https://devpod.sh/

Docker is required to use devcontainers, so there's really no getting around the Docker requirement

I have many environments locally, some dependent on others, and some require local databases. I use containers in production, but not always locally.

It’s almost a hellscape situation for trying to setup a fully isolated dev environment. I might be able have have some future generation of Claude convert my existing dev setup to something isolated with k8s. But, I don’t have the power to run such an environment locally, with all of the apps and services. I’d need to set my dev environments up in the cloud, but I don’t have enough money to pay for that, and it wouldn’t even work in some circumstances, because some things must run locally.

So, instead I run Cursor AI with various MCP servers, I approve tool calls, I don’t have things isolated, and I know this will eventually bite me.

You could… not do this. You know it causes you problems, you consider it unfortunate that you’re becoming more reliant on it, and yet for some reason you’re choosing to continue anyway. Why are you doing that?

It's unfortunate if you consider your primary craft to be writing code, as those skills can atrophy. It's obviously important to review and understand all material produced by these tools.

It's fortunate if your primary organizational role is "fix problems, communicate technically, and make new things" because of the sheer power of these tools when applied properly.

I've sunk many hours into attempting to "claude-ify" a complex set of applications and services and (IMO) that's a very useful activity.

Why? So that I can use ai-tooling more effectively? Yes. Why also? So that services are more decoupled, more testable, more aligned with good development principles.

It's difficult to inject these workflows in a useful way across multiple levels (code/devops/org) but when it works it's worth it.

My key takeaway was something along the lines of: "if an agent can't understand and work with your codebase, you've got an onboarding problem" (we do).

Disclaimer: mostly standard web tech across Java/Scala/React - aggressively complex k8s layer

What are some reasons to hate VSCode?

For small files and quick edits i use neovim with no customisation at all. Back when I first started using vim I had a pretty long config and some plugins installed and so on. But now that I no longer try to use it as an IDE, neovim is perfect for small edits.

For development work I use JetBrains suite of tools. Very minimal amount of customisation there also, only a couple of extra plugins installed by me and a couple of changes in the settings. It works well enough that I don’t have any desire to spend time customising it a whole bunch.

Note: I use nano/vim daily to read and edit files on my servers. Just not to build complex apps.

Comfort is something invaluable when doing a task. I can accept discomfort when I'm in an unfamiliar environment, but not when it's going to be something I will be in for days.

Through the use of amazing PR they have made people forget about their Embrace, extend, and extinguish strategy with open source.

But I guess they've just rolled it into the Cursor repo? Idk, because Cursor itself is proprietary.

There's a similar extension for WSL integration, though I'm not 100% sure if Cursor's implementation of this feature is based on it: https://github.com/jeanp413/open-remote-wsl

You can sideload proprietary VSCode extensions to add them to VSCodium or some downstream fork, but you may also have to patch the extensions themselves because some of them refuse to run if they aren't being used with Microsoft's VSCode: https://github.com/OliverKeefe/vscode-extensions-in-vscodium

That's not to say it's especially buggy, it's just so large, there are a lot of places for bugs to hide.

I get distracted by the impulse to contribute to other editors also, but those are contributions that I'm happy about. They don't always result in bugs fixed or features added, sometimes somebody says "no" but at least it resolves in some way. With VSCode it feels like I'm going in circles.

- The push to use Github Copilot and no option to disable that crap.

I wish there was a fork of VSCode with all the telemetry and all of the proprietary crap disabled with 100% extension support...

https://vscodium.com/

Now the way I did port forwarding was really wild and really complicated and I think that it might demand a blog post if I am being honest, but yes this project is absolutely godsend. Thanks!!