replit is strong at.Regarding using Replit at your school: Does your school block Replit? If that's the case, ask your admin if they can use firewalledreplit.com/. Also check if there are admin-override browser extensions that has conflict with the code editor. Don't hesitate to reach out if this does not resolve the issue.
Replit isn't blocked at my school. I am going to try the firewalled version tomorrow because it has less features so it might be more likely to load (lower bundle size etc). I think that the main issue is just that the computers are incredibly old and slow. As for extensions, I've looked at that before and there aren't any admin-overriden extensions.
Glad the feedback was useful! Also happy to hear that you're working on the features I mentioned. For git, I'm aware that you can use the shell, and I have on multiple occasions, but it's quite annoying having to go to GitHub and setup an access token just for using git on a repl. I am glad that it's an option though.