I wouldn't call it instant, but it takes roughly 1s for me. That's acceptable in my eyes.

Do you have the same system (or strictly lower-spec) than GP? If not, your comment is irrevelant.

Yes, but even if I had monster computer "instant vs 30 seconds" wouldn't be irrelevant.

> Yes

Alright, so it works for you, but not GP. That still means that it's poorly optimized.

> even if I had monster computer "instant vs 30 seconds" wouldn't be irrelevant

You're stating the negation without providing any argument, so I guess I should explicitly clarify why it's irrelevant: because the topic of this thread is about medium-to-low-end machines, and not about high-spec ones.

To be even more clear, the difference between "instant" and "30 seconds" is categorical in almost every situation, let alone the specific context of interactive software tools.

Yes, it launches instantly, but depending on the dev env and plugins you have it may take a while before it is fully usable

Yeah but Notepad++ as far as I know doesn't even have the level of functionality that those plugins provide?

Yes and loads more. I don't use notepad++ on the daily but it is a far superior experience than whatever VSCode gave me

Launch time doesn’t matter. The only time I launch vscode is when I have to reboot to apply updates. Even that is getting more and more rare.