After years of using VSCode, the author switched to Zed due to frustrations with VSCode's increasing focus on AI features that cluttered the experience. Frequent updates introduced unwanted tools like GitHub Copilot, which the author didn't use, leading to a growing list of settings meant to disable these features. Performance issues, including crashes and sluggishness, further pushed the author to seek alternatives. Zed, a modern and lightweight IDE written in Rust, caught their attention for its simplicity and speed. Transitioning to Zed was mostly smooth, thanks to its similar UI and keybindings to VSCode. However, the author faced challenges while setting up Python development. Zed uses Basedpyright as its default language server, which operates under stricter type-checking settings than the author's preferred configuration. After some troubleshooting, the author discovered that explicit settings in `pyproject.toml` were essential to avoid unexpected type-checking issues. They also adjusted `settings.json` to improve real-time diagnostics. Despite these hurdles, Zed proved faster and stable, enhancing the overall coding experience. While Zed's extension ecosystem is smaller than VSCode's, it met the author's needs. They appreciated the IDE's performance and responsiveness and found Zed's AI features non-intrusive. The author noted that Zed's development is ongoing, with potential for future enhancements, while also acknowledging that VSCode now faces a stronger competitor. The author shared their minimal `settings.json` configuration for reference, highlighting key adjustments that helped optimize their use of Zed for Python and Go development.