This VS Code Killer Just Went Open Source (Written In Rust BTW)

Summary

The video discusses the open-source code editor Zed, created by the original developers of Atom. It provides a comparison to VS Code, praising Zed's native performance, collaboration features, and UI focus while critiquing its lack of plugin support. The video explores Zed's strengths like git integration and typescript support as well as weaknesses like scrolling jankiness. Overall, it seems impressed by Zed given it doesn't lean on existing work but notes VS Code's ecosystem advantages. It hopes competition drives future innovation.

Takeaways

• 😀 Zed is a new open source code editor created by the original Atom creators focused on performance and collaboration
• 👀 It has native-level performance compared to Electron based editors like VSCode
• 💻 The scrolling, text rendering and git operations feel much faster than VSCode
• 🔬 It has good TypeScript support like go to definition and intelligent autocompletion
• 🤝 It has built-in collaboration features like chat, screen sharing and collaborative editing
• 🚀 The editor is built using their own GPU accelerated UI framework called GPI
• 🤖 It has AI autocomplete through GitHub CoPilot built-in with no extensions needed
• 💪 It seems to match most of the must-have VSCode features with better performance
• 📦 The lack of a plugin system results in hacky workarounds to support things like Tailwind
• 🔌 Overall it shows promise but needs more maturity and plugin support before mass adoption

Q & A

What text editor does the narrator mainly use?

The narrator mainly uses VS Code as their text editor.

What is the narrator's opinion on the performance of VS Code compared to native editors?

The narrator feels VS Code's performance is noticeably slower compared to native editors like Sublime Text and Vim, especially for basic actions like text appearing after key presses.

What is Zed and what are its main goals?

Zed is a new open source text editor focused on performance and collaboration. Its main goals are to match native performance while providing an extensible plugin ecosystem like VS Code.

Why did the Zed team decide to open source Zed?

The Zed team believes open sourcing will attract more contributors to improve Zed, and connecting directly with developers matches their mission of building the best editor.

What is the GPI library Zed uses?

GPI is a GPU-accelerated UI framework for creating high performance desktop applications using Rust.

How does the narrator feel about Zed's built-in collaboration tools?

The narrator sees potential in the deep integration opportunities but the current UX is rough, especially accidentally starting audio calls by clicking on usernames.

What VS Code extensions would the narrator miss if switching to Zed?

The narrator would mainly miss the Pretty Typescript Errors and Quick Lint JS extensions which improve error messages and catch common issues.

What does the narrator think Zed needs to attract developers from VS Code?

The narrator believes Zed needs to focus on UX wins and 'wow' moments that make the editor demonstrably better, rather than just matching existing functionality.

Why does the narrator think creators are a good initial target audience for Zed?

The narrator argues that by targeting creators and influencers first, Zed can both leverage their reach and get feedback from power users deeply familiar with their audience's needs.

What is the narrator's overall assessment of Zed's potential?

While not planning to switch yet, the narrator is excited by the innovation happening in Zed and believes the competition will push all editors to improve.

Outlines

00:00

🤓 Explaining shift from Sublime Text to VSCode at Twitch job

The author reminisces about preferring Sublime Text over VSCode when working at Twitch. A coworker introduced the VSCode debugger which helped in testing and shifted the author towards VSCode over time for its utility despite lower performance.

05:00

👨‍💻 Checking out open-source Zed editor for native feel

The author is trying out Zed, an open-source editor aiming to balance native performance of vim with plugin ecosystem of VSCode. It is created by Atom founders and addresses Atom's electron performance issues.

10:01

🔎 Inspecting Zed's GitHub codebase and remix

The author joined Zed last week when they open-sourced it. The team did a rewrite of their core GUI framework. The author shares their motivations for open sourcing Zed and rewriting the code to engage community help.

15:02

😮 Accidentally calling someone in Zed's editor

The author explores Zed's focus on collaboration and tries to create a channel. They accidentally call someone by clicking their name and find the UI confusing overall.

20:03

👍 Praising collaboration vision but critiquing UX

The author has mixed feelings about in-editor collaboration. Appreciates the vision but feels the UX needs refinement regarding accidental calls and security.

25:04

🤔 Critiquing div choice for native UI framework

Analyzing Zed's Rust GPU framework, author is confused by choice of web primitives like divs and flexbox for native UI instead of crafting new native abstractions.

30:04

😊 Thankful for innovation pushes in editor space

Despite issues, the author is excited for more competition and innovation in the editor space. Curious about audience's take on moving beyond VSCode.

Keywords

💡VSS code

VSS code is a source code editor developed by Microsoft. It is one of the most popular code editors used by developers today. The narrator discusses his experience using VSS code versus other code editors like Sublime Text and Vim. He points out some of the advantages of VSS code like its debugging capabilities but also some downsides like slower performance compared to native editors.

