3 comments

  • TheAdamist
    1 hour ago
    Coming from the perspective of an eclipse fan, why is VS code the defacto answer nowadays?

    Im forced to use vs code (so biased), but everything seems worse than eclipse, plus these repeated security issues from malware laced projects.

    Theres been several posts about infected projects by fake recruiters here in the last year or two.

    Im guessing the answer is probably Java is why eclipse is out of favor.

    • josephg
      38 minutes ago
      > Coming from the perspective of an eclipse fan, why is VS code the defacto answer nowadays?

      Is eclipse good now? I used it 15 years ago. It took ages to start. It was a memory hog and it was dog slow besides. My entire team got RAM upgrades on our computers because the default company issued machines (which were quite good at the time) didn't have enough RAM to use eclipse properly.

      I can't imagine why it went out of favour...

      • Alupis
        21 minutes ago
        How much ram did you have, and when was this? I remember being extremely happy with Eclipse on an 8GB machine - this was back in the jvm7 days. Heck, I did jvm6 development with Eclipse on Windows XP with 4GB of ram and was content.

        Eclipse gets a lot of automatic hate - I believe mostly since a lot of people first use it in university and struggled with their first real IDE.

        For years and years I had people telling me how great IntelliJ was, etc. I eventually switched - lo and behold, IntelliJ had just as many quirks (even some of the same) as Eclipse.

        • Semaphor
          4 minutes ago
          I used eclipse in university around that time (2005), then first switched to netbeans which I already liked more, then discovered IntelliJ and have been using that ever since. Everything about Eclipse felt worse in ways neither of the others did, but all of that was still during university (though I now use JetBrains professionally).
    • dfajgljsldkjag
      1 hour ago
      Eclipse is not safer it just has fewer people looking for holes in it. The problem is not the software but how we trust code from the internet. Even if you used Eclipse a fake recruiter could still trick you into running a bad script. We cannot fix social engineering by changing the text editor.
    • eikenberry
      1 hour ago
      Seems very odd to me that someplace would force the use of a particular development tool. I've seen it only one time while interviewing, where they wanted everyone to have identical setups so they could easily hop onto each others computers when needed... it was weird and I took it as a red flag and didn't follow through them them.
      • userbinator
        1 hour ago
        That is a massive red flag to me too. They are basically saying "you are identical to everyone else, and easily replaced."
        • doubled112
          28 minutes ago
          Wanting to be able to use anybody's machine is very strange, agreed.

          From a support/IT perspective though, the closer everybody's machine is, the easier the job is.

          The last software shop I worked at, we had a default set of tools and configs. It was a known happy path. You were allowed to adventure off of that path, but you were mostly on your own.

          • Alupis
            7 minutes ago
            Devcontainers[1] or some similar technology are a must. Use whatever specific IDE you want, but the development environment itself should be identical across everyone on the team.

            No more "works on my computer" issues. The environment is always identical.

            [1] https://containers.dev/

        • croes
          26 minutes ago
          Or they bust don‘t want to look after a dozen different tools and their security issues.
    • mr_toad
      1 hour ago
      > Im guessing the answer is probably Java is why eclipse is out of favor.

      Some people just want a text editor, whereas eclipse is “an IDE and Platform”.

    • reaperducer
      1 hour ago
      why is VS code the defacto answer nowaday?

        1. It's free
        2. A million plug-ins
      
      Personally, I don't use it because it's so dog slow.
      • josephg
        37 minutes ago
        > A million plug-ins

        > I don't use it because it's so dog slow.

        You might find it runs better with fewer plugins.

      • mhuffman
        1 hour ago
        I have noticed that Antigravity is lightening fast, wonder what magic they are using?
    • doodlesdev
      1 hour ago

        > everything seems worse than eclipse
      
      I would say the answer is that's not the general perception of the software. I'm personally migrating out of VSCode, because having to use the OpenVSX registry to have open-source builds makes me mad (I've since migrated to Zed for now, since I've never adapted well to neovim nor emacs).

      In general, I believe most people see VSCode as "good enough". Maybe not the best text editor, but it's good enough at everything it does and extensible enough to the point that there's really no point to go for anything else unless you have a really good reason to.

         > Im guessing the answer is probably Java is why eclipse is out of favor.
      
      My previous answer is thinking about editors in general. But in the case of Eclipse I'd say you're right LOL.
      • jen20
        57 minutes ago
        “Java” does not explain why Eclipse is irrelevant where IntelliJ is thriving.
    • SV_BubbleTime
      1 hour ago
      Wild. I would quit my job and start selling jam at the Farmer’s Market before I went back to Eclipse! :)
  • internet2000
    31 minutes ago
    It's Macro-enabled Office files all over again.
  • dfajgljsldkjag
    1 hour ago
    It is scary that a text editor can run hidden code just by opening a folder. We traded our safety for convenience and now we are paying the price. Users will always click the button to trust a file if they think it helps them work faster. We cannot blame them when the software design makes it so easy to make a mistake.
    • mmh0000
      32 minutes ago
      Tooooo be fair

      Vim had also had its share of execution vulnerabilities over the years.

      https://github.com/numirias/security/blob/master/doc/2019-06...

    • EE84M3i
      1 hour ago
      Doesn't it ask you if you trust a folder when you open it?
      • dfajgljsldkjag
        55 minutes ago
        You are right that the computer asks you. But people click yes because they are used to ignoring warning signs. The software relies on people making perfect choices every time and that never happens.
    • croes
      24 minutes ago
      > We traded our safety for convenience

      Not the first time. Same with LLMs.