The top 5 reasons developers prefer Visual Studio Code

Updated on:Sep 21, 2022Read time: 4 min

A code editor is one of the most essential tools in a developer's toolkit for building, compiling, and debugging projects. As a developer, you spend most of your time writing and editing code using a code editor.

An ideal code editor is one that supports a variety of programming languages, thus enabling you to work on a wide range of projects. Also, it should be free from bugs, crashes, and data corruption issues.

Visual Studio Code, commonly referred to as VS Code, was introduced by Microsoft in 2015 during the Build Conference as an addition to the existing Visual Studio family. Just two years after its web release, it rose ranks to become the most popular code editor and has ever since held the title. In the Stack Overflow 2021 Developer Survey, Visual Studio Code was ranked the most popular developer environment tool among 82,000 respondents, with 70% reporting that they use it.

In this article, we share the top five reasons why the developer community prefers VS Code over other code editors. Let's get started.

Cross-platform and free

VS Code is a free, lightweight, and cross-platform code editor based on the Electron framework available on Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems.

responsive-web

It supports a variety of programming languages, including Java, JavaScript, Go, Node.js, Python, C++, C, Rust, and Fortran. As a result, developers have the freedom to create a variety of projects.

Massive library of plugins and extensions

Extensions allow developers to add languages, debuggers, and tools to their code editors helping them be more productive. With VS Code's strong developer community, there is a vast network of plugins and extensions available for all programming languages.

For instance, Python, one of the most popular programming languages, works seamlessly with VS Code and has a massive library of plugins and extensions available in VS Code itself.

The most popular VS Code extensions include GitLens, Bracket Pair Colorizer, Relative Path, Better Comments, Icons, Snippets, CSS Peak, Import Cost, Prettier, and Markdown All in One.

Fast loading time

Microsoft introduced its first integrated development environment (IDE) in 1991, called the Visual Basic (VB). It was Microsoft's first attempt at using the same development environment for multiple languages.

Being 31 years into the business of developing IDEs has allowed Microsoft to iterate its products over time. Due to this simple reason, VS Code has a fast-loading time, and developers don't have to keep it running all day to avoid the extra loading time - as in the early days of Visual Studio.

Emmet feature

If you're a web developer, you need to write the following lines of code every time you create a new HTML file.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <title>Document</title>
  </head>
  <body></body>
</html>

With VS Code, you can add the above lines of code by pressing a shortcut key. To try the shortcut, create a new HTML file in VS Code and press Shift+!, and hit the enter key.

Thriving community

With 70% of developers using VS Code, its community is very strong. For you as a developer, this means that if you run into any issues, chances are somebody else has already faced the same problem and posted the solution they found - online.

The majority of the plugins and extensions available on VS Code are community developed and maintained, so they remain up to date.

In 2022 alone, Microsoft has rolled out eight updates for VS Code with new features and fixes.

Conclusion

There you have it — five reasons why the developer community prefers VS Code over other code editors.

Even if you're getting started or are a professional developer, VS Code has everything you need to build, compile, and debug projects, and there are many plugins and extensions that you can use to boost productivity. Ready to harness the full potential of Visual Studio Code for your development tasks? Schedule a call with our experts today and explore how you can optimize your coding experience with personalized tips and insights.