Visual Studio Code, also commonly referred to as VS Code, is a source-code editor made by Microsoft with the Electron Framework, for Windows, Linux and macOS. Features include support for

debugging In computer programming and software development, debugging is the process of finding and resolving '' bugs'' (defects or problems that prevent correct operation) within computer programs, software, or systems. Debugging tactics can involve in ...

, syntax highlighting, intelligent code completion, snippets,

code refactoring In computer programming and software design, code refactoring is the process of restructuring existing computer code—changing the '' factoring''—without changing its external behavior. Refactoring is intended to improve the design, structur ...

, and embedded Git. Users can change the

theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (arts), the unifying subject or idea of the type of visual work * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical ...

, keyboard shortcuts, preferences, and install

extension Extension, extend or extended may refer to: Mathematics Logic or set theory * Axiom of extensionality * Extensible cardinal * Extension (model theory) * Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values that satisfy the predicate * E ...

s that add additional functionality. In the Stack Overflow 2021 Developer Survey, Visual Studio Code was ranked the most popular developer environment tool among 82,000 respondents, with 70% reporting that they use it.

History

Visual Studio Code was first announced on April 29, 2015, by Microsoft at the 2015

Build Build may refer to: * Engineering something * Construction * Physical body stature, especially muscle size; usually of the human body * Build (game engine), a 1995 first-person shooter engine * "Build" (song), a 1987 song by The Housemartins * ...

conference. A preview build was released shortly thereafter. On November 18, 2015, the source of Visual Studio Code was released under the MIT License, and made available on GitHub. Extension support was also announced. On April 14, 2016, Visual Studio Code graduated from the public preview stage and was released to the Web. Microsoft has released most of Visual Studio Code's source code on GitHub under the permissive MIT License, while the releases by Microsoft are proprietary freeware.

Features

Visual Studio Code is a source-code editor that can be used with a variety of programming languages, including C#, Java, JavaScript, Go,

Node.js Node.js is an open-source server environment. Node.js is cross-platform and runs on Windows, Linux, Unix, and macOS. Node.js is a back-end JavaScript runtime environment. Node.js runs on the V8 JavaScript Engine and executes JavaScript code ou ...

, Python, C++, C, Rust and Fortran. It is based on the Electron framework, which is used to develop

web applications that run on the

Blink layout engine Blink is a browser engine developed as part of the Chromium project with contributions from Google, Meta, Microsoft, Opera Software, Adobe, Intel, IBM, Samsung, and others. It was first announced in April 2013. Naming Blink's naming was in ...

. Visual Studio Code employs the same editor component (codenamed "Monaco") used in Azure DevOps (formerly called Visual Studio Online and Visual Studio Team Services). Out of the box, Visual Studio Code includes basic support for most common programming languages. This basic support includes syntax highlighting, bracket matching, code folding, and configurable snippets. Visual Studio Code also ships with

IntelliSense Intelligent code completion is a context-aware code completion feature in some programming environments that speeds up the process of coding applications by reducing typos and other common mistakes. Attempts at this are usually done through auto-c ...

for JavaScript, TypeScript,

JSON JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other ser ...

CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...

, and HTML, as well as debugging support for Node.js. Support for additional languages can be provided by freely available extensions on the VS Code Marketplace. Visual Studio Code Insiders logo, alt=An orange version of the Visual Studio Code logo for the insiders version of Visual Studio Code Instead of a project system, it allows users to open one or more directories, which can then be saved in workspaces for future reuse. This allows it to operate as a language-agnostic code editor for any language. It supports many programming languages and a set of features that differs per language. Unwanted files and folders can be excluded from the project tree via the settings. Many Visual Studio Code features are not exposed through menus or the user interface but can be accessed via the command palette. Visual Studio Code can be extended via

s, available through a central repository. This includes additions to the editor and language support. A notable feature is the ability to create extensions that add support for new languages,

s, debuggers, time travel debuggers, perform static code analysis, and add code linters using the Language Server Protocol.

Source control In software engineering, version control (also known as revision control, source control, or source code management) is a class of systems responsible for managing changes to computer programs, documents, large web sites, or other collections o ...

is a built-in feature of Visual Studio Code. It has a dedicated tab inside of the menu bar where users can access version control settings and view changes made to the current project. To use the feature, Visual Studio Code must be linked to any supported version control system ( Git, Apache Subversion,

Perforce Perforce, legally Perforce Software, Inc., is an American developer of software used for developing and running applications, including version control software, web-based repository management, developer collaboration, application lifecycle mana ...

, etc.). This allows users to create repositories as well as to make push and pull requests directly from the Visual Studio Code program. Visual Studio Code includes multiple extensions for FTP, allowing the software to be used as a free alternative for web development. Code can be synced between the editor and the server, without downloading any extra software. Visual Studio Code allows users to set the

code page In computing, a code page is a character encoding and as such it is a specific association of a set of printable characters and control characters with unique numbers. Typically each number represents the binary value in a single byte. (In some co ...

in which the active document is saved, the

newline Newline (frequently called line ending, end of line (EOL), next line (NEL) or line break) is a control character or sequence of control characters in character encoding specifications such as ASCII, EBCDIC, Unicode, etc. This character, or a ...

character, and the programming language of the active document. This allows it to be used on any platform, in any locale, and for any given programming language. Visual Studio Code collects usage data and sends it to Microsoft, although this can be disabled. Due to the open-source nature of the application, the telemetry code is accessible to the public, who can see exactly what is collected.

Reception

In the 2016 Developers Survey of Stack Overflow, Visual Studio Code ranked No. 13 among the top popular development tools, with only 7% of the 47,000 respondents using it. Two years later, however, Visual Studio Code achieved the No. 1 spot, with 35% of the 75,000 respondents using it. In the 2019 Developers Survey, Visual Studio Code was also ranked No. 1, with 50% of the 87,000 respondents using it. In the 2021 Developers Survey, Visual Studio Code continues to be ranked No. 1, with 70% of the 82,000 respondents using it, rising to 74.48% of the 71,010 responses in the 2022 survey.

Forks

*VSCodium: It is a community-driven version of Visual Studio Code without Microsoft's telemetry, with binaries licensed under the MIT license.

References

External links

VSCodium

*
Github page
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Code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

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