Have been using SPM's "swift build" + some copy commands to create a fully functional signable bundle, no need even for an .xcodeproj.

[1] https://nshipster.com/vscode/

You then need to create a folder with an .app extension, set up a simple folder structure, and add some necessities such as the Info.plist file and your resources like the app icon/images. And codesign or notarize depending on your deployment requirements.

Code completion works great for dev and I've found VSCode to be snappier than Xcode even if the underlying engine (SourceKit) is supposed to be the same. The only thing "missing" is not having Interface Builder, but probably most serious projects use code-generated UIs anyway. You could, of course, still make an .xib file in Xcode and use it in your VSCode project. (I don't have a MainMenu.xib myself.)

See: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Co...

Or at least, there's a loud one, and I guess they figured it's also a big-enough one...

Say what you will about Electron apps in general, but Microsoft has done a great job in making VS Code not feel like a typical Electron app.

That's not really a fair comparison I think. JetBrains IDEs do a lot more than VS Code. You'd have to load it up with plugins to make something resembling a fair comparison, and in that case I'd be very interested in how efficient VS Code still is.

Fwiw before getting internet fiber, a 95MB file resulted in about 20 min download (my reference was 300MB an hour).

Electron apps are bloated ick but I guess at least Electron is equally repulsive on all OSes.

Out in real life no one knows or cares about this

My hope is that they create enough momentum to force the VSCode team to rewrite in React Native.

Seems reasonable, considering Panic’s last editor, Coda, has an iPad version.

What do you mean by that? If there was real demand for it, creating an iPad distribution for VS Code probably wouldn't be that difficult. It already runs great fully in a web browser.

There has been interest in doing something to have VSCode in some way or shape on the iPad for a long time [0].

I see a lot of "you just need to" iPad on VSCode tricks that basically describe running a part of the UI locally and the rest hosted somewhere else (most fantastic setup I saw was to stick a RPi 0 on the side of the iPad connected through USB-C and VNC/SSH to it).

Codespacets is to me a variation of that, I'd want an actual node runtime powering a full native app with command line, native code execution etc. (a la Pythonista), and not just a reduced interface. I still prefer using Coda or Textastic for instance than coding in Safari.

I completely fault Apple for this, still doesn't change it looks like a dead end for now)

[0] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/70764

[0]: https://github.com/cdr/code-server

1: https://theia-ide.org/docs/composing_applications/

It was a big undertaking :)

People who care already edit Swift in their favorite editor and use Xcode for the rest of the dev iOS process. You'd be better off trying to capture the hearts of people so that you're their favorite editor than specializing to implement the "rest of the iOS dev process" on day 0.

As an iOS developer, I think most people start off disliking Xcode but then settle into a reluctant but productive relationship with it. The only things I need to use it for (device simulation, interface builder) are hard to build and yet they're not the things that annoy me about Xcode. Or rather, I wouldn't rather be wrestling with them on someone else's ultimately buggy attempt at reimplementing them.

Common misconception. VSC's most novel/valuable features are not open source. VSC is only "open core"; all of the real value-adds are proprietary and cannot legally be forked/reused.

> One VSC feature that's been quite the remote lifesaver is shared sessions with voice chat.

Like that one.

Second I bet there are more Web Developers out there than there are for Mac or iOS.