Language Support of Visual Studio Code for Beginner Programmers

Toby Jones
2 min readMay 11, 2024

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Photo by Clément Hélardot on Unsplash

Visual Studio Code (VS Code) has excellent support for a wide range of programming languages, making it a versatile choice for beginners learning various languages. Here are some of the languages that VS Code supports well and is a good option for beginners:

  1. C/C++: With the C/C++ extension from Microsoft, VS Code provides a great development environment for these languages, including IntelliSense, debugging, and build tasks.
  2. Java: The Java Extension Pack brings Java language support, including code completion, refactoring, and debugging capabilities.
  3. C#: The C# extension from Microsoft provides syntax highlighting, IntelliSense, debugging, and code navigation features for C# developers.
  4. PHP: The PHP extension pack offers language support, debugging, code formatting, and other features for PHP development.
  5. Go: The Go language server provides code completion, hover information, and other language features for Go development in VS Code.
  6. Rust: The Rust extension provides support for syntax highlighting, code completion, formatting, and more for the Rust programming language.
  7. Ruby: With the Ruby extension, VS Code provides language support, debugging, and code formatting for Ruby.
  8. Swift: The Swift Language Server extension brings code completion, hover information, and other language features for Swift development.
  9. Typescript: VS Code has excellent built-in support for TypeScript, including IntelliSense, refactoring, and debugging capabilities.
  10. Markup Languages (HTML, CSS, XML, Markdown, etc.): VS Code provides robust support for various markup languages, making it a good option for web development and documentation work.

While VS Code supports many languages out of the box, its true power lies in its extensibility. The vast library of extensions allows users to add support for virtually any programming language or framework they need. Additionally, VS Code’s lightweight design, customizable interface, and cross-platform compatibility make it an appealing choice for beginners learning multiple languages.

It’s worth noting that while VS Code is a great general-purpose code editor, for some specific languages or ecosystems, dedicated IDEs like PyCharm (for Python), IntelliJ IDEA (for Java), or Visual Studio (for C#/.NET) may provide a more specialized and feature-rich experience. However, for beginners just starting out with multiple languages, VS Code offers a gentle learning curve and a consistent experience across different languages.

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Toby Jones
Toby Jones

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