
Insider Build of VSCode for Windows/ARM64 - soapdog
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/33620#issuecomment-635367046
======
soapdog
The Visual Studio Code version from the Insiders Program is now available as a
native arm64 build for Windows 10. Owners of Surface Pro X can finally use a
native editor on the platform.

Still this is still an electron-based editor and even in native arm64 it uses
a lot of RAM. On my Surface Pro X, I just launched both VSCode compiled for
ARM64 and Sublime Text compiled for ia32. VSCode is using about 300MB+ and
Sublime Text (working under built-in ia32 emulation) is using 15MB.

I’m happy to have native VSCode, not only because many people rely on that but
because it means that Electron, NodeJS, and node-gyp must be working for
Windows on ARM in a somewhat stable manner and that will open the doors for
other applications to arrive in the platform soon (I hope).

I know that most readers here are not keen on anything Microsoft related, I
understand that and in many cases share the sentiment and views but there
might be readers that got an SPX and were waiting for this release like I was.
If you were running the insider preview compiled for ia32, it won’t
automatically change to arm64, you’ll need to download again.

~~~
mehrdadn
I feel like a dinosaur because a "native" app to me means pretty much the
exact opposite of an electron app.

~~~
dmortin
True, but remember when many apps were not made for Linux, because it was not
worth it? With Electron at least we have apps like VSCode for Linux too. Not
ideal, but better than nothing.

~~~
jfkebwjsbx
Blender, Photoshop, Premiere, Maya, ZBrush, CATIA, AutoCAD, and hundreds of
other specialized tools are not moving to Electron anytime soon...

My point is that we shouldn’t embrace for Electron just because we want
applications in Linux.

In addition, Election is not a guarantee of a Linux port either.

~~~
seph-reed
Eventually we're going to just have a means of saying: Save this webpage as an
app.

I mean, we do already. It's called PWAs, and I have many of my favorite sites
saved as an app. But it's featureless and lame.

Point being, Electron is just a stopgap while PWAs are figured out. And with
the advent of WASM, we'll be able to run some pretty heavy stuff.

[https://wasm.continuation-labs.com/d3demo/](https://wasm.continuation-
labs.com/d3demo/)

My long term strategy: Learn rust for WASM, keep an eye on PWAs

~~~
jfkebwjsbx
Wasm is still very early and lacks a _lot_ of features. It is also not as fast
as a native application.

The browsers also lack many APIs to compete with native applications, and
those are not coming soon either.

Web apps are just fine, even nowadays, for many things. But for heavy lifting,
no, they are still way, way behind.

(By the way, you can compile to Wasm with almost any popular language, not
just Rust).

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gmaster1440
Awesome, now we just need VSCode running natively on an iPad with Docker
support! Pipe dreams?

~~~
harpratap
I have absolutely no hope for docker support on OSX, let alone iPadOS

~~~
lukevp
I'm confused about this - I don't use OSX for anything other than Logic, but
there's a Docker desktop app for OSX [0] so I assumed it could run docker
containers? Is that not true?

[0]: [https://hub.docker.com/editions/community/docker-ce-
desktop-...](https://hub.docker.com/editions/community/docker-ce-desktop-mac)

~~~
zerkten
I think the poster may mean performance, or other aspects are problematic. You
can definitely use the Docker desktop app for macOS to run docker containers.

------
gre
Meanwhile, Google still hasn't released an arm64 Windows 10 build of Chrome.

~~~
soapdog
I don't know if you know but Firefox has native builds for Windows on ARM. You
might want to give it a try. It is one of the reasons I was OK with buying the
Surface Pro X, I was sure I'd have a good native browser.

~~~
gre
I forget to use Firefox. I just installed the Edge Chromium browser to see how
fast it feels.

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Dharmakirti
Looks cool. This combined with the release of the new RasPi will be a great
era for lightweight computing on small devices.

~~~
Mister_Snuggles
While I don't think this is what you intended with your comment, it got me
thinking that Windows on a Raspberry Pi would be a very interesting
proposition!

~~~
ShamelessC
Good news!

[https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/install-
windows-10-on-r...](https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/install-
windows-10-on-raspberry-pi,5993.html)

There's also the more official "Windows 10 IoT Core" option which has images
specifically for Raspberry Pi.

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/download/details.aspx?id=550...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/download/details.aspx?id=55029)

