Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is an integrated development environment that offers automatic syntax highlighting and integration with remote Git repositories. Onboard source and version control modules coupled with support for the venerable file transfer protocol architecture make it easy for collaborative teams to use. Intelligent code completion tools further help to make this one of the most user-friendly computer programming editors currently on the market.

Code pages are user-selectable, meaning that specialists are free to use foreign characters in their projects. Variable name labels aren't restricted to just plain text, either, which is good for those who prefer to specify things in a language other than English. Localization technicians who are rewriting user prompts to match the needs of an international audience will especially love this feature.

Support for different types of newline characters helps to ensure diversity as far as a completely separate kind of audience goes. Code written on Windows-based PCs usually features both a carriage return and a line feed mark at the end of every line. Older Macintosh computers used only a carriage return, while modern Unix and Linux boxes rely on just a single line feed. This makes it hard for Microsoft-bound developers to work with code downloaded from a Git repository, since they might not be sure of what platform it was originally written on. Visual Studio Code supports all of these options seamlessly.

Since it's an Electron-based app, VSC does come with a little extra overhead and it also sends out regular telemetry packets to tell its developers how it's being used. Fortunately, you can disable this and several other options when you first install the software so it can run more smoothly.

Instead of relying on a traditional menu-driven project system, VSC opts for a command pallet that's sort of a cross between a terminal interface and a search box. Developers can customize it however they want, which gives them the freedom to put commonly used commands all the way at the top. Eventually, those who constantly find themselves turning to a specific function can map it to a shortcut so they never have to take their hands off of the keyboard while writing code.

Additional features are always available as extensions, which can be had through a central repository. Some of these, such as FTP server handshaking accessories, are part of the basic Visual Studio Code package. Others, like code linters and time traveling debug applets, offer far more exotic features and have to be added in later. Experienced coders who are used to working with nearly any package manager will warm up to the installation manager quite quickly.

In fact, the intended audience of developers will probably get up and running with everything Visual Studio Code has to offer in no time flat.

Pros

• Can connect to FTP servers
• Provides multiple code pages for document parsing
• Supports different kinds of newlines
• Built-in source control system

Cons

• Electron libraries add some overhead
• Collects some data by default