why do people like Zed?

it feels like using a computer without internet

Zed is starting to come online. They are shipping good stuff.

- AI Tab completion, powered by Zeta (their in house language model)
- Native git support
- Tasks - think templates to run terminal commands

I'm starting to see the primitives comes together. Competing with VS Code is not easy- and they're essentially rebuilding it all from scratch, outside the stranglehold of Microsoft.

And, they're building in public, using zed to build zed. They will soon be shipping:

- Agentic Editing https://zed.dev/ai/agent?x=50
- Support for Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- Continued improvements to Zeta
- Debugger

Why does this matter, and how could Zed win the AI editor wars? 

VS Code forks like Cursor and Windsurf may now be required to build their own language extensions, because microsoft is enforcing licensing restriction

Microsoft just started enforcing their longtime license restriction on VS Code forks using more MS-published language extensions.

Play this out a few more steps… https://t.co/5yBu6lImx9

Quinn Slack

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As with most "open source" businesses, there's usually some aspect of the app that isn't truly open source. 

In Microsoft and VSCode's case, they have been shifting defaults to Microsoft owned and restricted extensions for language servers like C/C++ and Python

And VSCode forks can't use Microsoft's VSCode Extension marketplace either. Instead they rely on an alternative called OpenVSX which still might have licensed extensions and doesn't offer as many as the official extensions marketplace. 

https://forum.cursor.com/t/compliance-how-does-cursor-use-vscode-marketplace-extensions/38535/2?utm_source=chatgpt.com

As with most "open source" businesses, there's usually some aspect of the app that isn't truly open source. 

In Microsoft and VSCode's case, they have been shifting defaults to Microsoft owned and restricted extensions for language servers like C/C++ and Python

And VSCode forks can't use Microsoft's VSCode Extension marketplace either. Instead they rely on an alternative called OpenVSX which still might have licensed extensions and doesn't offer as many as the official extensions marketplace. 

https://forum.cursor.com/t/compliance-how-does-cursor-use-vscode-marketplace-extensions/38535/2?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://ghuntley.com/fracture/

We'll have to see ultimately if this becomes a big enough legal distraction for teams like Cursor that have forked VSCode and had freedom to solely focus on AI features up until this point.

But for Zed, what it means is while they might be third or fourth to market with their own agentic editing workflow, they happened to have built an insanely performant and delightful code editor. 

This makes me think that in the long run, they have a pretty good shot at winning the AI editor wars.

Why does this matter, and how could Zed win the AI editor wars? 

VS Code forks like Cursor and Windsurf may now be required to build their own language extensions, because microsoft is enforcing licensing restriction

https://x.com/sqs/status/1908386576939573480

They added git recently, and they have a debugger on the roadmap. I think they'll get there, they just need a bit more time to cook.

Then other editors like Cursor will have a hard time catching up.

They need prioritise real editor features than bs ai crap. Debuggers, full git rebase and merge conflict managing.

Tried it, but VS Code is still great for me right now.