💡performance

Performance refers to how fast and responsive an application feels to use. The narrator compares the performance of VSS code to native editors like Sublime Text and Vim. He notes that VSS code feels slower because it is built using web technologies like Electron rather than being fully native. This is a key consideration when evaluating code editors.

💡Zed

Zed is a new code editor created by the original developers of Atom. It aims to combine native performance with the plugin ecosystem of VSS code. The narrator explores Zed through the video, testing its features and developer experience. Zed is presented as an alternative to VSS code that may address some of its weaknesses.

💡collaboration

Collaboration means working together with others on code. The narrator discusses Zed's focus on improving collaboration compared to other editors. Zed has built-in features like chat, screen sharing, and channels to enable better real-time collaboration within the editor.

💡open source

Open source means the source code for a project is made freely available for anyone to use, modify, and distribute. The narrator highlights that Zed is now open source, which he sees as a bold move for a commercial startup. He discusses the benefits of open sourcing Zed in terms of community contributions and extensibility through plugins.

💡Tailwind

Tailwind is a popular CSS framework used by web developers. The narrator tests Tailwind auto-completion and other features related to it in both VSS code and Zed. He points out that Zed had to build Tailwind support from scratch since it cannot rely on existing plugins like VSS code can.

💡plugins

Plugins allow adding new functionality to an editor. The narrator discusses how the lack of plugin support in Zed results in it missing some useful features he relies on in VSS code, like customized error handling and auto-sorting of CSS. Plugins are an advantage of VSS code over Zed currently.

💡GPU acceleration

GPU acceleration uses the graphics processing unit (GPU) for faster performance. Zed utilizes GPU acceleration in its user interface rendering through its GPI framework. The narrator seems interested in this approach for achieving native performance.

💡creators

Creators refer to content creators like video producers and streamers. The narrator argues creators are an important user segment for developer tools, because if the tools meet creators' needs they are more likely to recommend them to their broader audiences.

💡competition

Competition in the code editor space is seen as a positive by the narrator. He argues more competition and innovation between editors like Zed and VSS code will ultimately improve the developer experience and capabilities of the tools.

Highlights

There's a ton of inertia that's a good way to describe it

Zed is trying to find the balance between native performance and a plugin ecosystem

Zed's creators also created Electron to build Atom

They believe open sourcing Zed will make it the best editor

They split the licensing with GPL for the editor and Apache for server components

