Microsoft's Visual Studio Code is a free code editor for Windows, Linux, and macOS that is used by a lot of developers because of its small disk footprint and customization options. The C++ extension for Visual Studio Code is particularly popular because it packs a number of features such as debugging and IntelliSense code completion, and its agnosticism to various platforms and architectures.
Now, Microsoft has announced the first generally available release of this extension.
The C++ extension already includes a number of developer-friendly features such as IntelliSense, code navigation, support for refactoring, semantic colorization, and debugging capabilities such as breakpoints, watch variables, and "step" functionality, among others.
With version 1.0, Microsoft is bringing support for Linux on ARM and ARM64, which includes remote build and debug capabilities. To make the configuration of IntelliSense easier, the company has released a video tutorial which you can view here. The update also features new rich formatting settings for C++, with all formatting configurations that are available in Visual Studio IDE being ported over to Visual Studio Code. Performance in this release has been improved as well.
Lastly, the firm has created a C++ Extension Pack so developers can take full advantage of Visual Studio Code. It includes the following:
- C/C++
- C/C++ Themes
- CMake
- CMake Tools
- Remote Development Extension Pack
- GitHub Pull Requests and Issues
- Visual Studio Codespaces
- LiveShare Extension Pack
- Doxygen Documentation Generator
- Better C++ Syntax
If you're interested in trying out version 1.0 of the C++ extension for Visual Studio Code, you can do so by following Microsoft's instructions here.
