Visual Studio Code
Developer(s)Microsoft
Initial releaseApril 29, 2015; 8 years ago (2015-04-29)
Stable release
1.87.2[1] Edit this on Wikidata / 12 March 2024
Preview release
1.88-insiders[2] Edit this on Wikidata
Repository
Written inTypeScript, JavaScript, HTML, CSS[3]
Operating systemWindows 10 or later, macOS 10.15 or later, Linux
Platformx86-64, ARMhf[a], ARM64
Size
  • Windows: 40.8–68.3 MB
  • Linux: 46.5–66.6 MB
  • macOS: 67.5 MB
Available in15 languages
List of languages
English (US), Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Hungarian, Turkish, Polish, Czech[4]
TypeSource-code editor
License
Websitecode.visualstudio.com Edit this at Wikidata

Visual Studio Code, also commonly referred to as VS Code,[9] is a source-code editor developed by Microsoft for Windows, Linux and macOS.[10] Features include support for debugging, syntax highlighting, intelligent code completion, snippets, code refactoring, and embedded 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. The survey also found Visual Studio Code to be used more by those learning to code than by professional developers (78% vs. 74%).[11]

History

Visual Studio Code was first announced on April 29, 2015 by Microsoft at the 2015 Build conference. A preview build was released shortly thereafter.[12]

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.[13] On April 14, 2016, Visual Studio Code graduated from the public preview stage and was released to the web.[14] Microsoft has released most of Visual Studio Code's source code on GitHub under the permissive MIT License,[5][15] while the releases by Microsoft are proprietary freeware.[7]

Features

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.[16][17][18][19][20] It is built on the Electron framework,[21] which is used to develop Node.js web applications that run on the Blink layout engine. 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]

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.[23]

An orange version of the Visual Studio Code logo for the insiders version of Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code Insiders logo

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 the settings. Many Visual Studio Code features are not exposed through menus or the user interface but can be accessed via the command palette.[24]

Visual Studio Code can be extended via extensions,[25] available through a central repository. This includes additions to the editor[26] and language support.[24] 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.[27]

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.[28] The information contained in this telemetry data can be inspected by the public, since the product is open source.[29]

Reception

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.[30] Two years later, however, Visual Studio Code achieved the No. 1 spot, with 35% of the 75,000 respondents using it.[31] In the 2019 Developers Survey, Visual Studio Code was also ranked No. 1, with 50% of the 87,000 respondents using it.[32] The 2020 Developers Survey did not cover integrated development environments.[33] In the 2021 Developers Survey, Visual Studio Code continued to be ranked No. 1, with 74.5% of the 71,000 respondents using it,[34] 74.48% of the 71,010 responses in the 2022 survey,[35] and 73.71% of the 86,544 responses in the 2023 survey.[36]

Relevant incidents

CEC-IDE Controversy

On June 20th, 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.[37][38] 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 26th, Digital Guangdong published a statement, admitting that CEC-IDE is based on Visual Studio Code.[39]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ On Linux systems only.

