Java Basics: What Is Visual Studio Code?

The 2024 Java Developer Productivity Report surveyed the IDEs most commonly used by Java developers. The majority of developers are still using IntelliJ IDEA as their IDE of choice, but there is considerable growth when it comes to Java developers using Microsoft Visual Studio Code, or VSCode, as a primary or secondary Java IDE. 

In this blog, we’ll dive into what Visual Studio Code is and why some developers choose Visual Studio Code as their primary IDE for Java development.

What Is Microsoft Visual Studio Code?

Visual Studio Code, i.e., VSCode, is one of the newest IDEs made available in the Java ecosystem, but it is far from a new IDE in the developer ecosystem. Visual Studio Code was first released in 2015 by Microsoft. The goal of the product was to provide an IDE that worked seamlessly across many different programming languages including Java, Javascript, Rust, and PHP.

📈 The 2024 Java Developer Productivity Report is here and VSCode is gaining popularity.See the stats. 

VSCode Price: Is Visual Studio Code Free?

Visual Studio Code is a free product that includes not only the product but also a wide assortment of different extensions as a part of the IDE.

This means that it is able to present users with a real nice and clean environment that is easy to use but doesn’t cost anything to use. The user experience is considerably better than that of other free IDE options like Eclipse. Visual Studio Code is most like IntelliJ in performance and user experience but due to it being free, many developers have made the move to Visual Studio Code or at the very least are much more willing to try Visual Studio Code.

Related Reading 📗 The Best Java IDEs to Use in 2024

VSCode Features

Visual Studio Code Language Support

Visual Studio Code works for developers across different development environments right out of the box, meaning it becomes very easy to implement VSCode for all kinds of different applications.

VS Code employs IntelliSense in its code to make the developers using the IDE experience a clean and efficient development process. IntelliSense speeds up the development process by providing code completion to help mitigate typos and other common mistakes. It mainly works for languages like C++, C#, J#, Visual Basic and others.

IntelliSense was originally created for Visual Studio but was shipped to Visual Studio Code when it was released to provide something powerful for developers using Visual Studio Code. This stands out from other IDEs as many of these types of features are not included by default but must be added through extensions.

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Visual Studio Code User Experience

Visual Studio Code has an amazingly clean and efficient environment for writing and developing code. Many developers are writing code for many different applications at the same time, as microservices based environments are much more common nowadays.

Visual Studio Code provides users with the ability to open their applications based on directories as opposed to project based. This allows for a much more seamless process between multiple different aspects of a project. This is ideal for full stack developers that may need to write some code in Javascript, Java, and Visual Basic simultaneously.

Software companies have continued to see increased need for full stack developers, due to their ability to create and maintain a system from start to finish, front end and backend, making Visual Studio Code a growing IDE within this market.

📚 Further reading: Your guide to debugging with VSCode 

Visual Studio Code Source Control

Visual Studio Code was one of the first IDEs to provide built-in support for a number of different source control tools. Visual Studio Code includes a dedicated section for developers to push or pull their code from a number of different repositories ranging from Perforce Helix Core to Git. 

Looking for More Intel on Java IDEs? 

Check out this comprehensive guide. In it, you'll find which Java IDEs are most popular in 2024, how Java IDEs are incorporating AI, and more. 

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Visual Studio Code, Java & JRebel

Java developers looking to streamline their development inside VS Code, look no further. JRebel—a Java tool that skips redeploys for time savings—recently released a plugin for Visual Studio Code that provides users with the ability to run their applications through Visual Studio Code without the need to restart the application server, redeploy, or do a full build.

Related Reading 📗 Everything You Need to Know About the VSCode Extension for JRebel

Accelerate Java Development in VSCode

Java developers turn to VSCode for time-saving features like integrated debugging. Compound those efficiencies by eliminating rebuilds with JRebel. See how much Java development time you could save during your 14-day free trial. 

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