The scrolling feels a little janky with too much inertia

The git status updates instantly compared to VS Code

They are focusing on built-in collaboration tools unlike VS Code plugins

Targeting creators can help hit product market fit faster

Pretty TypeScript errors and Quick Lint JS will be missed plugins

The auto import ranking is bad and UI shifts annoyingly

No cloak plugin for hiding secrets is concerning

Hardcoding Tailwind support to every language is not extensible

Lack of plugin system makes maintaining things difficult

I'm excited for more competition and innovation among editors

Transcripts

VSS code love it or hate it it's become

the norm for quite a while now I still

remember working at twitch being the one

person who just would not give up on

Sublime Text when I started writing more

unit tests for weird typescript

functionality I was introduced to the

VSS code debugger by a cooworker which

was a huge help in me running the tests

and playing with things as I went along

and ended up slowly making the shift as

a result that all said I missed the

performance while I could sit here and

defend electron all day I'll admit the

performance is something you feel in a

text editor while vs code is way faster

than Alternatives were like Adam you

definitely feel that it's a browser not

a native editor and when you use

something like Sublime Text or even

things like Vim the speed at which a key

press results in a key being on your

screen it's small but you feel it and I

definitely understand why people miss a

native IDE this is why I'm really

excited to talk about Zed today Zed's a

really interesting editor because it's

trying to find the balance between

native performance you would expect from

things like vim and a plugin UI focused

ecosystem similar to vs code where you

can kind of get the best of both worlds

it is not just being cre cre by some

random people it's actually being built

by the original creators of Adam and

those Adam creators didn't just invent

one of the first modern text editors

they actually built electron just to

make atom possible in a lot of ways you

can almost see this as an undoing of the

damage that electron did where this team

wants to make a much better performing

editor that doesn't compromise on the

user experience the same way other

things might do Now Zed is open source

this is a huge change that I honestly

didn't expect because Zed's a startup

they have to make money somehow open

sourcing the editor is a bold to make

but not only are they open sourcing they

actually rewrote most of the code in the

process so why the big rewrite last week

was my first week at Zed I joined right

as the team was preparing for this

week's release which they referred to as

zed 2 big things in the air this release

marks the end of the team's multi-month

rewrite of zi framework GPI from V1 to

V2 all hands on deck everybody fixing

the last bugs polishing Zed and I the

newcomer had so many questions why the

big rewrite how'd you pull it off what

does this get you how do you organize it

this is really cool that they're like

publishing this type of stuff about why

they're doing these bold rewrites and

that the whole video is on YouTube as

well I'm not here to talk about the

rewrite though I'm here to talk about

the open source release and actually

play with z a bit if you want to hear

more about big rewrites like this let me

know in the comments and maybe I'll make

a whole video just about this rewrite

we're excited to announce that Z is an

open source project the code for Z SS

available under a copy left license to

ensure any improvements will benefit the

entire Community GPL for the editor a

GPL for serers side components

interesting that they went with standard

GPL for the editor and the Apache

modification of it for the serers side

stuff makes sense for them to make sure

they a business they can sell but

fascinating to see this type of like

split licensing for a product if you

think I should talk more about licensing

for open source let me know cuz it's

thing I have a lot of weird opinions on

they also mentioned the GPI rewrite that

they are Distributing as well under

Apache so anyone can use it to build

high performance desktop apps and

distribute them under any license that's

huge that's really cool good open source

why are they doing this most importantly

they believe that making Z open source

will make it the best product our

mission is to build the world's most

advanced code editor and get it in the

hands of millions of developers there's

a ton of surface area on the platform

and will need all the help we can get

considering that all of Zed's users are

programmers it makes the most sense to

open Zed to the maximum pool of talent

this is a really good point since

everyone using Zed is going to be a

developer letting them contribute to it

makes a ton of sense makes a ton of

sense really cool to see them thinking

in this way on a more selfish level we

also think going open source will be a

lot more fun one of our favorite aspects

of software is connecting with people

we're not only proud of what we've built

but also how we've built it we want to

share Zed's inner beauty with all of you

and we're confident we'll learn a lot

from you in the process to make it even

better they're also introducing this

idea of Fire hacks where you can hang

out with people in The Zed channels talk

with other developers people

contributing people not and they'll be

running Fireside hacks in them where

they work on Zed live and a public

Channel this is super cool I love these

like Community opportunities to hang

with people really nice stuff and then

they talk about the money aspect cuz

this is important too CU they're a

startup they need to make money

eventually and they say specifically

that they strongly believe the best way

to build and maintain the world's best

editor is by associating it with a

sustainable business model it's the only

way they can continue to invest in a

full-time team to spearhead Dev some may

wonder if making it open source

undermines that objective but they

thought about it a lot and they don't

think the openness is at odds with the

commercial success rather than selling

you a proprietary editor we'd much

prefer to sell you services that

seamlessly integrate with your Editor to

make you and your team more productive

said channels is just one example it's

free for anyone today but they intend to

begin charging for private use after a

beta period of experimentation providing

serers side compute to power AI features

is another monetization scheme they're

seeing getting traction and I've seen

this more and more with companies

