I would invert that: when was the last time you tried using a text editor that boasts speed instead of VSCode?
I am forced to use VSCode for extension-based reasons, but have Sublime Text installed as well that I can very occasionally use. The difference each time is staggering, like a slap in the face. Scrolling smoothness, input latency, snappyiness to jump between files, or search workspaces. Each time it's so obvious. It's just so much more pleasant. Like going from being hunched over a tiny laptop screen to sitting in front of an all encompassing ultrawide, or going from an old laptop to a new desktop.
It doesn't mean that VSCode is an unusable pile of garbage, just as a tiny laptop screen isn't unusable. But the difference, at least to me, is undeniable.
I'm often coding on a server with like 10ms round trip latency, so I'm not bothered by the small latency that my editor introduces. I'm using Vim, by the way.
Ever tried the Remote-SSH plugin from Microsoft?
With it I had the exact opposite experience, I'd regularly forget I was working on a remote dev machine!
In this case it's important to note though that this is a necessary side-effect of offering a powerful extension API.
If you – for example – install some badly coded extension that blocks the main thread to parse the open file into an uncached AST on every keystroke before rendering the input, that's the extensions fault.
Take my example with an ounce of saltt as I've never coded a VSCode extension. It is very well possible that the extension API prevents this particular example. I guess normally things like parsing source files have to follow guardrails that prevent this kind of bug, or at least discourage coding this way. And ASTs are exposed by VSCode's core for the natively supported languages.
Still, it's probably safe to assume that there is a lot of badly written code out there that does not pay attention to performance, or follows an "optimize-later" mindset.
Features surely often seem tempting to implement in a slow and unoptimized way, and anyone can contribute to VSCode extensions.
I think the comment you're replying to was blaming slowdowns on the size (in lines of code) of individual files, rather than the total size (in number of files) of the codebase.
I have exactly the same workflow: VSCode when I want a specific extension and Sublime as a fallback.
I think a lot of people don’t notice the difference but I can’t un-notice it.
Huge generated files and whatnot, VSCode just spins but Sublime opens them instantly.
Not to knock VSCode: it’s amazing what they’ve done especially comparing it to other web-stack apps (like what is Slack doing that it’s slower than VSCode with 6 extensions running?!).
Even when things are running smoothly, the just-perceptible delay in switching files or a slight stutter scrolling feels like the digital equivalent of working with a cheap tool.
The cheap ratchet is a little sloppy and occasionally the pawl doesn’t catch but it still does all the same stuff. Yet Snap-On still has customers.
VSCode is blazing fast on my 5 year old personal laptop. VSCode is frustratingly slow on my M2 work laptop full of corporate nannyware.
It’s not VSCode’s fault ;)
JS-based apps happen to interact terribly with nannyware for some reason. I see it every time I run one of our node services, everything just grinds to a halt while the antivirus freaks out about how dare I run a piece of uncompiled code.
Slack and friends have the same problem. Discord actually runs better in a browser than as a standalone app.
This probably needs far more attention than it's given.
A half-wild guess here is that because viruses uses various ways to hide themselves the anti-virus software probably scans W^X codepages on changes, so anything JIT compiled (all modern JS engines) will trigger a lot of spurious scans (kinda like how compiling and writing .exe files can grind turnaround times to a halt).
I'm in almost the same boat. Speed absolutely matters, but you only notice it when you don't have it.
I'm working on a large Dart project and a long time ago someone thought that having the project split up into 100 packages would be a great idea (it's not).
My previous editor was IntelliJ as I am used to its keyboard shortcuts, but it struggled with our setup: constant freezes and even if it didn't freeze, it would take seconds until the suggestions came up (or when I wanted to rename a local variable, smh).
I was so frustrated by it, that I installed helix, it was fast so I'm now learning to use it as my daily driver.
I have now both open, doing my editing on helix, and if I feel like I can go something faster in IntelliJ (which now happens less and less often), I do that little thing in IntelliJ and come back to helix.
Why helix: it's "great by default" and I didn't have much success with setting up and customizing NeoVim (it didn't feel good, the plugin were annoying to learn, and it started to slow down). I'm sure it a skill issue, but helix just works for me, and I can live without plugins for now.
I am forced to use VSCode for extension-based reasons, but have Sublime Text installed as well that I can very occasionally use. The difference each time is staggering, like a slap in the face. Scrolling smoothness, input latency, snappyiness to jump between files, or search workspaces. Each time it's so obvious. It's just so much more pleasant. Like going from being hunched over a tiny laptop screen to sitting in front of an all encompassing ultrawide, or going from an old laptop to a new desktop.
It doesn't mean that VSCode is an unusable pile of garbage, just as a tiny laptop screen isn't unusable. But the difference, at least to me, is undeniable.