Best of InfoWorld — January 2026

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   Article

   InfoWorld·19w

   Why ‘boring’ VS Code keeps winning

   VS Code maintains 76% market share among professional developers in 2025, even as AI-first editors like Cursor and Google's Antigravity emerge. Microsoft's dominance stems from ecosystem lock-in, with many new tools forking VS Code's codebase rather than replacing it. GitHub Copilot reached 20 million users, benefiting from distribution through existing workflows. However, trust issues emerged in 2025 around forced AI adoption, API deprecations, and security vulnerabilities. Google's Antigravity shows promise but faces skepticism due to Google's history of discontinuing products. The competitive advantage lies not in features but in providing stable, integrated developer experiences that enterprises can rely on long-term.

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   Article

   InfoWorld·18w

   PHP language still relevant, advocate insists

   PHP remains highly relevant in 2026 despite declining spotlight, powering major platforms like WordPress and Drupal. A Perforce Zend specialist argues PHP is still the most popular server-side language by wide margin, with PHP 8.x improvements addressing performance concerns through JIT compilation and enhanced concurrency handling. While Python excels at ML and real-time analytics, and Java suits massive enterprise systems, PHP offers faster development cycles and adapts well to cloud-native and containerized deployments. Current language popularity indexes rank PHP between 7th and 15th place.

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   Article

   InfoWorld·19w

   Stack thinking: Why a single AI platform won’t cut it

   Relying on a single AI platform for all tasks leads to shallow research, generic output, and brittle workflows. Instead, adopt "stack thinking" by curating specialized AI tools for distinct functions like research, synthesis, production, and automation. Build workflows with fixed schemas and orchestration layers to manage integration overhead. Treat tools like specialized hires, evaluating them based on unique capabilities and compounding value. Maintain vendor independence through portability and disciplined, iterative tool selection rather than chasing every new platform.

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