Chapter 1：Getting Started with Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code or, as it is mostly called, VS Code, is one of the most popular coding tools today. It focuses on being fast and extendible, and can build up to the needs of a wider developer community.

Earlier, the focus was on providing developers with an extensive development environment that could integrate the complete software development life cycle, from writing code to deploying the solution. To increase productivity, several in-built features were provided to automate repetitive tasks. Most of the environments supported a particular language and an abundance of prebuilt features for that language.

As the industry moved from thick installable clients to web-based applications, the choice of development platforms and tools also changed. These browser-based web applications that were developed using HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and JavaScript did not require heavy integrated development environments, but rather, simple and plain editors.

Looking at this change, Microsoft released its first cross-platform and multi-language support editor in 2015, called VS Code.

VS Code is a fast and lightweight editor that follows the concept of take what you need. The extension framework provides flexibility and has created a marketplace where extensive tooling features are available for use. It also allows the automation of build processes and has strong integration with Git for version control management. It allows developers to install and build an environment according to their specific needs.

In this chapter, we will take you through the basics of an editor and walk through the key difference between an editor and an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). To get acquainted with VS Code, we will start by setting up the environment and exploring several options. Finally, we will highlight some tips and tricks that can increase your productivity. At the end of this chapter, you will be up and running with VS Code, have a good knowledge of how to configure the tool, and will be aware of some neat tricks. So, let's get started.

The main topics covered in this chapter are the following:  

• Discussing editors and IDEs
• Discussing basic features of VS Code
• Setting up VS Code
• Exploring the VS Code layout
• Editing and code navigation in VS Code