The Reality of Kotlin Support in VSCode: Why JetBrains Prioritizes IntelliJ

Kotlin Support in VSCode

Developer TurtleStoffel investigated the viability of Kotlin development within VSCode using existing open-source extensions. Despite high download numbers, these tools frequently fail to provide reliable debugging for complex, non-toy applications.

Why This Matters

The technical reality of Kotlin development is dictated by JetBrains’ commercial strategy, which prioritizes IDE lock-in over the ubiquity of the language. While the industry standard is shifting toward the Language Server Protocol to enable cross-editor compatibility, JetBrains explicitly avoids this protocol to maintain a competitive advantage for IntelliJ IDEA, forcing a choice between developer preference and tool reliability.

Key Insights

• The ‘Kotlin Language’ extension by mathiasfrohlich provides only basic syntax highlighting and code snippets, lacking essential deep programming features.
• The ‘Kotlin’ extension by fwcd includes debugging support, yet it often fails to function outside of simple example projects according to user experience.
• JetBrains has stated they will not officially support VSCode or the Language Server Protocol to ensure they can build features directly into their own products.
• The quality of the Kotlin experience in IntelliJ IDEA is officially prioritized by JetBrains over the needs of developers using non-JetBrains tools.
• JetBrains views the preference for VSCode as a choice they do not want to encourage, aiming instead to consolidate the user base within their own ecosystem.

Practical Applications

• Use case: Enterprise backend development using IntelliJ IDEA to ensure access to full debugging and first-party language support.
• Pitfall: Relying on open-source VSCode extensions for complex Kotlin projects often leads to configuration errors and unusable debugging environments.

References:

• https://dev.to/turtlestoffel/kotlin-support-in-vscode-8gn