VS Code for everyone

I have been using VS code for almost 3 years now and it never stops surprising me in terms of the features; read as extensions; it provides.

The more I use VS Code, the more I love it and I think it’s not just a ‘code editor’ for developers anymore. It has a lot to offer to every person associated with lifecycle of a Software.

Whether you are in the role of a developer or QA, Devops or an architect or product analyst, VS Code has an extension for you and if you don’t find the extension for your work, you can create and contribute one. Although there is good enough documentation and Getting Started guides etc. for VS code extension development, it is not as easy as it sounds.

Just a line about history:

VS code is a free source-code editor from Microsoft which was released in 2015 and it works on Windows, Linux and MacOS.

What follows is a list of VS Code extensions which I think are a must in your VS code.

For Developers:

VS Code is already a popular IDE for Typescript and Javascript development.

If you are a Python developer, do checkout the Python extension for VS code from Microsoft. I think, VS Code is yet no match for PyCharm when it comes to complete application development in Python, but it still is very useful for writing scripts in Python. The extension helps in writing, debugging, unit-testing and executing Python code with features like Intellisense, linting and refactoring. In addition, the extension can be used to work with your Jupyter notebooks too. Also, there is a separate extension from Microsoft specifically for Jupyter notebooks.

A special mention for Azure:

There are extensions from Microsoft for almost every service on Azure. Just search for Azure in the extensions marketplace search box, and you’ll see a huge list.

There are plugins for some of the Google Cloud platform services and AWS, but the list is not as exhaustive as for Azure.

For Developers and Devops Engineers:

Azure pipelines extension is a great help for managing your build pipelines through the IDE.

If you are using Jenkins, for build, deployment and automation, then there are also a lot of plugins for managing Jenkins pipelines and tasks. You can pick and choose the ones suiting your needs.

Whether you are a developer or a Devops Engineer, a docker file should be part of your day-to-day work.

The Docker extension from Microsoft is very useful to get Intellisense while writing or editing docker files, running docker commands and using image registries like Docker Hub and Azure Container Registry.

Check out the Kubernetes extension from Microsoft for creating, viewing and managing Kubernetes clusters.

Below is glimpse at commands you can run with the extension and the list speaks a lot.

For Developers, Architects, QAs:

If you follow the API-first practice, SwaggerHub extension from SmartBear is perfect fit for viewing and editing your Open API Specs with SwaggerHub. It provides easy integration with SwaggerHub account for your organization along with features like API preview, validating APIs and mocking APIs for testing.

For Everyone:

A diagram speaks thousand words and always helps you convey the idea better, no matter the role you are playing. Sequence diagrams, flowcharts, component diagrams are widely used by everyone.

The most popular VS code extension for PlantUML is from jebbs, it is very intuitive and easy for creating sequence diagrams, class diagrams, component diagrams etc. through simple English like statements. You can use it to create, preview, edit puml diagrams and you can also export the content to various file formats like png, pdf, svg, txt etc. The preview feature helps you to see the diagrams as you create them.

Checkout the Mermaid extensions for creating sequence diagrams, flow charts for your workflows through Markdown files. It is also very easy to use and helps you create diagrams just with plain English statements. Like plantuml, you can preview the diagrams while creating them.

The list of extensions available for VS Code in the marketplace is no short, but I hope the above list helps as good start. Other than that, do let me know in comments if there are other great extensions that I may have missed.