Microsoft has released most of Visual Studio Code's source code on GitHub under the permissive MIT License, while the releases by Microsoft are proprietary freeware. On April 14, 2016, Visual Studio Code graduated from the public preview stage and was released to the Web. On November 18, 2015, the source of Visual Studio Code was released under the MIT License, and made available on GitHub. A preview build was released shortly thereafter. Visual Studio Code was first announced on April 29, 2015, by Microsoft at the 2015 Build conference. In the Stack Overflow 2022 Developer Survey, Visual Studio Code was ranked the most popular developer environment tool among 71,010 respondents, with 74.48% reporting that they use it. Users can change the theme, keyboard shortcuts, preferences, and install extensions that add functionality.

Features include support for debugging, syntax highlighting, intelligent code completion, snippets, code refactoring, and embedded Git. Visual Studio Code, also commonly referred to as VS Code, is a source-code editor made by Microsoft with the Electron Framework, for Windows, Linux and macOS. Binaries built by Microsoft: Proprietary software.

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