Instead of syntax highlighting do you want… minimal syntax in languages?
Instead of autocomplete do you just want to type the thing out manually?
Instead of go-to def do you just want the code in 1 file?
These things didn't require language servers historically, but LSP was an attempt to reduce "many editors re-implementing the same functionality many times" to "implementing the same functionality once and connecting many editors to it". This has a cost, and YMMV on the docs for getting LSPs set up, but I don't think I'd prefer going back. I don't use it, but it seems like VSCode has 1-click plugin installs for most of these LSP integrations, more or less?
Notice I said these features sound (and should be) easy, but they are not. The “intellisense” features themselves are fine as QoL improvements.
It’s the environment and the languages themselves that produces these “problems”. I mean, let’s say, Python. I just don’t know what to say to you if you think sanity lies in that direction.
I’m in the somewhat marginal Alan Kay camp and think computing can and should be reconsidered from scratch. I cannot prove we are on a dead end, but I have the strong sense that we are and I want to encourage other paradigms and ways of approaching development and computing in general.
Instead of syntax highlighting do you want… minimal syntax in languages? Instead of autocomplete do you just want to type the thing out manually? Instead of go-to def do you just want the code in 1 file?
These things didn't require language servers historically, but LSP was an attempt to reduce "many editors re-implementing the same functionality many times" to "implementing the same functionality once and connecting many editors to it". This has a cost, and YMMV on the docs for getting LSPs set up, but I don't think I'd prefer going back. I don't use it, but it seems like VSCode has 1-click plugin installs for most of these LSP integrations, more or less?