
Visual Studio Code 1.7 - mpalme
https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_7
======
kid0m4n
They had to rollback the update:

> Unfortunately, we needed to roll back the 1.7 release of VS Code. One of the
> great new features in 1.7 is the automatic acquisition of typing files when
> writing JavaScript and TypeScript. These typings files drive the
> IntelliSense (code completions) experience in the tool. The feature was so
> great that we started to overload the npmjs.org service. The right thing to
> do in the short term was to revert the release. If you had already upgraded
> to 1.7 you would have been prompted to install another update and you should
> now be at 1.6.1 again. We apologize for this inconvenience and we're working
> hard to make both short and long term fixes to bring you a great editing
> experience in VS Code.

~~~
mycall
Auto downgrade. That's a first.

------
Philipp__
Microsoft and TypeScript team are doing amazing work with this editor! There
are so many interesting features in it, gave it a shot few weeks ago and was
really satisfied. And it is probably the first electron app that didn't feel
like rest of the bunch, that are pretty much hogs and not very responsive
(especially when we talk about editors and IDEs).

But you know, I can't hang Emacs and Vim on the wall and leave them there. It
just got so much under my skin, and I got so much used to them that using GUI
editor after few years of them just feels odd. And I use them for 5 years. I
can't imagine how it is for people that used them for 20+ years...

~~~
codycraven
I've been using the Vim extension for quite a while and it's become fairly
robust. I think it bests jVi in Netbeans.

~~~
ChrisLTD
Which vim extension in particular?

~~~
adt2bt
Not GP but probably VSCodeVim

------
komali2
Ah haha this is too funny, I just this morning caved from trying to have a
functioning version of Ubuntu on the macbook work gave me, booted back into
OSX, and spent a good 30 minutes scrolling through the VSCode keyboard
shortcuts JSON, writing down the ones I was interested in relearning on post-
its and lining them around my monitor.

And not four hours later they release a pretty little printable PDF.

Not very on topic but I hope some of you can at least get a hoot from my
misery.

~~~
Achshar
It's not like it was very difficult to have a simple key binding list before
the update. There are many json to html table websites out there, or you could
just paste it in vs code and use multiple cursors to remove all the json
syntax in like 10 seconds.

~~~
hashhar
No, you use regexes for that.

------
addicted
When MS gets into something, they really get into it.

VS Code has exceeded pretty much all my expectations with the pace it has been
progressing at.

~~~
komali2
The biggest thing for me has been the consistency. They already had an amazing
IDE (Visual Studio), then they buckled down and made an amazing paired-down
version (VSCode). It works well, does all the things I'd want and then some.

Compare to Google releasing a chat client / message handler (google voice
app), another one (hangouts), taking away functionality (removing shared
sms/hangouts convos), then releasing two more chat apps (allo/duo). Or
countless other occasions they've done this.

I was just thinking today after yesterday's HN thread on the new Macbook and
"everything wrong with it." People were complaining that nobody can really
match the build quality of Apple, which is a shame because it'd be great to
have a windows / linux device with high build quality (that isn't hacky).
Imagine if Microsoft put their weight behind manufacturing a dope laptop like
Google has been trying to do with the Pixel phone?

~~~
sxg
What about the Surface Book?

~~~
tjohns
Regarding Linux... the Surface Book (and Pro) are rather unique devices, as
far as hardware is concerned. You loose a lot of core functionality if you run
anything except Windows on them. I've tried.

If you want a strictly Windows-only device, they're not bad. (Buggy drivers
aside.) The N-trig stylus technology is absolutely amazing if you do graphic
design. But if you want to dual boot into Linux, you'll be happier with a more
traditional laptop.

To be honest, I tried both a Surface Pro 3 and a Surface Book as my primary
laptop. In the end, I keep going back to my 2012 MacBook Air. At least for me,
Apple still has an edge in overall experience.

~~~
Diti
If you do graphic design, you may not want N-trig styluses. The biggest
drawback of their system is that it _requires_ a certain, higher amount of
pressure to register a stroke—higher than the Wacom or Apple Stylus
counterparts.

See
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3ttia5/sp4_pen_not...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3ttia5/sp4_pen_not_picking_up_lighter_strokes_advice/)
and how people seemed considerably more happy with the Wacom technology in the
Surface 1, than the N-trig with the latter iterations of Surface tablets.

