Besides VSCodium (which isn’t really a fork, it’s just building from the source code of VSCode without the Microsoft stuff), there aren’t any VSCode forks/derivatives that aren’t AI-assisted editors (see Cursor, Windsurf, those are the main two, right?).
That feels a bit weird to me, as many other pieces of software have lots of forks and derivatives (browsers, operating systems, email clients, emulators, PDF viewers, Fediverse clients, etc.). I guess people who would bother to create a fork and doesn’t want to put AI in everything just uses a different editor.
There’s nothing wrong with VSCodium, it’s awesome. My only gripe with it is that the rpm package takes ages to update compared to everything else I use, which is weird. Other than that issue, it runs fine, and I like the flexibility that plugins give me. I just find it odd that there aren’t any other VSCode derivatives/forks.
Microsoft is a notorious waste of time. They place no value on people over profit and they screw over everything. Most people likely just use emacs and vim for independent stuff, or whatever company junk elsewhere.
I write scientific articles with inline R code in Latex (using knitr), so I need syntax highlighting that jumps between two different languages within the document as well as spell checking and advanced (non AI) grammar tools for the text documents. Also I want something that looks kinda minimalistic and neat as a writing interface - there is more writing than coding involved.
I’m sure there’s some wizard somewhere who can do everything I need in Emacs, but I’m not terribly sophisticated. I just want something that works. Sadly, as much as I try to avoid anything Microsoft, VS Codium is the only thing I’ve found that fits my needs in a good way.