# Choosing between Shell, Emacs, and VSCode
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/choosing-between-shell-emacs-and-vscode/65968
**Category:** Tooling
**Tags:** repl, vscode, emacs
**Created:** [August 6, 2021, 9:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/choosing-between-shell-emacs-and-vscode/65968 "2021-08-06T21:49:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@greatpet](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/greatpet)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2021, 9:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/choosing-between-shell-emacs-and-vscode/65968/1 "2021-08-06T21:49:19Z")
What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of the following three environments? 1. REPL in terminal. 2. Emacs + julia-mode + julia-repl-mode. 3. VSCode with Julia extension.
Specifically, between the Julia plugins for Emacs and VSCode, which one is more actively maintained? Which one has more up-to-date syntax highlighting given that Julia has an evolving syntax (e.g. new features in v1.7)? Is Revise.jl support still missing from VSCode?
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### Author:  [@jzr](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jzr)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2021, 10:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/choosing-between-shell-emacs-and-vscode/65968/2 "2021-08-06T22:30:55Z")
Using a repl in the terminal is in a different category than the two IDE options you mentioned. You can use terminal for quick interactive jobs, but I wouldn’t use it for writing programs.
For IDEs, VSCode vs Emacs is a much bigger conversation and there is no simple answer. VSCode has more users. Emacs has a lot of power unavailable in any other system.
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### Author:  [@davidanthoff](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/davidanthoff)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2021, 12:43am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/choosing-between-shell-emacs-and-vscode/65968/3 "2021-08-07T00:43:36Z")
> [@greatpet](#):
>
> VSCode with Julia extension
We expose the standard REPL in VS Code with lots of extra integration, so you can use that as well from there.
> [@greatpet](#):
>
> Which one has more up-to-date syntax highlighting given that Julia has an evolving syntax
I’m pretty sure we are all using the same syntax highlighting rules.
> [@greatpet](#):
>
> Is Revise.jl support still missing from VSCode?
Revise.jl has been supported in VS Code for years 🙂 We even have an option to turn it on and off.
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### Author:  [@tbeason](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/tbeason)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2021, 1:55am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/choosing-between-shell-emacs-and-vscode/65968/4 "2021-08-07T01:55:30Z")
When it comes to things like this, you really just need to explore for yourself and see what works for you. I use VS Code, but I used to use vim.