As a long time Sublime user, having side-bar tabs in editors like Brackets or VS Code is definitely quite annoying. I wish they offered the option to place tabs on the top as an alternative.

I agree. Please vote for this:

https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/293070-visual-stud...

This is the sole blocker for me. With 20 years of muscle memory, tabs and tab hot-keys (i.e. command+1, command+2, etc.) are simply not optional.