Beyond hot reloading

I was subscribing to updates on this new vscode extension “Visual Studio IntelliCode” from Microsoft (AI-assisted development!) and made some interesting points we may have forgotten about. They asked “What problems do you most often see in writing code or code reviews?”

identifying unused code paths would be cool…
but really need a better connection between rendered app and the code I am writing. VScode should “merge” into chrome devtools as the src tab or something like that. The left activity bar would have to be merged with the chrome dev tools tabs. Not sure if it would primarily exist as a visually-detached chrome devtools window, or if vscode would remain it’s own independent application. If you have multiple tabs you get into a weird situation of not know which “devtools” window is attached to which browser tab. I think figuring out how to merge vscode into the chromium devtools for ie would be amazing. The source panel in chrome devtools definitely sucks. It could be overhauled to at least use a miniature/portable vscode (perhaps with extensions disabled to start)

This may require significant javascript tooling changes, and using bleeding edge versions of browsers, along with turning on some chrome flags. I’m not sure where hot reloading would fit in with all this. It might be a step beyond hot reloading, or might need a new term like “reloadless” or “inplace editing” although these terms are not at all exciting. JAMstack made an exciting word out of something really not at all interesting. Maybe “live editing” or something like that.

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