recently where they're trying to become

a standard first and then monetize later

I think it works really well I'm curious

to see how it goes for an editor

nobody's really tried this at this

integration level usually editors either

charge or don't make money charging

later to make money is an interesting

strategy that requires more investment

for them to find success but seems like

they're building something really

special here and I'm excited to see how

it goes for them they're not at one

point oh yet though so know this is

still early but it is a really exciting

rewrite I want to play with it so I

guess there's nothing else to do other

than click this download button so let's

do it download for Mac OS one more thing

of note at this point in time Zed is Mac

only they do plan to support other

Platforms in the future but let's be

honest with the things that they're

targeting Mac devs are going to be the

majority of users anyways and they'll

certainly be the majority of potentially

paying users in the future so as a

business tries to figure out if they

have something with traction that could

possibly make money in the future it

makes a ton of sense that they're not

supporting windows and Linux just yet

anyways here is Zed one of the cool

things they actually have a Vim mode

built in does that mean this is

officially Prime agine approved to be

determined I don't have Vim bindings in

my head anymore so I'm not going to

check that they really thought of the

setup process here where you can pick a

theme doesn't seem like they have the PO

Manders theme I don't know you could

install custom ones or not but they

don't have my preferred one which makes

sense it's a pretty Niche theme so let's

go with the default for now choose a key

mapping vs code yes please don't make me

learn new things it's cool that they let

you take the mappings from other

programs and the default is vs code

where they're just copying the vs code

keepy bindings really good idea don't

make me learn all these other new things

when I'm just trying to play with a new

editor and then install the CLI we'll

take a look at the upload thing public

code base so cool here's our project it

is very minimal I've seen people saying

that already but I do like how how muted

things are I don't love the lack of

color in the icons cuz like I can

mentally map things when they have color

but it's also like almost everything's

just TS TS TS TS in blue so how much

does that really matter debatable I

don't know if you guys know this but the

VSS code CLI is slow as [ __ ] so if I

type code period we're going to press

enter right now and that took like a

second plus to switch over I actually

have a custom binding that you might

have seen me use C that is an alias that

just calls the vs code application

directly and when I do this instead I'm

going to press enter right now it's

literally instant and as seems to care

about that this lets you load the

application way faster and the specific

CLI thing they're using to get those ARs

and parse them is just not very fast

let's start by playing with the hot

keys that worked great is there a Hut

key for hiding and showing the sidebar

command B that's

Snappy scrolling feels a little Jank I

don't know how much this will come up

like in the recording because I'm

recording 30 FPS even though my screen's

running

120 but the scrolling feel

less good this is actually something I

noticed when I first played with Z is

that scrolling felt a little

weird yeah a ton of inertia that's a

good way to describe it Vim Tim in chat

so love that a vimmer has opinions on

this one thing that really annoys me in

vs code is when I'm trying to delete

like a section of text so let's try and

delete here up to functions CU When I go

here it Scrolls too fast this is way

better for that already it's a small

thing but these are the things I want to

test CU I want to see what my day-to-day

is like in this editor let's say I want

to delete everything from line 122 to

like 200 something let's say to 205 how

easy is it for me to get to exactly

205 that was pretty easy versus in vs

code we'll start at 122 and I want to

get to exactly

205 and it Scrolls way too fast no

matter how far you go and it's a good

bit harder I've had a lot of annoyance

with that why not scroll down to the

line and shift click cuz I don't think

that far ahead probably a good call oh

look at that they light things up bright

green when there are changes in git okay

am I crazy or does that icon look like

Source control to you cuz this icon

looks to me like Source control not like

files I might be insane but that looks

like a source control icon with the

branching how fast does the git update

that's a good question too and let's see

what

happens that was instant that was

instant good [ __ ] yeah vs codes is not

anywhere near that fast now all these

things are staged you can't even see it

in vs code commit DM init

commit and vs code doesn't update these

things in the background in order to see

the update I have to go back here and

then it will update but I bet some older

files oh no it updated everything I'm

sure all of you that use VSS code really

hard have had the problem where it

doesn't see certain things have been

commit some things haven't been commit

and it just yells at you the whole time

didn't do it there I've experienced it a

lot I know y'all have too it's really

cool that Zed does not seem to do that

and is like weirdly

immediate I don't love this icon what is

this move to a new file I don't love

that UI don't know what this does or is

for it seems like probably one of their

weird AI things but can I see if Zed

supports Auto rename tag interesting

thought let's first off test the

typescript go to definition here's our

trpc proxy client let's rename symbol to

internal API rename no there's no like

confirmation button or something I would

assume there' be like a button at the

bottom here that says go nuts what is

this Mt about why why is this upset

about the type definitions oh it's the

es lint I think the es lint is out of

date but the types script isn't because

you can see here I have the type

definition but eslint is saying it's an

unsafe assignment of an any because

eslint didn't get the change that we

have a different name for this thing

internal API now very interesting very

interesting I have saved the changes

they've been saved in all the files that

I did them in so they also get this sync

issue in VSS code I get the issue where

I have to reset the typescript server

but usually the es lint server catches

up es lint being broken separately is

new to me is there a reset there's

restart language server it looks like

