To avoid using Microsoft’s version of VS Code, we need to choose an open source Code editor.
Visual Studio Code, also known as VS Code, is a cross-platform Code editor for Linux, Windows, and macOS. It can edit simple text or manage an entire code base like an integrated development environment (IDE). It can be extended by plug-ins and has proven to be a reliable text editor, easily beating powerful non-open source rival editors.
Microsoft has released VS Code as open source, but the version you download from Microsoft is not actually open source. However, there are still ways to use VS Code in an open source way, or simply choose another open source alternative.
Build VS Code as open source
You can get the VS Code source on GitHub. However, when you download VS Code from Microsoft, you will find that it is licensed under the Microsoft Software License. This is not an open source license. The difference is in the build process.
Chris Dias, one of the developers of Microsoft’s VS Code project, compares VS Code to the Chrome browser and its open-source “upstream” project Chromium. VS Code is indeed built on an open source library. The official Microsoft release comes with some microsoft-related features, including a logo, a plugin library, a C# debugger, and telemetry. But if you clone the repository and compile it yourself, none of these things get added, so you get a “clean” version called code-OSS (OSS stands for open source software).
In practice, the differences between VS Code and code-OSS are minimal. Most notably, VS Code includes telemetry, which logs usage data. Microsoft can’t monitor your every move, and more and more software is collecting usage data. Whether you care about VS Code’s telemetry is entirely up to you. If you don’t want it to track your usage, here are some great VS Code (open source) alternatives.
VSCodium
The simplest alternative is to build a version of VS Code without microsoft-affiliated features. The VSCodium project provides a downloadable code-OSS executable that is compiled from the VS Code base without configuring the changes in Microsoft product.json. The developers of VSCodium have also gone to great lengths to disable all hard-to-find telemetry options, making this the cleanest version of VS Code you can find unless you compile it yourself.
VSCodium warns that VS Code secretly includes proprietary tools that are not available with the open source version. This includes a C# debugger and some plug-ins. If you need them, a solution can be found in [documentation]. If you rely on a specific feature in VS Code, you should verify that it works in VSCodium.
In addition, you should verify that all telemetry is disabled.
Code – OSS
If you don’t want to use the VSCodium version, you can compile VS Code from scratch and get the same version yourself. The executable is called code-oss, not VSCode, and the licensing restrictions that apply to VSCodium also apply to your build, and it works the same way.
If you build your application from compiled source, make sure all telemetry is disabled when you first start up.
Atom
Atom is an IDE-like text editor that Microsoft acquired when it bought Github. Like VS Code, you can extend the Atom editor with plug-ins, and you can customize it with your own tools and themes. It’s open source and integrated with Github. In short, As long as you can find the plug-in you want to use, or if you’re willing to write it yourself, Atom can do just about anything.
Like VS Code, Atom includes telemetry by default. You can disable this feature, and unlike VS Code, there are no restrictions on using plug-ins, so you don’t have to change your workflow for privacy. Atom is undoubtedly a useful tool for anyone writing code, and it would be a great editor for anyone using a computer. If you need a handy general-purpose text editor, try Atom.
GNOME Builder
An IDE for the GNOME desktop, GNOME Builder is a code editor for the Linux platform for building GNOME applications. If you’re building applications for Linux and want easy compatibility issues, Builder is the easiest choice. Install Builder from Flathub.org; When you start a new project, it will alert you if the GNOME SDK is not installed. This means you don’t have to worry about the state of GNOME when maintaining your application, because Builder does it for you.
However, Builder can do more than just build GNOME programs. It also supports a wide variety of programming languages, including Python, Rust, C/C++, Java, Go, JavaScript, TypeScript, VB.NET, Markdown, and several markup languages, to name a few. It has full support for some languages, including auto-completion and pop-up function definitions, but others have only convenient features such as syntax highlighting and auto-matching parentheses. Whether you are a professional programmer or just want a powerful HTML and CSS editor, this IDE is a great way to use it.
Geany
Geany is a powerful, stable, lightweight editor with many useful features that can help you write Bash, Python, Lua, XML, HTML, LaTex, and much more. Geany has good support for 50 different programming and scripting languages, markup languages, and various file types such as.diff and.po. At the very least, Geany also has parenthesis matching and syntax highlighting — in general, it has more.
Geany is a small editor, but with plug-ins you can add features such as project view panels, file system trees, debugging, terminals, and so on until it looks like an IDE. Of course, radishes and cabbages are for everyone’s taste, but you can always keep it simple and easy to use. If YOU can’t use VS Code due to CPU or memory limitations on your computer, Geany is an obvious choice. It takes up a small amount of memory and starts quickly. Even though Geany is a little clunky compared to Vim running in a terminal, it’s fast and flexible even in raspberry PI.
Brackets
Brackets is a text editor and IDE for Web developers. It has great support for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and even Python. And like VS Code, it has a rich plugin ecosystem, so you can maximize it to work with all your programming languages.
Some plug-ins assist in parsing languages, running scripts, and even compiling executable code. With its traditional interface, Brackets can be used with ease regardless of whether you are familiar with an IDE or a simple text editor like Notepad. If you take a little time, add a few related plug-ins and get familiar with them, you will find that Brackets is a really sophisticated and useful editor that can help you avoid silly mistakes through automatic completion and hints of whatever you type. If you’re a programmer, it can help you speed up your testing and debugging cycles.
Che
If you like new technology, you should try the Che editor. This is a cloud-based IDE, so it runs as software as a service (SaaS) by default, but it is fully open source and can run as your own SaaS if you have an instance of Kubernetes.
Che is not only an online IDE, but an IDE built for cloud development. In the Che concept, the user does not need to look at the local file system. Since it works in the cloud, you can do the same. In fact, if you have a Git server, you can just use it as your file system and do your projects in its repository. Of course, you can also download all files for local backup.
But Che’s main feature, and one that cloud developers are most excited about, is a full-featured open source IDE with Kubernetes awareness. Che is an editor you need to try if you’re building an application, website or container (or a combination of the three) for the cloud.
So what’s your choice?
Are you using any of these VS Code alternatives? Would you like to try one on? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
Via: opensource.com/article/20/…
By Seth Kenlon (lujun9972
This article is originally compiled by LCTT and released in Linux China