Visual Studio Code — Why you should consider using Microsofts code editor

Dominik Biedebach
Aug 9, 2017 · 4 min read

There are currently a few editors floating around the web which are free, open source and backed by large companies for example Github’s Atom, Adobe’s Brackets or Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code. In this article I’ll explain what kind of features I really like about Visual Studio Code and why I did the switch.

It all started when VS Code was released. I tested it and saw a lot of potential but still missing features in the editor. Also the extension library was still really small. I went back to Atom and didn’t thought about VS Code again. At some point, VS Code started to come back really hard. I was using Twitter and saw a lot of people using Visual Studio Code and the screenshots they provided looked super interesting. So I redownloaded VS Code and checked out what changed.

The fastest electron based code editor out there

Visual Studio Code is really fast. While Atom is dying with each package you install, VS Code stays almost the same as without any extension. Loading the editor just takes a few seconds and viewing large files is no problem for Visual Studio Code.

This was one of the largest problems I had with Atom. Even linters and the Intellisense feature don’t seem to slow down VS Code at all.

A large collection of extensions

Even though Visual Studio Code still has less extensions than Atom, the amount of extensions in the store gets more and more every day. The extension browser is also really good and allows you to rate extensions. You can receive recommended extensions based on your workspace or show the most popular without leaving Visual Studio Code.

The Visual Studio Code Marketplace (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/vscode)

For now I didn’t have any problems finding extensions to solve problems I had while working with Visual Studio Code.

Great debugger and integrated linter UI

While Atom needs additional packages to be loaded into the UI, Visual Studio Code already has an integrated UI for linters, console outputs and even a integrated terminal which can be used to check build and watch statuses or use git without leaving the code editor.

The implemented linting UI is fast and responsive

Another big plus is the integrated Debugger which can be extended with all kind of extensions to support PHP, Node.js, Ruby, Go and even more languages. You can even debug your Javascript inside Chrome via the debugger. It allows you to set breakpoints, jump between them and check everything inside your code editor.

The Chrome debugger extension allows you to hook into Chrome and debug your Javascript

Integrated Git

For users with good knowledge with working in terminals, this may not be the biggest news but Visual Studio Code comes with integrated Git support. That means you can write commits, push, pull, sync, revert, check the history and logs and blame code lines from within the editor. Also there are a lot of extensions which allow you to even further extend the git integration to your needs.

Good window management

What I really liked about Visual Studio Code is, that windows are loaded really fast and are also easy to switch. If you need to switch projects, you can use the reopen feature to look at your latest opened projects. Loading a project won’t open a new window but use the same window you had open and replaces the editor content with the current projects content.

While switching projects, all projects states are saved so whenever you come back to your project you can pick up where you left.

Intellisense

If you used Visual Studio before you should know about Intellisense. Intellisense allows you to get great autocompletions, documentations and helper popups and allows you to jump to definitions or calls in your code just as you know it from high professional IDEs.

The Intellisense autocompletion gives you informations about functions and is extendable via extensions

Intellisense allows you to extend it with extensions so you can add libraries or CMS to your autocompletion (for example Wordpress functions, classes and global variables).

Settings management

Visual Studio Code follows the same concept as Sublime Text. All configurations are done via JSON and can be exported everywhere you want to. That allows you to take your editor with you wherever you go as long as you save your configuration in the cloud. This can be done via symlinks to Google Drive, Dropbox etc. or using a VS Code extension and private gists.

Visual Studio Code configuration editor

Conclusion

Everything I said are my personal views on Visual Studio Code. I switched and really like working with the editor. Even though it still misses some features I’m optimistic that these features will come in the future in form of extensions or feature updates by the Microsoft team.

Thank you for reading my first Medium article!

Dominik Biedebach

Written by

Frontend-Developer, hobby designer and videogame enthausiast working with Wordpress and Flynt. ♥ VUE.JS

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