------
elcapitan
The combo of Typescript and VS Code is really well done. Transitioning from JS
to TS is well supported by documentation, IDE integration and language design.

Apple once made people very happy when they adapted things and workflows that
are important to Unix users. Now they're drifting away from that. Microsoft is
going in the opposite direction and seems to listen to what developers really
would like to see.

~~~
k__
Yes. With TS2 the type gathering is much easier, but there are still many libs
out there with outdated type definitions or none at all.

They got this "allowJs" flag, which I found a good idea, but I never got it to
work.

------
Pharylon
I recently started doing more and more javascript font-end work as opposed to
C# backend stuff. So, of course, I started with Atom. But I kept having issues
with it, and ended up playing around with VS Code and loving it.

As someone who really loves the C# language, I was really questioning if I
liked VS Code just because it was Microsoft. Was I some kind of Microsoft
fanboy? I'm glad to see a lot of the "front end" community embracing it - it's
weirdly validating to me. :)

~~~
pitaj
It really is remarkable. You wouldn't think that an editor based on the same
engine would be this significantly better than atom, but vs code continues to
defeat atom in performance and native features.

------
cyberferret
As much as I wanted to like Atom over VS Code, I find myself changing and
starting most of my new projects in VS Code exclusively.

One thing that surprised me that VS Code didn't have was multiple cursors??
(like Atom and Sublime have by default). I didn't realise how much I use that
feature (for renaming variables in a short procedure/function block etc).
There is probably a plugin for that somewhere, I guess.

~~~
mgottein
It does have multiple cursors. See
[https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/editor/codebasics#_multip...](https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/editor/codebasics#_multiple-
selections-multicursor)

~~~
cyberferret
Ah, Thanks - I see now the shortcut is [Alt-click] as opposed to [Cmd-click]
in the other two editors. I just didn't dig around enough to find the right
key combination. But I guess this shows how ingrained muscle memory and habits
are hard to change, and why certain editors remain people's favourites.

~~~
nullstyle
Be warned though... this is one area where vscode is noticeably worse than
atom or sublime; There's no alt-click-drag support so making a rectangular
edit is much more work; you manually create the correct selection on each
line. It's one of the few things I miss from Atom (and one of the main reasons
I switched to textmate way way back).

~~~
Already__Taken
alt+shift+click-drag mate. Drag a rectangle and hit an arrow key seems fastest
to make a column.

------
addicted
I love using VIM to edit, but stuff like the following makes it hard for me to
resist switching.

"ATA makes typings files almost invisible. A TypeScript language server that
has ATA enabled watches your package.json files and automatically installs the
typings files of all dependencies in a cache on your file system. It does the
same when it finds references to well known client-side libraries. When you
then invoke IntelliSense, the TypeScript server uses the typings files in the
cache."

~~~
chrismonsanto
There's no need to switch editors for that. The language servers can be used
by any editor that supports the language server protocol. As far as I know
nobody has written a plugin for Vim yet, but here's a discussion issue on the
neovim tracker:
[https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/5522](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/5522)

~~~
justinmk
Also, async completers like deoplete[1] offer non-blocking completion.

However...

> stuff like the following makes it hard for me to resist switching.

I don't think one should "resist". IDEs (VS code _is_ an IDE, at this point)
are very powerful. I really wish vim-modes would go away; I would like to see
Neovim _embedded_ in VS code and friends, instead. By "embed" I mean: nvim is
the text editor, it does everything; it lives in the "document" area of the
IDE; and you can bind nvim keys to IDE functions/commands (such as "Open
Type...").

[1]
[https://github.com/Shougo/deoplete.nvim](https://github.com/Shougo/deoplete.nvim)

------
EmmEff
I typically bounce between vim and Atom for Python development, with
occasional forays into VSC. VSC has come along very nicely to the point where
I may just make it my full time GUI editor.

Can anybody recommend some must have plugins for Python development on VSC?

~~~
ssebastianj
\- Python for VS Code:
[https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=donjayam...](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=donjayamanne.python)

\- Django Template:
[https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=bibhasdn...](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=bibhasdn.django-
html)

\- Django Snippets:
[https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=bibhasdn...](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=bibhasdn.django-
snippets)

------
eDameXxX
I really like their openess on Github[1] and fact that they're using Projects
feature[2]

[1][https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode)

[2][https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/projects](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/projects)

------
arkitaip
I'm really surprised by just how polished and fast Code is. It's like Atom but
better in almost every regard with the exception of plugins available. Highly
recommended.