References

  1. ^ "February 2024 Recovery 2". 12 March 2024. Retrieved 12 March 2024.
  2. ^ "Documentation for Visual Studio Code". Retrieved 2 March 2024.
  3. ^ GitHub repository microsoft/vscode, Microsoft, 2020-12-20, archived from the original on 2015-11-23, retrieved 2020-12-20
  4. ^ "Visual Studio Code Display Language (Locale)". Visual Studio Code. Microsoft. Archived from the original on 2023-11-08. Retrieved 2023-11-08.
  5. ^ a b "LICENSE.txt". github.com/Microsoft/vscode. Microsoft. 17 November 2015. Archived from the original on 27 March 2021. Retrieved 17 April 2021.
  6. ^ "Download Visual Studio Code". Visual Studio Code. Microsoft. Archived from the original on 17 August 2016. Retrieved 16 August 2016.
  7. ^ a b "Microsoft Software License Terms". Visual Studio Code. Microsoft. Archived from the original on 21 October 2017. Retrieved 16 August 2016.
  8. ^ "The best parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary". Underjord. Archived from the original on 2021-02-06. Retrieved 2021-02-10.
  9. ^ Stanton, Lee (2021-08-17). "How to Run Code in VS Code". Alphr. Archived from the original on 2022-06-02. Retrieved 2022-04-03.
  10. ^ Lardinois, Frederic (April 29, 2015). "Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Code, A Free Cross-Platform Code Editor For OS X, Linux And Windows". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on October 28, 2017. Retrieved April 15, 2018.
  11. ^ "Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2023". Stack Overflow. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  12. ^ McBreen, Sean (April 29, 2015). "Announcing Visual Studio Code - Preview". Archived from the original on 2015-10-09.
  13. ^ "Visual Studio now supports debugging Linux apps; Code editor now open source". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 18 November 2015.
  14. ^ "Visual Studio Code editor hits version 1, has half a million users". Ars Technica. Condé Nast. 15 April 2016. Archived from the original on 7 July 2017. Retrieved 15 June 2017.
  15. ^ Dias, Chris (4 December 2015). "Issue: Menu license links to non Open Source license". Microsoft/vscode repo. Microsoft. Response #161792005. Archived from the original on 4 September 2022. Retrieved 21 February 2019 – via GitHub.com. 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.
  16. ^ Kanjilal, Joydip (2015-05-06). "Visual Studio Code: A fast, lightweight, cross-platform code editor". InfoWorld. Archived from the original on 2019-01-25. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  17. ^ Bisson, Simon (2018-09-11). "It's gotten a little easier to develop PWAs in Windows". InfoWorld. Archived from the original on 2019-01-25. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  18. ^ Krill, Paul (2018-02-24). "What's new in Microsoft Visual Studio Code". ChannelWorld. Archived from the original on 2019-01-25. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  19. ^ Wanyoike, Michael (2018-06-06). "Debugging JavaScript Projects with VS Code & Chrome Debugger". SitePoint. Archived from the original on 2019-01-25. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  20. ^ "Julia in Visual Studio Code". Visual Studio Code. Archived from the original on 2023-05-26. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
  21. ^ "Microsoft's new Code editor is built on Google's Chromium". Ars Technica. 29 April 2015. Archived from the original on 7 May 2015. Retrieved 18 November 2015.
  22. ^ "Monaco Editor". microsoft.github.io/monaco-editor. Archived from the original on 2017-08-30. Retrieved 2016-11-03.
  23. ^ "Programming Languages, Hundreds of programming languages supported". Microsoft. Archived from the original on 2017-05-11. Retrieved 2016-10-11.
  24. ^ a b "Language Support in Visual Studio Code". Visual Studio Code. October 10, 2016. Archived from the original on 2017-05-11. Retrieved 2016-10-12.
  25. ^ "Extending Visual Studio Code". Visual Studio Code. October 10, 2016. Archived from the original on 2016-10-18. Retrieved 2016-10-12.
  26. ^ "Managing Extensions in Visual Studio Code". Visual Studio Code. October 10, 2016. Archived from the original on 2021-01-24. Retrieved 2016-10-12.
  27. ^ "Creating Language Servers for Visual Studio Code". Visual Studio Code. Archived from the original on 2017-09-01. Retrieved 2017-02-27.
  28. ^ "Visual Studio Code FAQ". Visual Studio Code. Microsoft. Archived from the original on 28 August 2016. Retrieved 4 November 2016. 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.
  29. ^ "vscode/src/vs/platform/telemetry at main branch". microsoft/vscode repo. Microsoft. Archived from the original on 25 November 2021. Retrieved 24 March 2020 – via GitHub.
  30. ^ "Developer Survey Results 2016". Stack Overflow Insights. Stack Exchange. Archived from the original on 18 March 2016. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
  31. ^ "Developer Survey Results 2018". StackOverflow Insights. Stack Exchange. Archived from the original on 6 March 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
  32. ^ "Developer Survey Results 2019 – Most Popular Development Environments". Stack Overflow Insights. Stack Exchange. Archived from the original on 7 March 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2019.
  33. ^ "Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020 - Development Environments and Tools". Stack Overflow Insights. Stack Exchange. Archived from the original on 1 November 2023. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
  34. ^ "Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2021 - Integrated Development Environment". Stack Overflow Insights. Stack Exchange. Archived from the original on 13 April 2022. Retrieved 11 August 2021.
  35. ^ "Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2022 - Integrated development environment". Stack Overflow Insights. Stack Exchange. Archived from the original on 27 June 2022. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
  36. ^ "Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2023 - Integrated development environment". Stack Overflow Insights. Stack Exchange. Archived from the original on 4 November 2023. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
  37. ^ "广东省数字政府科技创新发展论坛举办" [Guangdong Province Digital Government Technology Innovation Development Forum Held]. People's Government of Guangdong Province (in Chinese (China)). 2023-06-21. Archived from the original on 2023-07-21.
  38. ^ 麒麟软件 (2023-06-26). ""粤"上高地｜麒麟软件与数字广东携手推动广东数字政府建设". Weixin Public Platform (in Chinese (China)).
  39. ^ Digital Guangdong (2023-08-26). "致 歉 声 明" [Apology Statement]. Digital Guangdong (in Chinese (China)). Archived from the original on 2023-08-31.

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