Editing Code
A developer must edit code, for which you will need a code editor, i.e., a program to help you author code in the same way that Microsoft Word helps you author documents.
A good code editor does more than allow you to type. It helps you write accurate, working code without bugs, to follow best practices of code style, to quickly see the results of your work, and more.
People speak of using an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), where a code editor is one part of the IDE’s set of tools for code development. We don’t need to worry about exactly what makes an “editor” become an “IDE”.
Visual Studio Code
There are many editors/IDEs and you may already have a preference. You don’t need to switch if you use Atom, R Studio, Komodo or something else. However, the “official” editor/IDE used by the MDI is Visual Studio Code (VS Code) and you will have the best experience integrating with others if you use it. It is the most common editor in use today and well supported.
Install VS Code
You’ll find everything you need to get started with VS Code here:
https://code.visualstudio.com/
When you install VS Code, you will have a chance to choose your color theme. If you are new to writing code, hardcore developers tend to use dark themes, but it is your choice.
Extensions
VS Code is a fully functioning editor “out of the box”, but it can be enhanced by various “Extensions”. To see the extensions that are already installed, click on the Extensions icon in the leftmost panel of VS Code.
Depending on what you will work on in the MDI, you will find certain extensions to be very useful. We’ll mention these again when you need them, but it won’t hurt you to find and install them now. Here’s a good list to start with.
- Remote - SSH, by Microsoft
- GitHub Pull Requests and Issues, by GitHub
- Code Spell Checker, by Street Side Software
- R, by REditorSupport
- YAML, by Red Hat
- perl-syntax, by Jack Karamanian
There are often many extensions for the same languages, be sure to get the exact ones mentioned above.