Developer(s) | Microsoft |
---|---|
Initial release | April 29, 2015 |
Stable release | |
Preview release | |
Repository | |
Written in | TypeScript, JavaScript, HTML, CSS [3] |
Operating system | Windows 10 or later, macOS 10.15 or later, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, SUSE |
Platform | x86-64, ARM32 [lower-alpha 1] , ARM64 |
Size |
|
Available in | 15 languages |
List of languages English (US), Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Hungarian, Turkish, Polish, Czech [4] | |
Type | Source-code editor |
License |
|
Website | code |
Visual Studio Code, also commonly referred to as VS Code, [9] is a source-code editor developed by Microsoft for Windows, Linux, macOS and web browsers. [10] [11] Features include support for debugging, syntax highlighting, intelligent code completion, snippets, code refactoring, and embedded version control with Git. Users can change the theme, keyboard shortcuts, preferences, and install extensions that add functionality.
In the Stack Overflow 2023 Developer Survey, Visual Studio Code was ranked the most popular developer environment tool among 86,544 respondents, with 73.71% reporting that they use it. [12]
Visual Studio Code was first announced on April 29, 2015 by Microsoft at the 2015 Build conference. A preview build was released shortly thereafter. [13]
On November 18, 2015, the source code of Visual Studio Code was released under the MIT License and made available on GitHub. Extension support was also announced. [14] On April 14, 2016, Visual Studio Code graduated from the public preview stage and was released to the web. [15] Microsoft has released most of Visual Studio Code's source code on GitHub under the permissive MIT License, [5] [16] while the editor itself[ clarification needed ] is distributed by Microsoft as proprietary freeware. [7]
Visual Studio Code is a source-code editor that can be used with a variety of programming languages, including C, C#, C++, Fortran, Go, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, Python, Rust, and Julia. [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] Visual Studio Code employs the same editor component (codenamed "Monaco") used in Azure DevOps (formerly called "Visual Studio Online" and "Visual Studio Team Services"). [22]
The downloadable version of Visual Studio Code is built on the Electron framework, [23] which is used to develop Node.js web applications that run on the Blink layout engine. Visual Studio Code for the Web is a browser-based version of the editor that can be used to edit both local files and remote repositories (on GitHub and Microsoft Azure) without installing the full program. [24] It is officially supported and hosted by Microsoft and can be accessed at https://vscode.dev
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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 for JavaScript, TypeScript, JSON, CSS, 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. [25]
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 settings. Many Visual Studio Code features are not exposed through menus or the user interface but can be accessed via the command palette. [26] The command palette is able to execute virtually every feature the graphical interface supports, making it very keyboard-accessible. [27]
Visual Studio Code can be extended via extensions, [28] available through a central repository. This includes additions to the editor [29] and language support. [26] A notable feature is the ability to create extensions that add support for new languages, themes, debuggers, time travel debuggers, perform static code analysis, and add code linters using the Language Server Protocol. [30]
Source control 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, 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 collects usage data and sends it to Microsoft to help improve the product. This telemetry feature can be disabled. [31] The information contained in this telemetry data can be inspected by the public, since the product is open source. [32]
A nightly build called Visual Studio Code Insiders is also available. Its configuration, including any settings, extensions, themes are completely separate from the standard build. This enables side-by-side installation of both builds without any interference.
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. [33] Two years later, however, Visual Studio Code achieved the No. 1 spot, with 35% of the 75,000 respondents using it. [34] In the 2019 Developers Survey, Visual Studio Code was also ranked No. 1, with 50% of the 87,000 respondents using it. [35] The 2020 Developers Survey did not cover integrated development environments. [36] In the 2021 Developers Survey, Visual Studio Code continued to be ranked No. 1, with 74.5% of the 71,000 respondents using it, [37] 74.48% of the 71,010 responses in the 2022 survey, [38] and 73.71% of the 86,544 responses in the 2023 survey. [39]
On June 20, 2023, during the Guangdong Province's Digital Government Innovation Development Forum held in Guangzhou, CEC-IDE was released and described as the first Chinese-produced integrated development tool. [40] [41] However, CEC-IDE was subsequently found to be a rebranded release of Visual Studio Code that, among other things, failed to include a copy of the MIT license as required for redistributions. On June 26, Digital Guangdong published a statement, admitting that CEC-IDE is based on Visual Studio Code. [42]
Vim is a free and open-source, screen-based text editor program. It is an improved clone of Bill Joy's vi. Vim's author, Bram Moolenaar, derived Vim from a port of the Stevie editor for Amiga and released a version to the public in 1991. Vim is designed for use both from a command-line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface. Since its release for the Amiga, cross-platform development has made it available on many other systems. In 2018, it was voted the most popular editor amongst Linux Journal readers; in 2015 the Stack Overflow developer survey found it to be the third most popular text editor, and in 2019 the fifth most popular development environment.
Delphi is a general-purpose programming language and a software product that uses the Delphi dialect of the Object Pascal programming language and provides an integrated development environment (IDE) for rapid application development of desktop, mobile, web, and console software, currently developed and maintained by Embarcadero Technologies.
