A Beginner's Guide to Visual Studio CodeDiscover the power of Visual Studio Code with this beginner's guide. Learn how to navigate the interface, customize settings, and boost your productivity.
Visual Studio Code is a powerful, open-source code editor developed by Microsoft, known for its versatility and extensive range of features. It offers developers robust tools like debugging, version control, and a vast library of extensions to enhance productivity and streamline the coding process.
Surprisingly, Visual Studio Code is a cross-platform editor that works on Windows, Linux, and Mac. Microsoft usually only release software for their Windows environments, with only a few being ported to Mac OSX, so is this a sign of changing times? Let's hope so. With the release of .Net Core, Microsoft is looking to enter into the open-source Linux market dominated by PHP and Apache.
The lightweight nature of Visual Studio Code is evident as soon as you start it. It would be hard to imagine a more basic screen than the initial view you'll have. Once you enter some code, things will look more familiar with an explorer view down the left-hand side and IntelliSense support in the main window.
As a code editor, Visual Studio Code supports all the basics one would expect, such as full syntax colouring and highlighting bracket matching and linting, plus keyboard bindings and snippets. It also provides built-in Github integration and IntelliSense support. It was also built to be fast.
Can we build a code editor fast enough that it doesn't feel like you're typing in a browser?
Visual Studio Code is also a community editor, with hundreds of extensions and plugins available for download on the extension gallery. There are extensions for Node.js, Go, C++, PHP, and Python, as well as many more languages, linters, and tools. If VSCode doesn't do something you need it to, there is a plugin for doing just that.
I like the editor; it's nice and easy to use, as you'd expect. It has many of the features I'm used to from Visual Studio Professional without much of the extra bloat that comes with it. It's not particularly fast at the moment, at least not in my setup. Notepad++ and Notepadqq are still my de facto code editors, at least for now.
That being said, Visual Studio Code is not itself open source. Those who don't trust Microsoft and its proprietary apps should be aware that "When this tool crashes, we automatically collect crash dumps so we can figure out what went wrong. If you don't want to send your crash dumps to Microsoft, don't install this tool."
Visual Studio Code - Can it beat Notepad++?
Visual Studio Code is a new, free code editor from Microsoft that is optimised for building and debugging modern web and cloud applications. How does it stack up against the most popular source code editor, Notepad++?
Features Comparison
So, how do these two editors stack up? Let's compare the main features each application has to offer.
Language Support
| Notepad++ | Visual Studio Code |
|---|---|
| ActionScript (.as, .mx) | Batch |
| ADA (.ada, .ads) | C# |
| Assembler (.asm) | C++ |
| ASP (.asp, .aspx) | Clojure |
| AutoIt (.au3) | Coffee Script |
| Unix Scripts (.bash, .sh, .bsh, .csh) | CSS |
| Batch Files (.bat, .cmd, .nt) | Dockerfile |
| C source (.c) | F# |
| Categorical Machine Language (.ml, .mli, .sml) | Go |
| CMake (.cmake) | Groovy |
| Cobol (.cbl, .cbd, .cdb) | Jade |
| CoffeeScript (.litcoffee) | Java |
| C++ (.h, .hpp, .hxx, .cpp, .cxx, .cc) | JavaScript |
| C# (.cs) | JSON |
| CSS (.css) | HandleBars |
| D programming language (.d) | HTML |
| Diff file (.diff, .patch) | Ini |
| Fortran (.f, .for, .f90, .f95, .f2k) | Less |
| Haskell (.hs, .lhs, .las) | Lua |
| HTML (.htm, .html, .shtml) | Makefile |
| MS INI (.ini, .inf, .reg, .url, .wer) | Markdown |
| Inno Setup (.iss) | Objective-C |
| Java Source (.java) | Perl |
| Javascript (.js, .jsm) | PHP |
| JSON file (.json) | PowerShell |
| JavaServer Pages (.jsp) | Python |
| KiXtart file (.kix) | R |
| List Processing Language (.lsp, .lisp) | Razor |
| Lua Source (.lua) | Ruby |
| Makefile (.mak) | Rust |
| MATLAB (.m) | Sass |
| MSDOS/ASCII Art (.nfo) | SQL |
| Nullsoft Script (.nsi, .nsh) | Swift |
| Pascal (.pas, .inc) | TypeScript |
| Perl (.pl. .pm, .plx) | Visual Basic |
