December 30, 2025
Keys vs Clicks: Pick a side
You Need to Ditch VS Code
Coders feud over VS Code: power-tool lovers vs terminal purists
TLDR: An essay urges developers to quit VS Code and learn the terminal for real-world toughness. The comments explode: some call it clickbait, others say learn fundamentals then use productivity tools, with security concerns about extensions and jokes about “keyboard warriors” highlighting a bigger skills-vs-convenience debate.
An opinion piece told devs to dump VS Code and live in the terminal, claiming convenience kills skill. The comments lit up like a code deploy gone wrong. One camp cheered the discomfort-as-growth message, with warnings about “extremely insecure plugin architecture” and side-eyes at juniors relying on AI — “LLMs” (large language models) — instead of actually reading code. The terminal faithful dropped vim memes and bragged about keyboard wizardry, while others argued you can learn the basics and still enjoy modern tools.
The clapback was fierce. Critics called the headline clickbait and said basic autocomplete isn’t a brain rot, just a timesaver. A pragmatic crowd chimed in: ship reliable software, don’t romanticize suffering. The most-liked compromise came via a woodworking analogy: learn your hand tools, then use power tools for speed. Meanwhile, the thread devolved into “keyboard warriors vs mouse-clickers,” with jokes about becoming “one with the machine” and terminal bootcamps that feel like CrossFit for wrists. In short, it’s a messy, hilarious showdown over whether understanding your tools means ditching them — or just using them smarter.
Key Points
- •The article claims VS Code’s convenience features can hinder understanding of core development operations.
- •It advocates terminal-based workflows to learn underlying commands for Git, filesystem tasks, building, testing, and debugging.
- •Real-world scenarios cited include production hotfixes, SSH to cloud instances, minimal Docker containers, and resource-constrained devices.
- •Benefits outlined include deeper understanding, better problem-solving, flexibility across environments, and efficiency via Vim motions and reduced context switching.
- •A month-long challenge is proposed: use terminal for Git, learn Vim motions, debug without breakpoints, and code without heavy auto-completion.