I just wanted to give a quick shout out to Microsoft’s fantastic Visual Studio Code program.

Typically, for small code changes I prefer a very slim editor (often Nano, sometimes Notepad++). When I wrote bigger code, it was common for me to use ActiveState’s Komodo Edit. Now I have been messing with languages for which it was not designed though, so I looked around a bit. I came across Visual Studio Code, and gave it a shot. It has quickly become my editor of choice.

For anyone not familiar, this is not the same as Visual Studio. This isn’t a giant IDE that will take up a big chunk of your hard drive. It isn’t Windows only. It isn’t even particularly heavy to run.

I would like to quickly mention that those statements are not to insult VS. I bought and use VS. For what it is, I consider it to be unparalleled. It’s an amazing piece of software, and has so many awesome features that I am still discovering. It’s just to mention that this is not the same thing.

Visual Studio Code has a massive selection of add-ons available, and apparently there are many still being developed. I have not yet run into a language it didn’t have at least some tooling for. I personally mostly care about syntax highlighting, and all of them seem to be supported. It runs on Linux natively, you don’t need to try and pull off some convoluted WINE integration. It has some fantastic Github integrations (if you try it, have a look at GitLens).

Oh yeah, and it’s free!

I would suggest giving it a look. It may not be your cup of tea, but i’ve found it amazingly nice to work with.

You can have a look here if interested.