Xcode is Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS. It was initially released in late 2003; the latest stable release is version 15, released on September 18, 2023, and is available free of charge via the Mac App Store and the Apple Developer website. Registered developers can also download preview releases and prior versions of the suite through the Apple Developer website. Xcode includes command-line tools that enable UNIX-style development via the Terminal app in macOS. They can also be downloaded and installed without the GUI.
A source-code editor is a text editor program designed specifically for editing source code of computer programs. It may be a standalone application or it may be built into an integrated development environment (IDE).
Notepad++ is a free and open-source text and source code editor for use with Microsoft Windows. It supports tabbed editing, which allows working with multiple open files in a single window. The product's name comes from the C postfix increment operator; it is sometimes referred to as npp or NPP.
SharpDevelop is a discontinued free and open source integrated development environment (IDE) for the .NET Framework, Mono, Gtk# and Glade# platforms. It supports development in C#, Visual Basic .NET, Boo, F#, IronPython and IronRuby programming languages.
This article provides basic comparisons for notable text editors. More feature details for text editors are available from the Category of text editor features and from the individual products' articles. This article may not be up-to-date or necessarily all-inclusive.
Git is a distributed version control system that tracks versions of files. It is often used to control source code by programmers collaboratively developing software.
Visual Basic (VB) before .NET, sometimes referred to as Classic Visual Basic, is a third-generation programming language, based on BASIC, and an integrated development environment (IDE), from Microsoft for Windows known for supporting rapid application development (RAD) of graphical user interface (GUI) applications, event-driven programming and both consumption and development of components via the Component Object Model (COM) technology.
The following tables list notable software packages that are nominal IDEs; standalone tools such as source-code editors and GUI builders are not included. These IDEs are listed in alphabetic order of the supported language.
The .NET Micro Framework (NETMF) is a .NET Framework platform for resource-constrained devices with at least 512 kB of flash and 256 kB of random-access memory (RAM). It includes a small version of the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) and supports development in C#, Visual Basic .NET, and debugging using Microsoft Visual Studio. NETMF features a subset of the .NET base class libraries, an implementation of Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), a GUI framework loosely based on Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), and a Web Services stack based on Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Web Services Description Language (WSDL). NETMF also features added libraries specific to embedded applications. It is free and open-source software released under Apache License 2.0.
TypeScript is a free and open-source high-level programming language developed by Microsoft that adds static typing with optional type annotations to JavaScript. It is designed for the development of large applications and transpiles to JavaScript. Because TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, all JavaScript programs are syntactically valid TypeScript, but they can fail to type-check for safety reasons.
MonoDevelop was an open-source integrated development environment for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Its primary focus is development of projects that use Mono and .NET Framework. MonoDevelop integrates features similar to those of NetBeans and Microsoft Visual Studio, such as automatic code completion, source control, a graphical user interface (GUI), and Web designer. MonoDevelop integrates a Gtk# GUI designer called Stetic. It supports Boo, C, C++, C#, CIL, D, F#, Java, Oxygene, Vala, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Visual Basic.NET. Although there is no word from the developers that it has been discontinued, nonetheless, it hasn't been updated in 4 years and is no longer installable on major operating systems, such as Ubuntu 22.04 and above. Its parent Microsoft seems to have shifted focus to Visual Studio Code and the .NET Framework, which runs on many operating systems, including Linux.
Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) developed by Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platforms including Windows API, Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Store and Microsoft Silverlight. It can produce both native code and managed code.
C# Open Source Managed Operating System (Cosmos) is a toolkit for building GUI and command-line based operating systems, written mostly in the programming language C# and small amounts of a high-level assembly language named X#. Cosmos is a backronym, in that the acronym was chosen before the meaning. It is open-source software released under a BSD license.
Node.js is a cross-platform, open-source JavaScript runtime environment that can run on Windows, Linux, Unix, macOS, and more. Node.js runs on the V8 JavaScript engine, and executes JavaScript code outside a web browser.
Brackets is a source code editor with a primary focus on web development. Created by Adobe Inc., it is free and open-source software licensed under the MIT License, and is currently maintained on GitHub by open-source developers. It is written in JavaScript, HTML and CSS. Brackets is cross-platform, available for macOS, Windows, and most Linux distributions. The main purpose of Brackets is its live HTML, CSS and JavaScript editing functionality.
Atom is a free and open-source text and source-code editor for macOS, Linux, and Windows with support for plug-ins written in JavaScript, and embedded Git control. Developed by GitHub, Atom was released on June 25, 2015.
The .NET platform is a free and open-source, managed computer software framework for Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. The project is mainly developed by Microsoft employees by way of the .NET Foundation and is released under an MIT License.
GitHub Copilot is a code completion tool developed by GitHub and OpenAI that assists users of Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, Neovim, and JetBrains integrated development environments (IDEs) by autocompleting code. Currently available by subscription to individual developers and to businesses, the generative artificial intelligence software was first announced by GitHub on 29 June 2021, and works best for users coding in Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Ruby, and Go. In March 2023 GitHub announced plans for "Copilot X", which will incorporate a chatbot based on GPT-4, as well as support for voice commands, into Copilot.
We wanted to deliver a Microsoft branded product, built on top of an open source code base that the community could explore and contribute to.
VS Code collects usage data and sends it to Microsoft to help improve our products and services. Read our privacy statement to learn more. If you don't wish to send usage data to Microsoft, you can set the telemetry.enableTelemetry setting to false.