If you actually understand the programming language, libraries, problem, and think about your solution first, you can code just fine in ed, the standard text editor. Sometimes I do, I'm the third real programmer

In practice, I mostly code in Vim, which launches instantly, is completely customizable, and I can type and edit faster than in anything else. IDEs are excruciatingly slow, with all the highlighting and analysis stuff on, waiting for code completion instead of just typing it out because you know things.

You don't need any of that.

There's also the issue that VSCode is spyware created by Microsoft, and both things should send you running away.

For me personally it's probably mostly just momentum or habit at this point. I got into Linux on the late 90s or early 00s. Vim was the best option at the time so I figured it out mostly out of necessity. Now I'm just so comfortable with it and I've tweaked it to high hell it's like a perfectly broken in pair of shoes.. Everything fits me just right. I don't see any real benefit to switching to vs code. I've tried it but didn't like it. Things like filesystem navigation were so clunky and slow compared to what I was used to.

Whatever.. No judgement. There are obviously great developers out there using vs code. This just works for me.

I would prefer micro instead and it is cross-platform

Superiority complex, obviously.