Visual Studio Code

At its core, software consists of text. Anyone writing a program types instructions in a defined language, much like typing an essay. Visual Studio Code is a free program from Microsoft in which you write and organize exactly this kind of text. It is thus a kind of writing program, but built specifically for program text. It colors the words, flags typos, and manages entire folders full of files. The name is usually shortened to VSCode and, despite the similarity, has little to do with the much older, much heavier Microsoft product Visual Studio.

Why almost everyone uses the same editor

VSCode appeared in 2015 and took over the market within a few years. In the annual developer survey by the platform Stack Overflow, well over 70 percent of respondents regularly report using it. For a single tool, that is an unusually high share. Earlier favorites such as Sublime Text or Atom, by contrast, have fallen sharply behind.

Two reasons explain this success. First, it costs nothing, even though comparable tools used to cost several hundred euros a year. Second, it runs the same way on Windows, macOS, and Linux, so a team doesn’t have to argue over tools. On top of that, Microsoft released the source code publicly. Other companies are therefore allowed to build their own versions of it.

For the AI industry, this has become decisive. Anyone wanting to sell a coding assistant has to offer it where developers already work. VSCode has thus become the stage on which the competition for AI tools plays out. Company announcements about new coding models almost always include the line that an extension for VSCode is available.

Extensions as a building-block principle

In its basic state, VSCode is deliberately plain. It doesn’t know any single programming language particularly well. The actual capabilities come from extensions, small add-on programs that you install with two clicks. There are extensions for Python, for databases, for team collaboration. The official catalog lists over 50,000 of them.

The comparison to a smartphone fits well. The device alone can do little; only the apps make it useful. A web developer and a data analyst use the same VSCode but see completely different functions in it. This openness is the reason a single program can serve so many different professions.

Technically, VSCode itself is built with web technology, that is, with the same building blocks as a website. This makes development fast and the interface identical everywhere. But it comes at a price: VSCode requires more memory than older, leaner editors. Anyone working on a weak laptop will notice.

The editor as a gateway for AI assistants

VSCode is most visible in news about coding AI. GitHub Copilot, the best-known such assistant, launched in 2021 as an extension for VSCode. As you type, it suggests entire lines of code, which you accept with the Tab key. By now, almost every major AI provider offers something comparable.

Some companies go further and build their own editors based on VSCode’s published source code. Cursor and Windsurf are the best-known examples. They look like VSCode and adopt its extensions, but place AI at the center instead of at the margin. The fact that such competitors could arise at all is due solely to Microsoft’s decision to release the source code.

For beginners, VSCode is usually the first contact with a real development environment. Many schools and online courses require it, because installation takes only a few minutes. A common misconception here: VSCode does not run programs itself. You additionally need the appropriate language installed on the computer, such as Python. The editor only writes and organizes the text and passes it on to that program.