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Microsoft is not shy of giving developers what they want. After Excel, and possibly Windows as well, the company introduced Copilot with GitHub. But somewhere there, VS Code, which has one of the largest footprint as a software for developers in today’s world, got lost for the recognition of its contribution.
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“Not sure if Microsoft can truly comprehend the true footprint of VSCode,” said Jaana Dogan, principal engineer at Google. But at the same time, there is an apparent spree of people not liking what VS Code has become, stale. Though the abundance of repositories on GitHub that are forks of VS Code is undeniable, the new tools in the market are making VS Code struggle.
“Just uninstalled VS Code,” said a developer on X. Why? Probably because of the release of Cursor AI, which is touted as the ChatGPT moment in coding, is like the final nail in the coffin of VS Code. But is it really the end of VS Code?
What are the Problems?
There are several problems with VS Code, which is undeniable. Mohamed Yamani, a front end software engineer, said that VS Code for Python development sucks, explaining that it was not highlighting the problems with his code. Developers in the thread agree that they often end up using other IDE’s such as Jetbrains or even vim for Python.
Even for C# and other languages, though VS Code has been introducing several updates, developers are not happy. Also, it is very easy to install malicious extensions through VS Code.
Coming to Cursor, which is basically a glorified fork or extension of VS Code, is capable of integrating several open source LLMs instead of an IDE like VS Code, making it handy for several AI developers. “You can select code and ask questions based on that piece of code. So you don’t have to keep switching between the IDE and browser,” explained a developer on X.
VS Code works well, but when it comes to AI development, it falls majorly behind Cursor with the integration of Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and other LLMs. Though VS Code allows integration of other LLMs such as Phi-3.5 or GPT-4, Cursor is just way more flexible with the availability of LLMs including Llama 3.1.
Alex Sidorenko, a React developer, made a video comparing VS Code with Copilot vs Cursor using Claude 3.5 Sonnet for Next.js App Router, where Cursor felt more aware and easier.
Cursor’s coding and AI capabilities should be a wake up call for Microsoft to make VS Code integration with GitHub Copilot a lot easier. “My assumption is that Cursor’s sudden surge in popularity will wake Microsoft up and they’ll make VS Code/GitHub Copilot integration a lot better, landing in a few months,” said Jamon Holmgren, the founder of Infinite Red.
Is it too late for Microsoft’s VS Code or GitHub Copilot to catch up?
Cursor is Just One VS Code Update Away from Extinction
Exactly a year ago, Cursor was touted as if VS Code and ChatGPT had a baby. Cut to today, it is being called as a replacement for VS Code and GitHub Copilot. Conversations around dropping VS Code started exactly a year ago with the introduction of Cursor. But VS Code is still going strong.
In a Reddit discussion, as developers were discussing the capabilities of Cursor and VS Code, they were willing to bet big on VS Code in the long run, as Cursor built by a small startup would struggle to compete with Microsoft. “Even if Cursor survives through the next year, I would go with VS Code just to have something standard and mainstream to compare it to,” said a user.
John Lindquist, creator of egghead.io, said that he had a chat with Harald Kirschner, project manager at VS Code, about Cursor and VS Code recently, and the team is keenly aware of Cursor’s capabilities and there might be several things in the pipeline. “I think we’ll all be pleasantly surprised,” he said.
It seems like a Cursor like update for VS Code is coming soon, which might possibly make Cursor obsolete. Or to survive, Cursor might end by getting acquired by someone like OpenAI or Anthropic.
But when it comes to VS Code, given the massive footprint it has, plans in the pipeline, it is hard to just uninstall it and move on. The concept of making everyone a developer using natural language, is not unknown to Microsoft.
