Visual Studio Code

You can think of Visual Studio Code (VS Code) as the little brother of Visual Studio. Visual Studio enables you to edit code, but also comes with a full set of features that are common of an IDE.

VS Code is a code editor. But it is a very powerful code editor. Here are some of the highlights:

• Cross-platform
  • supports many languages
  • macOS, Windows, or Linux
• Fully customizable with extensions
• Super light installation
• Built-in support (especially for web applications)
  • Node.js
  • GIT

I use VS Code because it is just to easy to use and enables me to work faster.

Install VS Code

First things first. We need to install VS Code. Head over to https://code.visualstudio.com/ and click that big download button.

Once downloaded, go ahead and install VS Code using the defaults. That should only take a few moments.

Done! You are ready to code.

Tour of VS Code

I’m going to point out the major features of VS Code here. We will dive deeper into how to use it in future posts.

Explorer: With VS Code you look at your work from a folder view. Choose the top level of your project and you will be able to see all the folders and files within those folders. Navigating your project is super easy. You can even add and remove files here too.

Search: Search for any file or term within your folders. You will have a quick and easy view so that you can easily identify the matches and where they are.

Source Control: GIT is built into VS Code. Commit, Push or Pull to your heart’s content. All the commands are at your fingertips.

Debug: Debug your code from your editor. Set your breakpoints and step through all your code.

Extensions: Need some extra horsepower. There are tons of free extensions available to install. Search for what you want to do and you will likely find a solution that fits your needs.