Visual Studio Code is a lightweight, yet powerful source code editor that runs from your desktop.* It comes with built-in support for JavaScript, TypeScript and Node.js and has a varied array of extensions available for other languages, including C++, C#, Python, and PHP.
It is based around Github’s Electron, which is a cross-platform version of the Atom code-editing component, based on JavaScript and HTML5. This editor is a fully featured integrated development environment (IDE) designed for developers working with Microsoft’s open cloud technologies.
Visual Studio Code uses open source .NET tooling to provide support for ASP.NET C# code, building on Omnisharp .NET developer tools and the Roslyn compiler.
The interface is easy to work with, as it is based on a common explorer style, with a pane on the left, which shows all of the files and folders you have access to, and an editor pane on the right, which shows the content of the files you have opened. In this regard, the editor has been developed well, and is pleasing on the eyes. It also has good functionality, with intellisense and autocomplete working well for JSON, CSS, HTML, {less}, and Node.js.
Visual Studio Code has been designed to work with existing tools, and Microsoft provides documentation to help developers along, with help for working with ASP.NET 5, Node.js, and Microsoft’s TypeScript, as well as tools that can be used to help build and manage Node.js apps.
Visual Studio Code is really being targeted at JavaScript developers who want a fully-fledged development tool for their server-side scripting and who may want to venture from Node.js to .NET-based frameworks. Overall though, Visual Studio Code, is a lightweight yet solid, cross platform code editor, which can be used by anyone to build apps for the Web or the cloud.
*Versions for Mac OS X and Linux are also available.
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