Chapter 1: Introducing Visual Studio Code
Chapter Goal: this chapter will introduce Visual Studio Code as a development tool from Microsoft, discussing its open source and cross-platform nature, its goals and most typical usage scenarios, explaining how it works on Windows, macOS and Linux distributions.
Chapter 2: Getting to know the Workspace
Chapter Goal: this chapter will explain the VS Code workspace, its menus, commands, toolbars, shortcuts and areas in the user interface the developer must know to get familiar with the environment.
Chapter 3: Language support and code editing features
Chapter Goal: this chapter will explain what languages are supported out of the box and which are instead supported through extensibility and, more important, it will cover all the powerful code editing features that represent the core of this tool. This is definitely the most important chapter. This is updated according to the latest releases (e.g. support for Julia language).
Chapter 4: Working with files and folders
Chapter Goal: this chapter explains how to edit individual files and how to work with folders that contain multiple files (or projects) in a structured way, making the natural step forward after learning about code editing features. This is updated according to the releases of the latest 15 months (e.g. workspace trust, multi-root workspaces).
Chapter 5: Customizing VS Code
Chapter Goal: this chapter will talk about customizing preferences in the VS Code environment, such as themes, keyboard shortcuts, the code editor, network preferences and much more. This is updated according to the releases of the latest 15 months
Chapter 6: Managing extensions
Chapter Goal: this chapter will explain how to extend Visual Studio Code by installing extensions such as additional languages, debuggers, code snippets and team collaboration tools. It will also provide a list of must-have extensions and it will explain how to customize extension settings. As a new topic, guidance on how to create extensions will be provided (this is also the reason why this chapter has been renamed).
Chapter 7: Source control with Git
Chapter Goal: this chapter will discuss source control with Git, which is about how people in the development team can collaborate over the code. Common features such as committing changes, merging and branching will be discussed. As a bonus, this chapter will also discuss how to leverage the integrated Git support against Microsoft Azure DevOps and GitHub via an extension. This is updated according to the releases of the latest 15 months (e.g. enhanced merge editor)
Chapter 8: Automating tasks
Chapter Goal: this chapter will discuss how to execute external tools and commands from VS Code (such as compilers), explaining how this goes beyond being a simple code editor. This is updated according to the releases of the latest 15 months
Chapter 9: Building and debugging code
Chapter Goal: this is another key chapter, as it explains how powerful VS Code is as a development tool and not as a simple code editor, due to its capability of running and debugging code with integrated debuggers for .NET and Node.JS and with debuggers that can be installed as extensions. Examples of running and debugging code will be provided for .NET (C#), Node.JS (Java) and Docker. This has been renamed to appear less specific, but it will be updated to target .NET 7.
Chapter 10: Writing applications with Python
Chapter Goal: this chapter explains how VS Code can be used to build apps with the popular Python language, leveraging all the enhanced editing features described in Chapter 3 and the task automation features described in Chapter 8. It comes with fully working code examples.
Chapter 11: Building applications for the Cloud
Chapter Goal: this chapter explains how to set up VS Code to work with Microsoft Azure, installing the appropriate extensions and with practical examples about writing and deploying Azure functions. As a new topic, this chapter also describes how to package code into Docker containers and deploy these to Azure.
Chapter 12: Consuming AI Services with VS Code
Chapter Goal: this is a brand new chapter that wants to address a trending topic of these days: consuming AI services. In this chapter, code examples will be provided about consuming some of the AI services offered by MS Azure (e.g. Computer Vision API).
