However if Git is already setup on your system, you should be able to install VS Code and use it immediately. The advantage is that only a single Git instance needs to be configured with the minor inconvenience of requiring a separate install from VS Code. Git support is a big part of the VS Code project, but in order to use this support a local copy of Git will need to be installed on your system. (According to Microsoft, this functionality will be exposed to end users once documentation is finalized.) This means that while the current version targets ASP.NET development, this is not a permanent restriction and only a result that it is still a preview. Thanks to the design of VS Code, additional languages can be supported without changing the application.

The debugging tools include the familiar breakpoints, code stepping, and variable inspection. IntelliSense support is complemented by Outlining, Find All References, and Go To Definition.

VS Code focuses on the following top line features: IntelliSense, built-in debugging, and Git source control integration. While part of the Visual Studio family, it has a different feature set than the traditional VS IDE. Named Visual Studio Code, the company considers to be a “code focused” editor available free of charge to all developers. Today at Build Microsoft announced the release of a native Visual Studio application for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Visual studio preview mac os asp.net