Visual Studio Code vs Visual Studio

Background on Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio 00:00

• Visual Studio Code is a text editor while Visual Studio is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE).
• Visual Studio has multiple versions, enterprise, professional, and community. The community version is free, just like Visual Studio Code.

Differences between Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code 00:40

• Debugging tools
  • Visual Studio provides everything needed to debug, compile and run applications with not much needed to set up.
  • In Visual Studio Code, with its text editor feature, it can be quite burdensome to set up the debugging, compiling and running of apps.

“there’s nothing extra to set up, we just go to the green play button with its express next to it and click it. Then the browser window pops open and as you can see, our breakpoint gets hit.” 03:06

“with vs code being a text editor, which means you can edit virtually any file of code, setting up the tools needed to debug, compile, and/or run applications can be quite a bit more involved in vs code compared to visual studio that provides mostly everything if not completely everything for you.” 03:02

• Performance
  • Visual Studio’s 2019 preview has led to it narrowing the performance gap with Visual Studio Code.
  • How each impacts the resources on a computer varies and will be explored.
• Look and feel
  • The capability to customize the layout in each of them is what creates the difference in their appearance.
  • It varies where each of the commonly used features and functions are located.
  • The degree of customization for each of them can also differ.
• Text Editor vs IDE
  • Visual Studio Code is a text editor that allows the editing of any file of code and requires configuring appropriate tools to debug, compile and/or run applications.
  • Visual Studio is a complete IDE that makes available virtually everything required, independent of the programming language being used.

Conclusion 02:42

Visual Studio Code vs Visual Studio 04:10

• Vs code is folder-based, whereas visual studio is project and solution based
• For a node.js web app, we select the “open local folder” option in visual studio
• Vs code manages to figure out the folder structure when you open the project while visual studio needs to be opened as a project or solution to have the same behavior
• When debugging JavaScript or TypeScript files in their respective applications, both vs code and visual studio can use attach to process
• Setting this up can be a bit of a process for both vs code and visual studio

“I will include some links in the description below for some documentation on how to do this.” 05:42

• “Prior to the release of the 2019 preview for visual studio, performance was a top complaint for myself and many other developers.”05:56
• “The release of the 2019 preview was a welcome surprise. The same solutions, even the one with 25 projects in it, all load up incredibly fast with no crashes or lockups within seconds.” 06:55
• Both applications use near-identical resources when running idle, with visual studio using slightly more CPU but more memory and the opposite for vs code
• Vs code’s default layout allows for the intuitive splitting of screens to display two files side-by-side, whereas visual studio’s process to do this is less intuitive

Layout and Windows 08:17

• Visual Studio and VS Code both have a bottom panel. However, Visual Studio doesn’t include the terminal in it by default like VS Code does.
• VS Code makes the bottom panel feel like a more natural part of the layout.
• The bottom panel for VS Code has four default tabs – Problems, Output, Debug Console, and Terminal.
• In Visual Studio, the Errors List window replaces the Problems tab in VS Code.
• Visual Studio’s Output tab allows you to select a drop-down to show the output of various processes.
• VS Code breaks out the Debug Console into its own tab, whereas in Visual Studio, Debug is just an option under Output.

“vs code makes this feel like a more natural part of the layout” 08:25

Customization 08:56

• In VS Code, you can move the bottom panel to the left or right for preference.
• The file explorer and extensions windows always remain on the left in VS Code.
• Visual Studio gives you more flexibility with a grid system they’ve implemented.
• You can customize the layout of Visual Studio to your heart’s content.

“I again prefer VS code’s take on this” 08:56

Installing Dependencies 09:37

• VS Code is a text editor, and it doesn’t come with everything the same way an IDE does.
• For example, if you want to create a simple JavaScript website in VS Code, you need to install node.js on your machine first.
• In Visual Studio, you can select the Node.js development box in the Visual Studio Installer, and it pulls in all the different things for you if you want that option.

“if i want to create a simple javascript website in vs code i.. have to go to the node.js website and install node.js on my machine” 09:39

VS Code vs. Visual Studio 10:44

• VS Code is cross-platform, meaning you can install it on a mac or a windows PC.
• If you have a mac, then Visual Studio wouldn’t be very free anymore, considering you’d have to buy a windows PC to be able to use it.
• VS Code is a great option for website development, basic C++, or Python.
• Visual Studio affords the usability to develop a .NET desktop application, such as a WBF application, Windows Form application, or Universal Windows Platform application.
• The look and feel, snappy performance, and simplicity of VS Code are what win it over Visual Studio for the speaker.
• The gap between them is pretty small, and Visual Studio has more raw development capability and comes with everything.
• Your choice between VS Code and Visual Studio depends on what you want to develop and whether you need a cross-platform option.

YouTube video introduction 00:00

• The segment opens by inviting the viewer to follow the creator on Twitter, found in the video description.
• The viewer is also encouraged to like the video and click the subscribe button and bell icon.

“Feel free to follow me on Twitter using the link in the description below… since they’re down there why don’t you go ahead and click on that subscribe button and hit the bell icon while you’re at it.” 12:23

Conclusion of video 12:40

• The end of the video is announced, thanking viewers for watching.
• The creator indicates they had a good time.

“Well, that’s it guys. This was fun; I’ll see you in the next one” 12:39

Music 12:55

• At this point in the video, there is an audio track playing.