~~~
mirekrusin
I wonder if this could be a reason so many comments mention better speed than
atom.

Couple of months ago I've wiped out all extra plugins in atom and installed
just ones I'm really using. Atom became much more responsive, very noticeable
difference.

------
forgetsusername
Not a negative comment in the thread so far. That's amazing for something
Microsoft, as anyone who's been around here can attest. There's a corner being
turned here; time to buy MSFT?

~~~
skoocda
I mean, it's been a big couple weeks of releases. Between Surface Studio, the
new speech recognition results, Teams, and this VSCode update (barring the npm
issue) they seem to be really hitting their stride, in a way that hasn't been
seen in years. Just in time to start clawing back tons of market share from
Apple, too.

But I'm sure 2017 will be the year of Linux on the desktop.

------
g_delgado14
I've been using VSC since June-ish and I couldnt be happier. I never used
Sublime (Atom was my go-to before VSC), but I don't think I'll be switching to
another editor for a long time. Love the nodejs debugging too, and obviously
the non-atom-like performance ;)

------
sccxy
Well done, Microsoft!

So many new features again. Always happy to update and read the change log.

~~~
arkitaip
Code is the first editor I've used that might actually replace Notepad++ as my
always-open-editor-used-for-absolutely-everything.

------
Lord_Zane
I recently switch from atom, but the one thing I hate is that it doesn't save
open files or folders between runs

~~~
kovrik
It does (or maybe it is 'Project Manager' extension). Try it out.

~~~
Lord_Zane
Tried Project Manager, useful but didn't keep the folder open :(. And I
checked my settings, I have "window.reopenFolders": "all"

------
bbcbasic
I still prefer using the free edition of VS2015. Maybe too stuck in my ways.

~~~
TillE
I have no idea why anyone would prefer VS Code for C++ or C#/.NET work on
Windows. For everything else, Visual Studio has never been particularly great.

~~~
komali2
I think a strong pull for it is its node debugger. At least for me. I'm not
building giant C++ libraries (or however you C/C++/C# folks do) so it's just
the right weight for what I do.

Last time I tried to install Visual Studio it was like 9gbs for the core.

~~~
Scuds
VS 15 let you pare that down upon initial install. A services dev doesn't need
a WPF or Winforms editor.

------
orbitingpluto
I liked VS Code when I tried it. But...

It irked me when I found out you had to disable telemetry per project/file.
That really should be a global setting. Obtaining telemetry data through
attrition is not something that will spur my adoption.

I'd rather stay with Atom, vim, or even Eclipse.

~~~
tw04
Umm, you can disable it globally. They have pretty amazing documentation, 3
seconds of searching later:

[http://vscode-
docs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/supporting/faq/#...](http://vscode-
docs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/supporting/faq/#how-to-disable-telemetry-
reporting)

Windows

    
    
      Close VS Code.
      Open the command prompt.
      Type cd %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Visual Studio Code\resources\app
      Type notepad product.json
      Replace enableTelemetry=true with enableTelemetry=false.
      Save the file via CTRL+S and exit Notepad. Collection of usage data should now be disabled.
    

OS X / Linux

    
    
      Close VS Code.
      Open the terminal
      For:
      Mac Type cd <PATH-TO-VSCode>/Visual\ Studio\ Code.app/Contents/Resources/app
      Linux Type cd <PATH-TO-VSCode>/Resources/app
      Type vi product.json
      Replace enableTelemetry=true with enableTelemetry=false
      Save the file via Esc ZZ. Collection of usage data should now be disabled.

~~~
mook
The current docs ( [https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/supporting/FAQ#_how-to-
di...](https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/supporting/FAQ#_how-to-disable-
telemetry-reporting) ) seems to indicate that it's just a normal pref now, you
don't need to edit the app to do it.

I wasn't able to figure out what version readthedocs was last generated for.

~~~
orbitingpluto
Telemetry and crash report still enabled by default. Unsure of what will
happen upon update if the global settings file is altered.

------
legulere
The Keyboard Shortcuts Reference reminds me that I always wanted to have a
keyboard shortcut spaced repetition learning program where you actually have
to press the key combinations. Maybe somebody could write an extension to
VSCode.

------
lunchboxsushi
keep these updates coming, it's a truly beautiful product. At times it makes
me feel I should switch off Emacs for go/node development due to it's
debugging being so nice versus using something like delv.

