In a previous article I have imported an example project. Now I want to compile and build it.
Traditionally, the build action inside VS Code is somewhat hidden. There is a keyboard shortcut, but recent additions to VS Code making the build action more accessible.
And this applies to VS Code and many of its extensions. You agree to the licensing conditions, and you pay with your data.
VS Code source code is MIT licensed, but the binaries you can download and install have telemetry built in: you are giving Microsoft your usage data in return for using VS Code.
If you are concerned about this, and looking for free and libre open source binaries of VS Code, then have a look at MIT-Licensed VSCodium.
In essence, VS Code is only a text editor, although with very nice features. An editor which can be enhanced with so called extensions. With the right set of extensions, VS Code can be specialized for web development, or even LaTeX documenting. Or as in the case of this article series, for embedded development.
This is another article in my series about Visual Studio Code. After having it installed (see VS Code: IDE Installation), this one is about starting the IDE
I can start the IDE from the shortcut (if created during the installation) or by typing code in console/command prompt shell (e.g. Windows PowerShell). To be able to use the code command requires VS Code to be present in the PATH.
Nothing has to last forever, and VS Code might not be the right thing for everyone. VS Code can go overboard with all the extensions and things it had proposed to install. Up to a point that one needs to get re-started again. Or because you tasted VS Code, but you did not like it.
That’s OK, you can uninstall it, after you have installed it (see VS Code: IDE Installation). The catch is: the uninstall does not a full removal, as settings and extensions do not get removed.
This article shows how to fully uninstall VS Code.
It is August 1st, and Switzerland is celebrating its National Holiday. Rather cold and rainy, so this gets me some time to catch up on things. The preparation for the coming university semester in September is in full swing, and I have the honor to take over building up a new Master of Science in Engineering education module. In the existing courses I teach on the topic of embedded systems, I do use devices and MCUs from vendors like Broadcom, NXP, STM, Nordic, Raspberry Pi and Espressif. This not only means different SDKs, but different IDEs with different debug probes.
Eclipse has been the common factor in the mix with all these, and with all the pros and cons, it worked very well. With NXP having released support for Visual Studio Code, adding an announcement, and other vendors going into the same direction, I took the decision that I want to migrate my lab and lecture infrastructure to VS Code.
The choice of IDE is sometimes given by the available tools at hand. And sometimes it is a preference of the look and feel. Or maybe just what one is used to use. And sometimes small changes can make a big difference too.
For example, when I’m starring at my code for hours, a nice font can make all the difference. A cool and nice feature of fonts are ‘Ligatures‘. Maybe you can you can spot them in the following screenshot?