while I was doing that this corrected

itself interesting it might have been

because I hadn't opened this file since

the change and it was caching that

editor level I can't know any of this

for sure the goal here is just to like

play with it and see which quirks it

does or doesn't have if I should

actually commit to using this editor for

a bit again let me know in the comments

and I'll give it a shot for a little

longer other people are saying they

often have to reset es lint more than

they have to reset the typescript server

very interesting someone else pointed

out it's cool you have es lint support

out of the box I absolutely agree having

es L to typescript in all of this

without any plugins CU like I don't have

any plugins installed on this I don't

have anything installed right now like

here are my settings there's nothing

let's try some other fun things more

typescript quirks I should be able to

command click hello and get to the trpc

function in the server folder and it

works dope having that type of deep type

inference is essential for any editor

that I use so if I'm in some client or

like user facing code and I want to

quickly do anything like I want to just

figure out where this is coming from or

like make a change to what it's

returning having command click working

here is huge and the last time I played

with a zed this was not working

previously it would bring me to weird

places in like my type definitions for

trpc itself now it actually goes

properly all the way to the place where

this is written hopefully it still does

this on client components one way to

test that it still does good stuff

should I actually try typing now cuz

thus far I have avoided actually editing

in the editor let's see how this feels

this is a test to see how typing here

feels overall I'm impressed the auto

comment continuation is also a nice

touch I don't know if you guys saw that

it's hard see cuz I don't have my key

presses on screen but when I press enter

it continues the comment for me that's

really nice it's doing some type of Auto

formatting here too not quite as much as

I would have liked but let's see if I

tab this out that looks like it's doing

pretty your stuff properly Mark pointed

out there was a lot of pop-ups when I

was typing here when I wasn't typing it

in a comment there was but it seems like

when I'm in a comment it chills out but

when I'm typing here this is a test

typing yeah the um the spam of like it

trying to autocomplete [ __ ] is a little

annoying because it's so fast that it

does it quickly but it just it flashes

all over the screen when I'm typing like

do you see how annoying that is that

would piss me off so much I would just

add a debounce to that so when I type a

letter you don't prompt me with that

until I've waited for at least a few

milliseconds that I also find this

really annoying ESP when I'm making

content because I'll be typing something

and just my screen's flashing all over

the place and it makes the video super

distracting so for me in particular

that's kind of a no-o yeah also the

dialogue should be smaller people are

saying it's pretty big I will say I I'm

on a 720p effective screen when I'm

doing content so I don't know if it's

less bad in other cases but now it's

taking up a ton of my screen that said

VSS code sucks about this too and I type

trpc like it still starts to do things

but it's nowhere near as brutal about it

the jsts server immediately crashed five

times great sign responsive test this is

me getting a gut feel of the

responsiveness in vs code this is me

getting a gut feel of responsiveness in

said I'll be honest guys doesn't feel

much

better just typing like that does that

come off in the video does this seem

faster because it doesn't feel very

different to me curious if that Quirk

was still happen in comments what happen

here I am adding cool it does not so

when I press single quote or double

quote double quote it will automatically

double up but single quote it won't

because a single quote might be a

contraction but a single quote here

doesn't necessarily know that and it

always doubles it up so when I'm doing

I'm now m is surrounded even though it's

in a comment so kind of annoying that

when I'm typing a comment I have to go

through and delete a bunch of things

it's randomly adding for me I'll be

honest I've always been annoyed when you

make a tag and it autoc closes it for

you I don't want that on single Pern in

a comment ever but in general I've never

been a big fan of it so I am biased

there one of the really interesting

things that Z's trying to do different

is focus on collaboration most editors

have some crappy plugin where you can

share an instance and I'll be honest

every time I tried it was a Jank

experience I've never had a good time

using VSS code with two people on

different computers and usually I just

prefer to screen share and Discord or

something I am curious how this works

with multiple people working in one

thing together first off there's a chat

which is actually really nice to have a

built-in live chat they have a concept

of channels where I can create a channel

if anybody has Z let's try it we're

going to make a t3g channel it wants my

microphone is there a way I can mute

that oh there it is it's in the top

right corner very interesting to have AV

built into the editor also a share

screen option so I can share my screen

Beyond just the editor so if I want to

showcase like what I'm actually working

on like I want to showcase what the the

browser does in the background while I

make changes really cool that it

supports that can people join the t3g

channel is this public or private how

does this work cool I trust you Yash I

don't want to call you no I sorry I do

not think just clicking your name would

call that's uh unintended I am sorry I

don't know how to stop calling either

there's no way to do that remove contact

yeah just on a call yeah the UI for this

is a little Jank I do not like that I

can accidentally call somebody by

clicking on their name like call things

should should at least have like a

separate button for it there's no

rightclick Behavior at all like I'm

right clicking on people and doesn't do

anything I just don't get this join

Channel none of these things appear to

be doing anything it still has me

calling Yash and I don't know how to to

stop that does revoke right access do it

no share leave call okay that was dumb

on the channel invite members oh I can

just make it public and now you have

been invited aore there's join Channel

and open Channel notes okay the channel

notes is this thing in the middle here

so we can save like a markdown dock

