VSCode is growing which is concerning, not from a competitive point of view but actually from the point of view that there is clearly a lack of understanding of what an IDE gives you. VSCode is a code editor with some features that you’d find in an IDE, and extensions that can provide additional functionality – so if people are turning to VSCode for developing it may imply that developers don’t know what a fully-featured IDE can give them. In the web space it is understandable to use an editor as web developers are typically working with dynamic languages, and often use other tools like browser plugins to give them what they need.. But in Java, especially professional Java, you really get a lot out of a good tool that has integration with the application server and you can really use the analysis and refactoring and everything.

IME a lot of developers don't like their IDE heavily coupled to backend servers and environments, but actually prefer the "code editor + useful features" approach. It makes combining with CI/CD a lot simpler for one, since the activities run on a project can simply be the same as those run on the pipeline. A quick "mvn install" is often enough for many/most modules. Many devs only really want advanced editing + syntax highlighting + language server.

I personally find IDEs are way too complex and cluttered for my personal tastes. To boot, a code editor allows for unified workflows across a broad swathe of languages in ways that IDEs simply can't replicate. It's a pity Jetbrains has long held a dismissive attitude[2] toward developers that don't want a full blown IDE, but that's what you get when there are financial incentives attached.

[0]: https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/

[1]: https://github.com/fwcd/kotlin-language-server

[2]: https://discuss.kotlinlang.org/t/any-plan-for-supporting-lan...