------
lojack
Mostly ruby developer here these days.

Just installed VSCode, installed a Ruby plugin (with the required ruby-debug-
ide prereq), and opened a project. Debugger seems to just work. Very
impressive.

Tried the vim bindings, doesn't seem to be working so well. This is something
I'm used to -- vim bindings rarely work well outside of Vim. Basics like "diw"
(delete inside word) don't work though.

I'll probably stick with Vim for my day-to-day editing, but you can count on
me using VSCode for debugging. Not a big fan of Rubymine -- too sluggish for
my tastes.

~~~
kentor
Which extension are you using? I'm using vscodevim and diw, ciw, and the likes
work.

~~~
lojack
Was using vimStyle, I'll try some of the other ones.

------
headmelted
I'm currently working on nightly builds for ARM and Intel linux-based systems
(including Raspberry Pi and [Chromebook, Android] <\- under Debian jails).

I could really use one or more Raspberry Pi 2/3 testers on a Debian distro
(ideally Raspbian) for early feedback.

Hoping to announce the project on HN properly myself when it's ready (it's a
very early state, although extensions are working), so I'd ask for discretion
of whoever feels like helping me out.

~~~
hashhar
Try posting to reddit. On the respective product subs.

------
kinkdr
Kudos to MS for Visual Studio Code and Typescript for bringing a bit of sanity
to the world of JS.

------
overcast
Dear Microsoft, PLEASE native SFTP sync support. I will switch from Sublime
permanently.

~~~
uola
Why not use git?

~~~
Already__Taken
Sometimes your cheap shared hosts don't have git on the other end.

~~~
tonyplee
You should try Digital Ocean $5/month. Have root access, etc.

Is there a shared host cheaper than that?

~~~
vially
I don't know if there is any shared host cheaper than that (I suppose there
are but I'm too lazy to check right now), but sometimes the appeal in using a
shared host is in some of their features which you don't get in a VPS (e.g.:
cpanel).

~~~
tonyplee
Also be very careful, with "Dirty COW" hack, anyone can become root as long as
they can run their own binary on any shared host.

------
elcapitan
I was wondering, like there is usually a "recommended plugins" list for Vim,
does such a thing already exist for VS code?

~~~
codycraven
Already exists, use the extensions panel (the square icon in the left most
side of VSCode)

~~~
elcapitan
Thanks, knew the extensions panel, but not the "recommended" and "popular"
parts.

------
kentor
The vscodevim vim bindings have improved greatly since a couple of months ago
and is comparable to Sublime's vintage.

These features are still missing and are keeping me from switching completely
from Sublime:

\- Project wide symbol fuzzy search (cmd+shift+r in sublime)

\- Read from stdin (`git show | code`)

------
neves
I couldn't find a good tutorial about using VSCode for Python development. I'd
like to setup debugging, intellisense and the interactive shell, but the info
is sparse. Do you have any suggestion?

~~~
sumsted
I'm thinking of moving away from pycharm when this year runs out and moving to
vs code + python. It has full debug, scm, virtualenv support (which was broken
in pycharm 2016.x for a time) and intellisense. I would still use Brackets for
html and css because I love quick-edit, the ability to edit a css rule or
color by hovering and hitting ctl-e.

~~~
neves
PyCharm community edition is very good. Maybe all the features aren't
necessary. But VSCode would allow me to use it in other environments.

------
Scarbutt
_Keymaps for Sublime and Atom_

They are on a mission.

~~~
tjalex
I was so excited, but it turns out there's still no middle click for block
selection :(

~~~
k__
I like to read these release discussions so much.

Everyone has their pet feature, most of them stuff that I never use or didn't
even know they existed.

I personally like ctrl+/ to comment out blocks or mark stuff from the
integrated terminal, both didn't work the last time I tried it.

~~~
kwood
Commenting out is there, you can search the keyboard shortcut settings to find
the proper key. Actually, there are multiple commands on that subject:

\- editor.action.commentLine toggles comments

\- editor.action.addCommentLine & editor.action.removeCommentLine

\- editor.action.blockComment for block comments

------
nixos
The one unfortunate thing about it is that it doesn't work/isn't packaged for
Raspberry Pi.

I don't understand why they don't make a package for the pi, if it's a JS app
anyways