notes hi friends aore are you able to

edit those notes is this safe though can

you run a terminal command fantastic

question oh hi from aore hi aore do you

have access to my terminal here let me

try can't open my terminal can you see

what I typed in it though you have your

yours open cool um yeah I'm very curious

how much you do and do not have you

can't even see it interesting I have

mixed feelings on this on one hand it's

actually pretty cool to think about your

coding environment as a a shared

collaborative place can you see that

you're on your project you already did Z

clab at work it's fun oh interesting I

have mixed feelings on this it's a

really cool idea to have good

collaboration tools baked into your

editor it gives you a ton of Opp

opportunity to innovate in ways like a

plugin simply can't and I like the idea

that it's not a plugin for this like the

vs code live share plugin despite being

somewhat baked in is pretty Jank this

despite being early and Jank feels like

it has more potential to integrate deep

in and I am excited to see where it goes

but the ux is rough like the fact that

when you click someone's name it starts

an audio call with them in my editor is

terrifying to me I hate that that's

that's not something I can support like

ever and I will probably be disabling

this feature until there's like a major

update I want to better understand what

the AI autocomplete experience is like

oh I can sign in for co-pilot here cool

co-pilot is

enabled look at that we got co-pilot

working dope pump that even though they

have aspirations to do their own AI

stuff that co-pilot is already built in

and working as I would expect that's

dope it's nice that I don't feel the

need to run and grab any plugins there

are little things that I've been using a

lot in vs code recently that I like I go

through my extensions obviously having

language things like um Astro and such

is really nice I love cloak for hiding

Secrets Dino is nice to have support for

directly they already have es lint built

in they have co-pilot built in haven't

played with their git stuff I'm not a

big G in the IDE person but a lot of

other people are so that'll be missing

which is notable the things I've been

thinking about though obviously my

themes I love the PO Manders theme it'd

be really nice if they had a way to

import VSS code themes because it's like

a standard-ish syntax somebody will

probably hack that or at least make a

converter in the future it seems like

it's doing all the prettier stuff for me

already so that's cool the two I was

thinking of the that I'm going to miss

are pretty typescript errors and quick

lint JS these two plugins are very good

I already have a video for pretty

typescript errors the typescript just

got so much better if you want to know

more about the pretty typescript error

plug-in check the video out it required

a ton of hacks by the dev to make it

work but the results super cool and I

rely on it a ton you can see here that

it will actually make you this nice

printed out formatted error thing

instead of the absolute mess that

typescript normally gives you super

super cool and then quick lint if you're

not familiar I haven't made a video

about this yet it checks for a bunch of

basic JavaScript typescript things like

using an equals accidentally in an if

statement awaiting something that isn't

async little type errors that are pretty

common and it's super super fast so you

get feedback like immediately which is

really cool that like on each character

you're getting feedback I've been

enjoying quick lint quite a bit and

again let me know in the comments if I

should do a whole video about quick lint

because it is a pretty cool project but

in order to care about those things we

first need to see how Zed handles when

you do something wrong so let's spell

post

wrong how quickly when I add the T will

I no longer have a type error pretty

quick and if I have the type error and I

hover over oh no it's the super

unreadable type

errors also if you notice I get

different type errors depending on how

far in I am because these are all

accessing an unsafe any I don't know if

vs code is smart enough to not do that

but there's only one way to check so

have here we get the nasty tyri error

but then we get the much better

formatted error from the Pretty

typescript error plugin but over these

further down things now this is all the

unsafe any yeah so equally bad there but

at least I can use my plugin here which

I cannot use in Z in my opinion if Zed's

goal is to make something better enough

than vs code that we all start switching

these types of ux wins are a really big

thing if you can do them because if you

produce enough of these wow moments for

a developer that might not know about

these plugins might not know about these

other things this can be a huge huge win

for building like positive sentiment and

getting them to go shill it to their

friends and getting me to talk really

positively about it in a video all those

types of things seeing if there is do

they have any plugin system at all I

don't think they do not upset with it in

any way one more thing we should

probably test is auto importing what's

the I can import okay we have the create

post deleting this component deleting

the import for this component let's try

mounting it

now the flash of that is so annoying and

also that all these mdn references come

up before my own code like I have to

press arrow down how many times to get

to my thing and also the width of this

changes that's Jank that feels not good

that all like this UI shifts around as I

try to get to the right thing and that

what I'm here for is so low priority I

have to type the whole word create and

even just type in create it still has

credentials container canvas capture

media and all these other things that

don't start with create because the

fuzzy search sucks create all those

letters are in order in credentials

container it has the letters for create

in order but something that starts with

create should be first for sure this is

[ __ ] these are the little things that

like are hard to get right that will be

fixed over time but feel Jank right now

and if the goal of something like Zed is

to offer a meaningful user experience

improvement over vs code these things

matter way way more so that's a little

disappointing if I click it did it Auto

Import correctly it did cool so at least

the auto importing works but the ranking

there was terrible I'm happy I checked

that one good one is EnV this is a new

project so this won't leak anything but

it looks like it would have if I hadn't

like been sure that it's good ahead of

time is that a that's a no co-pilot icon

