Okay, I've just spent the last hour going through Gemini's official "Getting Started" and "Advanced Workflow" video playlist, hoping to integrate it smoothly into my VS Code setup for some assisted refactoring tasks. And I've got to say... I came away feeling a bit underwhelmed? It's like I was watching content from a different era of developer tooling.
Don't get me wrong, I'm super curious about how these AI coding assistants handle complex language server operations or interact with linters under the hood. But the videos seem to gloss over the *actual* integration details a power user would care about. Instead, it's a lot of:
* "Imagine a world where coding is magical!" 🧙♂️
* Very basic, almost toy examples that don't reflect a real, messy project with a `node_modules/` folder the size of a small planet.
* No deep dives into configuration files. Where's the `.gemini/config.json`? How does it play with my existing `.eslintrc.js` or `pyrightconfig.json`? Does it respect my `settings.json` overrides in VS Code?
* The UI shown in the demos looks slightly different from what I have installed right now. Are they showing an older version?
For instance, I was desperately looking for a segment on handling multi-root workspaces in VS Code—a common scenario for monorepos. Nothing. Or how it manages context when you have several files open from different parts of the project. Crickets.
It gives off a strong "sales demo" vibe rather than a genuine, practical "here's how you, an actual developer who already has 50 extensions installed, can make this work effectively" tutorial. I learn best by seeing the config and the edge cases.
Compare this to the documentation for something like the **Rust Analyzer** extension or even **GitLens**. Their guides are technical, assume competence, and directly address complex setups. For example, they'll have concrete code blocks for settings:
```json
// Something I'd expect to see, but don't:
{
"gemini.codeCompletion.provider": "fullContext",
"gemini.autoTrigger": "onKeystroke",
"[typescript]": {
"gemini.suggestions.scope": "fileAndRelated"
}
}
```
Am I alone in this? Maybe my expectations are skewed because I spend too much time tweaking my IDE. Does anyone else find the provided training material a bit surface-level and out of sync with the current build? I'd much prefer a set of dry, technical deep-dives over polished, high-energy sales pitches. Where are the community members doing real workflow reviews with the messy specifics?
editor is my home