Learning that the right tool often depends on context, not ideology
IDE vs. Editor: Understanding the Distinction
Before diving in, let's address a fundamental question: what's the difference between an IDE and a text editor?
Text Editor: A focused tool for editing text. Fast to start, lightweight in memory, and configurable to your needs. Think of it as a precision instrument—it does one thing well and stays out of your way.
IDE (Integrated Development Environment): A text editor with additional tooling built in—compilers, debuggers, project management, refactoring tools, and typically deeper integration with specific languages or frameworks. More resource-intensive, but potentially more productive for complex projects.
The IDE advocates emphasise intelligent code completion and integrated debugging. The editor purists counter with fast startup times and lower resource consumption. Both perspectives have merit, and the real answer is: it depends on what you're doing, what you're building, and how your team works.
I've worked in both worlds long enough to appreciate when each approach makes sense.
Eclipse: Where It Started
In 2007, I was a student diving into software development, and Java was the dominant language in education. If you wanted to write Java with modern conveniences, Eclipse was the standard choice—IBM's open-source IDE that powered most Java development at the time.
Eclipse was my introduction to professional development tooling. It had significant stability issues—crashes during large project loads, refactoring operations that sometimes corrupted files, and memory consumption that would bring modest hardware to its knees. But when it worked, it revealed what modern development could look like: syntax highlighting, auto-completion, integrated debugging.
My success criteria were simple back then: get the output to appear without errors. I had little understanding of deployment, build systems, or anything beyond clicking "Run" in the IDE. Eclipse was both the tool and the entire development experience.
Looking back, Eclipse had serious problems. But it taught me that development tooling could be both essential and frustrating—a lesson that would prove relevant throughout my career. Despite its flaws, it introduced me to concepts I still use daily: refactoring tools, code navigation, integrated debugging.
Visual Studio: A Different Approach
Eventually, curriculum requirements introduced me to .NET. It was Microsoft-only at the time, which felt limiting, but the language was C#. After Eclipse's instability, C# and Visual Studio felt remarkably polished.
The alternative was Visual Basic .NET, but C# was clearly the forward-looking choice—more consistent syntax, better alignment with industry practices, and a growing ecosystem.
Visual Studio 2008 was my introduction to Microsoft's development tooling. Compared to Eclipse, the difference in stability and polish was immediately apparent. Project creation was straightforward. References worked consistently. IntelliSense was genuinely helpful rather than occasionally useful.
Microsoft was pushing several new frameworks: WPF for desktop applications, WCF for services, ASP.NET WebForms for web development. Visual Studio made these frameworks accessible. The integrated experience—project templates, designers, debugging—lowered the barrier to learning significantly.
Here's the straightforward truth: I've been using Visual Studio ever since. We're now on the 2026 version, and despite periodic exploration of alternatives, it remains my primary tool for serious .NET work.
This isn't entirely about loyalty. Visual Studio handles the .NET ecosystem exceptionally well. NuGet package management is seamless. Azure integration works without friction. The debugging experience, particularly for complex applications, is difficult to match. It's become my default choice for professional .NET development.
The recent AI integration efforts have been mixed. GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio has improved significantly over early versions, though it still requires learning when to accept suggestions and when to ignore them. Visual Studio 2026's focus on AI assistance suggests this will continue evolving.
What Visual Studio Gets Right
After over a decade of daily use, here's what keeps me coming back:
Debugging: The debugging experience for .NET applications is exceptional. Conditional breakpoints, data tips, the immediate window, and integration with diagnostic tools make troubleshooting complex issues manageable.
IntelliSense: Code completion that understands context, suggests appropriate members, and handles generic types correctly. It's become so natural that I notice its absence immediately when using other tools.
Project System Integration: Understanding solution structures, managing references, handling NuGet packages, and integrating with build systems. The friction is low enough that I rarely think about it.
Refactoring Tools: Rename, extract method, introduce variable—the standard refactoring operations work reliably and safely. Not revolutionary, but consistently useful.
Navigation and Discoverability: On larger solutions with 50+ projects, being able to navigate to any symbol with a keystroke, see all references instantly, and trace call hierarchies matters. When you're onboarding to an unfamiliar codebase, that tooling support compounds quickly. It's also valuable when helping junior developers understand how pieces connect—questions like "where does this get called?" have immediate, visual answers.
What Visual Studio Gets Wrong
It's not without problems:
Resource Consumption: Visual Studio is heavy. Large solutions can consume significant memory and CPU. On older hardware, this matters.
Startup Time: Opening a large solution takes time. This improves with each version, but it's not a lightweight tool.
Complexity: The number of options, windows, and configuration possibilities can be overwhelming. Finding specific settings sometimes requires searching documentation.
Platform Lock-in: While .NET is now cross-platform, Visual Studio itself remains Windows-only. This matters if your team uses mixed operating systems.
The Takeaway
Visual Studio has been my workhorse for over a decade. Despite its resource requirements and complexity, it remains the tool I reach for when doing serious .NET development. The debugging experience, IntelliSense quality, and ecosystem integration justify the overhead.
But the editor landscape was changing. Microsoft was about to do something unexpected—create a lightweight editor that would win over developers who had never considered Microsoft tooling before.
Next: Part 2 - Visual Studio Code: How Microsoft created a cross-platform editor that developers actually wanted to use