something I have to rely on is the

ability to hide secrets with something

like cloak because there's nothing worse

than accidentally exposing your secrets

on stream if I go to here I can turn on

cloak and now you'll see all the secrets

are hidden very very useful and I try to

turn this on before I stream code so

that I never accidentally leak

environment variables again these things

are small but enough of them add up and

one of the things you need in order to

win with a challenging new product like

this is you need to win sentiment from

the people who can sprad spread that and

share that sentiment so I as a a creator

with reach as dumb as it is that I'm

saying you should prioritize my quirks

and my needs because most users won't

benefit that much from having their

secrets autohide it makes me more

confident when I use it to make content

which then reaches the users you want to

potentially have this is the thing I've

been talking with a lot of companies

about especially when I'm Consulting

it's the idea that targeting creators

despite their weird needs that might not

overlap with your users it's actually a

really powerful tool to hit product

Market fit earlier and get your product

in front of others earlier there's two

reasons one we have the reach so if we

can use the product we'll reach that

audience but two and arguably more

important if you can't win us you can't

win our fans creators and influencers in

these spaces especially nowadays deeply

understand the things that their viewers

and Their audience want to use and work

with we might be pickier but we're also

more understanding and we're more

willing to have these conversations and

hear these things out and I've regularly

been surprised at how much value I and

other creators can bring to companies by

giving feedback on the product and why

we would or wouldn't use it we are kind

of a representative minority of the

space because in order for us to get

people to watch our videos we have to

understand what they like and what they

resonate with and with that deeper

understanding we're often positioned to

to give better feedback and also we

spend more time thinking about what our

audience would like so if you can't

convince us to use your thing despite us

having that mindset where we can think

kind of the way all of our different

viewers think and all the different

groups and if you can't convince us that

it's good enough for one of those groups

it's going to be really hard to convince

them yourself so again I feel bad saying

make the things creators want but if

your target audience is the people who

watch those creators making them happy

can help a ton I will say I'm impressed

especially when you consider that they

don't get to lean on much existing work

here like they have treesitter in fact

the treesitter devs are some of the core

team for Zed they have the typescript

language server running in the

background and allowing them to get all

the data they need here but they are

missing a lot of the pieces that exist

because of the size of the existing VSS

code and JavaScript ecosystem like

another thing people just brought up is

the Tailwind auto

complete oh wow looks like they

hardcoded the Tailwind auto complete in

it's

PT this I don't love like weird things

get mixed into the autocomplete but at

least that works does it have the hover

to see the actual CSS that applies it

does not interesting and does the

prettier organizer organize things

correctly it does not okay so this is

again like because they can't lean on

the existing tools they have to build

their own versions of it so we do get a

lot of the Tailwind autocomplete help

here which is really nice like I can

Tailwind like group or Tailwind like

lgp whatever and it's smart enough to

know what that is but it doesn't let me

hover over to see what these things are

versus in VSS code I hover over one of

these and tells me the exact class there

another thing it doesn't seem to support

that I push really hard is the auto

sorting prettier plugin for tailin which

makes your tailin code way more readable

because everything's in the same order I

intentionally put this padding too far

forward because now when I save it's

going to get moved to the right spot

which is in this Chunk in either the

middle or the end depending on which

classes you have that has all the

padding behaviors I've learned this

order it's really good the prettier Auto

sort Tailwind plugin is dope and I

genuinely think everyone should be using

it if they're using Tailwind so not

having that sucks because they didn't

Implement prettier bindings they

implemented a bunch of prettier

functionality into their editor they

didn't implement the Tailwind plugin

they implemented a bunch of Tailwind

functionality into the editor this is

also why open sourcing is so important

because if they didn't open source

building and maintaining all of these

things becomes really really difficult

really really quickly and I'm hopeful

that the choice to open source will make

it more likely the community supports

these things going forward that said if

the Tailwind stuff is written rust I'm

curious to see how that goes we can

check the source code quick

though interesting they have the tail

and prettier plug-in package it should

work then although if you think about it

it's pretty wild to see tailwind and

prettier in the source code of Zed

especially when you compare to like the

vs code GitHub if we search in here for

Tailwind nothing search in here for

pretty a they might use it but it's not

part of vs code itself because these are

all plugins that are external extensions

whereas with zed these are all built-in

features and rust I don't necessarily

love this but open sourcing is a huge

step in making future extensions that

are more usable also how hilarious is it

that Tailwinds considered a language the

point stands having to support things

that deeply in your editor is a scary

thought and the amount of work that the

poor Zed team has had to do to create

all of these bindings is a little

terrifying oh no oh no I see what

they're doing since Tailwind is a subset

language not a proper Lang language

which obviously Tailwind is not a

programming language in order to get

their auto complete in their adapter

working in all the other places you

might use Tailwind they had to manually

bind the Tailwind parser to every

language you might use Tailwind with

including we not limited to CSS Elixir

heeks hex I've no idea what heex is TSX

JavaScript HTML Erb spelt PHP and more

referen coming up there but yeah the

fact that they have to bind Tailwind

hardcoded to every single language for

