And VSCodium is the project that releases builds from the VS Code source code. Privacy-conscious developers should use VSCodium (which is fully FOSS) instead of Visual Studio Code (which is partially proprietary and includes tracking).
Yes, also remember to completely avoid Typescript and C# since they are also Microsoft. And Rust since heavy ties to Amazon. Don’t look for a job on Linkedin (where most listings are posted) because that’s also Microsoft. Actually, just to spare you the time, avoid programming altogether and do something like farming, since no Big Tech influence there. /s
I’m retired and doing hobby projects in Python and java, so I get choices (including not playing) but wtf, big tech figured out how to take over open source?
A cynical explanation would be using the EEE theory to explain all of this.
A more nuanced one would be that corporations benefit from open source since it creates an easier pipeline to onboard engineers and they also benefit from the free labor that people put into the projects out of passion. Whether they want to kill OSS after embracing it is debatable, but they definitely want to have as much leverage on it as possible.
Bill Gates stated: “One thing we have got to change in our strategy – allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other people’s browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depend on proprietary IE capabilities. Anything else is suicide for our platform. This is a case where Office has to avoid doing something to destroy Windows.”
I do like the work Microsoft has done with typescript itself, but more and more I’m seeing they are trying to tie up the language to VSCode, treating other editors as “second class citizens” for it and that has started to make me reconsider things.
Might check out Zed. Relatively new editor from the folks behind Atom and treesitter. Extremely fast with an excellent interface and vim mode. The second best vim mode behind Neovim.
I’ve been testing Zed for the last couple weeks for some Vue / Nuxt projects. It works great for that and seems very stable so far, but is also developed by a for-profit. Curious to see how the Zedless project works out.
I actually think their comments when it first went open source are pretty compelling. I don’t disagree with you and I’m interested to see how zedless fares, but new projects of this scale are tough to do well and quickly. I’m pretty happy with their current approach.
Nope, not that. Haven’t earned the name ‘programmer’ at all.
Just a guy who is starting to learn and is probably going to abandon learning but is going to try anyway and is trying not to fuck up in the beginning! Guy.
Plus I’m 63. So learning anything at all is like nailing boards to sand.
Maybe I learned it, but that was last week. Can’t expect me to remember last week shit.
Keep learning and asking questions! Maybe programming isn’t something for you or maybe it’ll be a big part of your life. You’ll never know without giving it a try.
Please don’t get discouraged by the curmudgeons. Not all of us experienced in the field have given into grouchiness.
So wait.
GitHub is Microsoft?
EDIT: Okay, fuck that. I was just getting all set up there but not now.
I am trying to decide between PyCharm and VS Code for my Python IDE. I was leaning toward VS Code, but they’re Microsoft too, aren’t they?
Stop it
Oh come on, it was a really big deal. M$ bought GitHub. FOSS collectively shit itself for a week
It was also ages ago. Any discussion of it will have long since died down so if OP is new to programming then they won’t have come across this.
Github was bought in 2018. For all we know, OP could have been 10 at the time
OP said they were 63 and only now getting into programming. I can understand not knowing these things tbh.
Continue.
If you like VSCode you can try VSCodium which supports almost all features of VSCode but should be fully FOSS without Microsoft proprietary blobs.
Has been since 2018, and acquisition news caused quite an upset at the time.
VS Code has a fully open source base which excludes proprietary extensions and default telemetry ( kind of how AOSP is for Android)
Check here for more info:
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/wiki/Differences-between-the-repository-and-Visual-Studio-Code
And VSCodium is the project that releases builds from the VS Code source code. Privacy-conscious developers should use VSCodium (which is fully FOSS) instead of Visual Studio Code (which is partially proprietary and includes tracking).
https://9to5google.com/2025/03/28/google-android-aosp-changes-announcement/
I know 😢
iswasYes, also remember to completely avoid Typescript and C# since they are also Microsoft. And Rust since heavy ties to Amazon. Don’t look for a job on Linkedin (where most listings are posted) because that’s also Microsoft. Actually, just to spare you the time, avoid programming altogether and do something like farming, since no Big Tech influence there. /s
I’m retired and doing hobby projects in Python and java, so I get choices (including not playing) but wtf, big tech figured out how to take over open source?
That’s particularly evil.
A cynical explanation would be using the EEE theory to explain all of this.
A more nuanced one would be that corporations benefit from open source since it creates an easier pipeline to onboard engineers and they also benefit from the free labor that people put into the projects out of passion. Whether they want to kill OSS after embracing it is debatable, but they definitely want to have as much leverage on it as possible.
That Wikipedia is a gold mine of evil.
Python’s creator and BDfL works at Microsoft.
I do like the work Microsoft has done with typescript itself, but more and more I’m seeing they are trying to tie up the language to VSCode, treating other editors as “second class citizens” for it and that has started to make me reconsider things.
Might check out Zed. Relatively new editor from the folks behind Atom and treesitter. Extremely fast with an excellent interface and vim mode. The second best vim mode behind Neovim.
I’ve been testing Zed for the last couple weeks for some Vue / Nuxt projects. It works great for that and seems very stable so far, but is also developed by a for-profit. Curious to see how the Zedless project works out.
I actually think their comments when it first went open source are pretty compelling. I don’t disagree with you and I’m interested to see how zedless fares, but new projects of this scale are tough to do well and quickly. I’m pretty happy with their current approach.
deleted by creator
Maybe they are just getting started with learning programming, be kind.
Ding ding ding ding ding!
Like, just BRAND NEW, leaning baby programmer!
Nope, not that. Haven’t earned the name ‘programmer’ at all.
Just a guy who is starting to learn and is probably going to abandon learning but is going to try anyway and is trying not to fuck up in the beginning! Guy.
Plus I’m 63. So learning anything at all is like nailing boards to sand.
Maybe I learned it, but that was last week. Can’t expect me to remember last week shit.
Keep learning and asking questions! Maybe programming isn’t something for you or maybe it’ll be a big part of your life. You’ll never know without giving it a try.
Please don’t get discouraged by the curmudgeons. Not all of us experienced in the field have given into grouchiness.