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> VS Code is just a text editor that has extensions for specific programming languages

Extensions that offer syntax highlighting, debugging, refactoring, code inspection, command line integration, dependency management, etc. How is that different from an IDE?

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All those can be done in Emacs and Vim though. VS Code is only surprising to people who haven't used serious text editors, which have had these features for decades. But what Emacs, Vim, and VS Code don't have that IDEs do is the idea of proprietary "projects" for building your code that don't work if you don't use the IDE. Instead you are free to use whatever system you want. Makefiles. Cmake. Ant. Maven., etc. Your choice, which you can easily use with any other editor you choose.

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