it to work is incredibly not extensible

and again with like not having plugin

support for other things like Tailwind

to exist or for Tailwind changes to

happen or God forbid Tailwind version 4

has different classes than Tailwind

version 3 you're [ __ ] the fact that

these language parsers have to have such

weird additional assignments made for it

to work is scary also like the first

line in the language in nit is an Elixir

settings register so Elixir has to do

some special things and they always run

this code even if you're not using

Elixir so these types of hacks are

necessary when you don't have a plugin

system and they're a little

scary that said they did just open

source this code and I'm not here to

just [ __ ] on people's code like this

isn't bad code it's scary to maintain as

an open source project and that's a

thing we should think about and be

honest about they do have a plugins

directory interesting for child and

children if okay path child path config

read language config if it matches then

they register it enter interesting yeah

and they're registering it through a

wasm layer too that means they can

safely run rust code in like a

virtualization layer and also they can

run other languages including JavaScript

and typescript this is very interesting

how this is architected I'm even more

excited about reading through how that

rewrite worked so again let me know in

the comments if I should make a video

about the whole rewrite the file for all

the language support including loading

plugins is under 300 lines of code

that's not too bad and enough you

pointed out that GPI is cool that I'll

quickly touch on it it is actually

really interesting the goal of GPI is to

do a GPU accelerated UI framework

written in Rust so that you have rust

code that runs native UI there hasn't

really been anything like this before at

least that I know of they've stated a

lot of their goals here and actually

really surprised the quality of what

they've written here they point out

there three different registers that

they've created depending on the way you

want to build this UI interesting this

is Swift UI I know most of y'all aren't

Swift UI users but this is Swift UI this

is the Swift UI sytax look familiar yeah

that is fascinating to me I haven't

talked much about Swift UI and I have a

lot of opinions but I think they they

took the right lessons from react and it

is interesting to see other things doing

it I am very curious about the decision

to use div here as the example is Zed

using a web container that's rendering

divs or are they rendering native UI

wasum is not a UI layer it has like if

this is running in a browser shell this

is would be wum doesn't I don't care

about how where it's running I care

about what it's rendering to does this

render to some type of extension of a

canvas or a dawn or is this making

native UI with like GPU calls cuz they

pointed out that it's GPU accelerated a

GPU accelerated UI framework for rust

create a new window with app context

open window and register your first view

there is nowhere near enough info here

seems like it's running native I'm very

confused by the choice of using a div in

their example because if you're deep

enough in web that you don't know this

divs are a web concept even react native

doesn't have a div like if you write

react native code you cannot render a

div in it you have to render a react

native view or text element leveraging

rust in the GPU to render user interface

at 12 FPS they're calling out my concern

if like divs are slow because you're

doing the web layer good old Evan

Wallace code if you don't know Evan

Wallace he also created es build this

dude is like the JavaScript and

JavaScript accessories performance

wizard yall remember in my recent video

where I said game devs don't appreciate

the web and US finding new ways to

render and render because they're still

trying to get text to render and a bunch

of people in the comments were like you

don't know anything about Native devs

and like performant Dev if you think we

don't know how to R text or you think

that's hard to do here's a five page

section on why it's not that easy to

render text you stupid [ __ ] I'm

sorry but like if you're building native

stuff and you're trying to build native

stuff for performance reasons you do

have to care about how text renders and

as you see here it is not easy to do

they also cited the Pathfinder crate

which seems to be the existing rust UI

rasterization layer that they didn't

think was good enough for their needs

fascinating this is proof they're

actually doing native code code they're

not doing things in the browser which

makes me really confused about the

choice to have like div and flex all in

their example because div and flex are

both very Web Concepts as well as

justify Center item Center all these

things are very Webby if you have the

opportunity to build something new from

scratch I'm a little confused why you'd

bring the web Primitives somebody said

they just picked the name div instead of

View kind of but they also picked Flex

they also picked justify Center and item

Center they're taking a lot of the way

we do things in web which is very

interesting and not necessary react

native took very little from web they

took a bit but not a lot and even things

like Flex they they tried to take but

they they built them differently like

it's a silly thing but a really

interesting example of how react native

differs from react for web by default

react web Flex boxes are horizontal and

you have to specify B vertical react

native Flex boxes are default vertical

you have to specify horizontal it's a

small detail but these things add up as

you swap between platforms a lot I'm

interested in why they chose to go the

web Direction here there's a lot going

on in this project and I'm really

curious to see where it goes from the

Native layer and rust for the GPU stuff

to everything they're doing with collab

and AI there's an interesting thing

going on here and I'm really excited

that it's not just happening but it's

now open source I don't see myself

leaving vs code anytime soon but I am

excited for a future where there's more

competition and more Innovation

happening within our editors what about

you do you still use vs code have you

made the switch over to Vim or are you

one of the few remaining Sublime Text

holdouts that just won't move yet I'd

love to hear what you're using if you

want to see me make vs code even worse I

have a great video in the corner here

where I let chat decide what I would do

to my vs code and I promise you it's

terrible see you guys in the next one

appreciate you all a ton peace NS