This is actually a problem in vim and emacs, but to my knowledge it's exactly the same problem in VSCode.
If you're talking about discoverability of plugins for certain functionalities that you're looking for, then yeah, it's easier in IDEs like VSCode because plugins tend to do lots of things (e.g. you don't install a plugin with the Java debugger, another with Java syntax highlighting, another to run tests .... it's just THE JAVA PLUGIN).
Spacemacs solves that for emacs by creating "layer"s which essentially bundle a bunch of emacs packages together so that you only need to install THE JAVA LAYER instead of the 10 packages you actually need. Not sure if NeoVim or LunarVim do that, but should be pretty simple to do.
No, it's not the same, because in VSCode you have ways to discover plugins and their purpose with basic knowledge. Just go through the list and read their description and find the one that matches the effect you search. They are even so well documented that they list the shortcuts, commands and settings they use automatically. And other parts of the app are evenly open and supportive. And if you not found it at the plugins, just open the settings and use the search. It's very easy to come very far out of the box with VS Code.
On vim and emacs on the other side you have simply no way at all to figure something out from the baseline. Until you learn to master them well enough to use their ways of doing things, you are just lost and abandon and can only hope to find some solution by googling for it and test things till it somehow works.
VS Code is a GUI, and even a very well-made one, and as such it's very open and self-descriptive. While vim and emacs are mostly non-descriptive at all and very cryptic until you dived deep enough to learn your ways. Both have their advantages in their own, but for this specific case, the cryptic completely loses.
> Spacemacs solves that for emacs by creating "layer"s which essentially bundle a bunch of emacs packages together
VS Code has bundles too. But it seems they are not that popular because in the end they are often too opinionated.
Do you actually know emacs? It's the most well documented application I've ever used. And it's famous for exactly that and it has a "culture" of including INFO pages for everything. I completely disagree with you on that.
You can use emacs like you use VS Code, clicking around and letting lsp-ui render those colourful help popups everywhere... I agree it's a bit more difficult to install the right packages, but that's the only difference I see between them. Once they're installed, it's basically the same, you need to just "know" how to do what you need and the tool won't magically teach you.
Yes, I'm using it for a long time now. And while emacs has its ways, they are not obvious, nor standard. That's what I mean with baseline, the common knowledge of users. Emacs out of the box is not very accessible, and spacemacs&co. do not change much in that regard. You still need to work on discovering the ways of emacs to gain something from it.
VS Code in that regard is different. It's a GUI and all the user need to know is how GUIs today work, which is common knowledge.
> it has a "culture" of including INFO pages for everything
Barfing out information for anything and everything does not mean it's good or helpful. Emacs documentation is also infamous for how dated and useless it can be, especially for beginners.
Right, and every VSCode plugin has perfect documentation?
> But usually you need to install them yourself anyway.
Maybe I'll write up a page with one-line summaries of the most useful VIM plugins - not only the IDE plugins - to help people find what they need. Any ideas for plugins or information to include welcome.
How do you know what plugins account for what functionality in VSCode?