First, don’t get confused by name “Visual Studio Code”. Initially when I heard this name “VS Code”, my instant reaction was “it may be a plug-in and it has some connection with Visual Studio 2015. But I was wrong”. Visual studio code is a separate product from Microsoft and it is completely different from Visual studio 2015.
What is Visual Studio Code?
Visual Studio Code is free, cross platform, super fast and lightweight code editor developed by Microsoft for Windows, Linux and OS X. Since a lot of developers use windows as their development environment, but there are also lots of developers using Linux and Mac. So, Visual studio code is for them. Though, you can also use it on windows. Since ASP.NET 5 is also cross platform as having a code editor on linux and mac makes sense. Recently ASP.NET 5 RC1 was released and please give a read to What’s new in ASP.NET 5 RC1 and RC2 and if you are new to ASP.NET 5 then read Quick summary of what’s changed in ASP.NET 5. and ASP.NET 5 is now ASP.NET Core 1.0
Visual studio code is based on Electron framework, which is used to build cross platform desktop application using web technologies.
Features of Visual studio code
- Developers can use VS Code to build web applications in JavaScript, TypeScript, ASP.NET 5, Node.js and others.
- Support for debugging: Debugging support for Node.js (JavaScript and TypeScript) on all platforms and experimental support for Mono (C# and F#) on OS X and Linux.
- Intellisense support. See below image for list of language supported and for intellisense support.
- Customizable editor: You can change themes, keyboard shortcuts and workspace settings.
- Create your own snippets and it also allows you to work with up to 3 files side by side.
- Editing features
- Bracket matching
- Parameter hints for methods
- Selection and multi cursor
- Go to definition and Go to Symbol support
- Shows errors and warnings in status bar
- Read about all the editing settings here.
Look and feel
VS Code is based on files and folders. You can open a file or folder that contains project files or code. The UI has an editor, view bar, status bar and sidebar. It also has an explorer window to manage folders and files. And from here you can create, rename, move or delete any file and folder. There is also an Auto save feature, when enabled your changes will be saved automatically to disk.
Difference between Visual Studio Code vs Visual Studio 2015
| Visual Studio Code | Visual Studio 2015 |
|---|---|
| It is cross platform. Works on windows, linux and mac. | This only works on windows. |
| Visual studio code is based on files and folders. | Visual Studio 2015 is based on project and solutions. |
| It is fast as its lightweight. | Compare to VS code, it’s not that fast. But it does lots of other stuff which makes it a little heavy. |
| It mainly targets front-end developers. | This can be used by any developer. |
| Intellisense support is very little compare to VS 2015. | No match with VS code as far as intellisense and debugging is concerned. |
| For now, it supports only limited languages. | Supports almost all .net related languages. |
So give Visual Studio code a try. You can download it from here. And also read Why to use VS Code.
VSCode is now All-in-One Text Editor, Extension Marketplace has everything you need.
Is VS code the goto ide for Angular 4?
My answer would be Yes. It’s pretty light and super fast.
Wow. That is so elegant and logical and clearly explained. Brilliantly goes through what could be a complex process and makes it obvious.
Devops: there is no need to cloud things up or make it murky. Use it or don’t. Move on.