Hi @baqwas, how are you?
That was something that I had in mind at the first time I was dealing with the Azure Sphere Kit.
But, thinking about how it is really structured - to work with Azure ecosystem - I believe that the VS 2017 and beyond will be the only IDEs for now.
In other words, the Azure Sphere Kit is meant to be used with Azure cloud, taking in consideration its domain signature structure, and other things related to coded upload and data exchange.
This could change, in my opinion, if other IDEs began to support Azure domain signature, which is needed to authenticate with the Azure Sphere.
I can imagine that JetBrains IDEs may be strong candidates, they are friends with Microsoft things.
Best,
Andre Curvello