~~~
eugeneionesco
[https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/wiki/How-to-
Contribute#b...](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/wiki/How-to-
Contribute#build-and-run-from-source)

~~~
nixos
Doesn't compile on my system.

------
forrestthewoods
Sometimes throwing everything out and starting over is bad. But you know what?
Sometimes it's pretty damned good. Amazing how quickly you can iterate when
you throw out all the cruft.

------
NicoJuicy
Upvote when I see this, visual studio code is just awesome and makes me much
more productive ( on Windows)

I think there has to happen a lot when a version release won't make it to the
front page :p

------
didibus
I've tried it, but I'm not as big a fan of the UX, so I'm sticking with Atom.
Also, Atom is easier to customize to your liking, I've already written custom
commands for it and modified the CSS. Also themes are lacking in VS Code.

What I would like to see is Atom embracing the IDE to the same level VS Code
is doing. If Atom had a proper debugger UX that all language could use, and
better auto-complete. Those are the only things I find better in VS Code.

~~~
iamdave
Thing I like the most about Atom is it's integration with Github for plugins,
and even issues for those plugins. Last week there was a bug introduced in the
latest build impacting split pane diff, error came up, with a link "Click here
to submit an issue". I clicked it, and instead of taking me to a submission
form, it intelligently took me to an issue _already made_ and being discussed.

I'm very impressed with it as an editor (so impressed it got me to divorce
Sublime), but I am curious to give VSS a whirl on of these days.

------
lhlmgr
Actually, I'm not a fan boy of something (except hockey, basketball, ..
nevermind). However, Visual Studio is awesome! thanks a lot!

------
smegel
Twitter:

> Whoops! 1.7 release rolled back to 1.6.1 due to issue downloading definition
> files for IntelliSense

------
wbercx
Have been using VSCode for months now and I like it a lot. Only thing I am
missing coming from PhpStorm is a good merge tool. For some reason I found
JetBrains' one really appealing and I struggle to find 3rd party ones that do
not feel clunky.

------
antarrah
I can't see horizontal layouts. I reinstalled from scratch and still can't see
it.

~~~
elcapitan
"To enable horizontal layout for the current workspace, use:

The View menu Toggle Editor Group Layout."

~~~
antarrah
Ah, it's one or the other. That sucks but thanks for the clarification.

------
santaclaus
I wish wish wish MS would add built in, offline spell checking. The plugins
I've tried are pretty buggy, and I would love to spell check markdown and
documentation. (Also, spell check applied only to _comments_ would be cool
too!)

------
whatever_dude
I gotta say, the speed with which they add new features to VSC is incredible.

------
dbrgn
Interesting to see that all screenshots are taken on a Mac...

------
reledi
As an Atom user, I gotta say this looks like a solid release and I'm excited
to give VS Code another try. Well done!

------
aikah
lol, they just rolled back to 1.6 since users were DDOSing npmjs.org ;)

------
pomber
CSS completions in HTML, I was waiting for that one (for Polymer projects).

~~~
od14
Intellisense for script tags in HTML still not working though...

------
smegel
It's interesting they base this on NodeJS instead of Chakra.

~~~
sumitgt
Isn't Chakra a alternative to V8 as opposed to NodeJS?

There is a variant of NodeJS, that is based on Chakra instead of V8, but it
might not be mature enough to use here I guess.

------
legohead
I'm going to have to rate this as "probably never going to work". I really
wanted it to succeed, because I actually like Microsoft and want a new editor,
but the pure amount of ignorance this thing began with and continues to
display is just too much.

* Didn't launch with tabs, a plugin system, or code folding

* Still no Projects or Workspace. You can open a "Folder", which behaves like a workspace, but you can only have one open at a time.

* When you search/find-in-files, it uses the left UI element, which is just dumb for search in code as you can only see about 20 characters per line. Yeah you can expand the window, but do you want to do that every time?

* Can't drag the UI elements and attach them somewhere else, which is a common staple of modern GUIs. This would fix the search "problem"

* No support for FTP or SSH as far as I can tell (I do see an extension or two)

When it wasn't launched with tabs, I gave it the benefit of the doubt thinking
they were just releasing something Alpha to get a feel for the market. But
they consistently can't put out common sense, modern day features. I feel like
a couple guys at MS got bored and decided to randomly work on an editor
without researching what is great about other editors first.

Sorry for the harshness of this post, I'm just disappointed, and love code
editors.

~~~
whatever_dude
You can have different instances of VSC open if you want to use 2 different
workspaces at the same time. On Windows I just right-click the task bar and do
"New Window" for that.

