Visual Studio Code

Early in the journey of becoming a programmer Notepad was, probably, the first text and code editor to many. The need for a more feature-rich tool to write and debug code comes along with gaining experience.

One option is Visual Studio Code, one of the most popular source-code editors available, primarily designed to provide a reliable text and code editor that streamlines code development and debugging.

It is worth mentioning from the start that Visual Studio Code is different from Visual Studio, despite their misleading names.

While Visual Studio code is a fully equipped, powerful IDE that bundles all the tools needed to build an application from scratch (including a code editor), Visual Studio Code or, in short, VSCode, is primarily a text editor with support for multiple coding languages that allows code editing and compiling.

The two are also different in terms of processing speed, size and system requirements, as well as support for extended functionality via plugins and language support.

In other words, VSCode is like the little brother of Visual Studio, perfect for daily programming tasks and more simple projects.

Visual Studio Code comes with support for over one hundred programming languages: JavaScript, Typescript, and Node JS, C++, C#, HTML/CSS, Java, PHP, Perl, Python, SQL or Visual Basic, to name a few of the built-in languages. However, many more languages can be added to this list as extensions.

The entire development environment in Visual Studio Code can be customized, starting with the theme and continuing with the extensions, font, and the looks and feel of the editor.

Basic features that are sought after by any programmer, such as syntax highlighting and line numbering are there, while Intellisense allows intelligent code completions based on various criteria. Additional extensions can be added to include AI-based programming aids in the editor.

Visual Studio Code features code editing and reliable debugging functions and tools, allowing you to set up break points and debug via the interactive console. Moreover, it features built-in Git support and other SCM providers.

Visual Studio Code is the ideal editor for daily programming operations, providing a fully customizable environment via extensions, which allow Ai integration, support for new languages, new GUI themes, and so on.

While getting familiar with Visual Studio Code might need some time, the steps in the “Welcome” window allow you to tune and sync the editor’s settings, discover productivity tools and even access video tutorials to get acquainted with VSCode’s key functions.