| PHP (.php, .php3, .php4, .php5, .phps, .phtml) | XML |
| PostScript (.ps) | |
| PowerShell (.ps1, .psm1) | |
| Python (.py, .pyw) | |
| R programming language (.r, .s, .splus) | |
| Windows Resource (.rc) | |
| Ruby (.rb, .rbw) | |
| Scheme (.scm, .smd, .ss) | |
| SmallTalk (.st) | |
| SQL (.sql) | |
| Tool Command Language (.tcl) | |
| TeX file (.tex) | |
| Visual Basic file (.vb, .vbs) | |
| VeriLog (.v, .sv, .vh, .svh) | |
| VHSIC Hardware Description (.vhd, .vhdl) | |
| XML (.xml, .xaml, .xsl, .xslt, .xsd, .kml...) | |
| YAML (.yml, .yaml) |
It's clear from this that regarding the total languages supported, Notepad++ takes the prize; however, both editors fully support all the main languages used today. Just because a language isn't listed doesn't mean the application cannot read the file. Most, if not all, source files are plain text, so even humble old Windows Notepad can open them. You may not get the correct syntax highlighting and code completion options.
Source Control Integration
Source control is a set of tools designed to keep application source file versions backed up in a repository and synchronisation between developers. Source control allows files to be versioned, and changes to documents and source files are recorded. It also allows large teams to work simultaneously on the same files and have changesets merged automatically.
Out of the box, Notepad++ does not support any source control system, although plugins are available for limited SVN support.
Visual Studio Code, on the other hand, natively supports GitHub, one of the three major source control systems and one of the two free solutions.
General Tasks
Both editors do a fine job of editing; while Notepad++ has the edge on performance and speed, Visual Studio Code has a bit more flexibility, and Intellisense makes writing code a lot quicker. While Notepad++ has a form of auto-complete, it is nowhere near as good as you'd expect.
With Notepadd++, there is generally no help included; your best bet is Google searches if you get stuck, but that said, there are not many times when you get stuck with Notepad++ as it is pretty simple to use.
Debugging
Both editors feature the ability to debug code, but Notepad++ relies on several extensions being installed, and these are third-party and buggy at best.
Visual Studio Code, on the other hand, has built-in debugging support for the Node.js runtime and can debug JavaScript, TypeScript, and any other language that gets transpired to JavaScript. It can also debug other languages, including PHP, Ruby, C# and Python, using the Debugging extensions, which are much more reliable.
The error and warning panels in Visual Studio Code are also a great feature when writing, as they will instantly inform you of errors before uploading or testing in a browser.
Performance
As mentioned, Notepad++ starts up and is more responsive than Visual Studio code. I love the ability to open files instantly and start editing without having to wait for bulky IDE to load, sort out plugins and extensions, and finally show the code file. Memory usage in Visual Studio Code is also relatively high since it loads many extra features that may not be needed, especially its node.js and Gulp integration.
Extensions
Both code editors can load extensions and plugins; this is where Visual Studio Code takes the lead.
Extensions in Notepad++ are typically downloaded from the website in zip format, where you unzip the DLL to the correct folder in the Notepad++ directory. Sometimes, it loads the first time; other times, it requires extra files copied to your user profile.
On the other hand, Visual Studio Code is much more refined and features a plugin store where you can download and install extensions with a single click.
Conclusions
For me, Notepad++ is still the best code editor. While Visual Studio Code has many great features, I don't use them, so I can't warrant the extra overhead they introduce. I also love the portability of Notepad++; I have it on my thumb drive ready to go. The bracket and tag matching in Notepad++ is a little more accurate and easier to read.
- Download Notepad++
- Download Visual Studio Code
If you haven't tried out Visual Studio Code yet, please download it and let us know what you think!
