Which is the best code editor?

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Hello people,

I am just getting my head around coding in HTML and CSS and JavaScript. What editor do people use. I have just downloaded Visual Studio Code. Any other suggestions?

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Use whatever, it’s much of a muchness, best is relative and it’s mainly just personal choice. VSCode is nice, most of the stuff you need is included out of the box, so just have a go with it. Sublime, Atom, Notepad++, Brackets, TexMate, Vim/Neovim, Emacs/Spacemacs are other editors (the last two have certain significant advantages over everything else, but are much more difficult to learn/use initially, so just including them for completeness).

VSCode is probably best if you’re starting out. That and Atom are in a straight fight at the minute: both very similar, both highly polished and feature-rich, both backed by huge companies willing to pour vast amounts of resource into developing them, both with a huge community of users.

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I used Sublime Text for many years, since I started. I liked how lightweight and modifiable it was. Until I came across a statement that it’s only lightweight because it comes with practically nothing.

I’ve been using Atom lately, it’s got a good UI and interface. Preferences are a little lacking, but it’s hackable.

Brackets has a really cool feature that when you hover over a function declaration, it will open up a mini window of that functions definition right where the declaration in. It’s pretty cool way to be reminded of the function definition. It wasn’t enough for me to keep using it though.

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Hi DanCouper,

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Yes, I think I’ll start with VSCode and then see where that takes me. Thank you. It’s nice to hear from a fellow coder as I am new to all of this and was not sure if I were heading in the right direction with VSCode.

Thank you

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Hi Emgo-Dev,

Nice to hear from a fellow coder. This journey is so exciting. I really feel like I am building a career I love. And thank you for the advice. I think I’ll start with VSCode and go from there. I’ll have a look at your suggestions.
Cheers

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img

VS Code!

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I like that picture !

Great - now are there any guides to VSCode or is it best to jump in there ! I’m looking at it now

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Jump in! But there is a LOT that VS Code can do. There are a number of extensions to use. There is an extension installation/management section in VS Code. View > Extensions. You can search for and install extensions from there.

Here’s a few to grab for starters:

There are so many more but I don’t want to bog you down.

With the Live Server, you lets say you have a folder with:

  • index.html
  • main.css
  • main.js

With index.html in the editor window, you can start the live server and it will pull up the page in your browser. It will live update as you edit.

Auto Rename Tag is just a little handy thing and relevant for HTML.

I highly suggest learning Emmet. It is built in. You can check out the website here.
Basically you can do something like this:

div.container.header>h1{my heading}

then press TAB

And it will automatically expand it to:

<div class="container header"><h1>my heading</h1></div>

Brilliant. Codepen has that built in too.

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Whatever gets in your way the least. One of the people I work with should always us vi because she has been using it for 40 years and her fingers just execute the commands automatically. Another person I work with knows every Webstorm shortcut so well that he doesn’t have to actively think about it. Ultimately you’ll end up using whatever editor and/or IDE you have to think about the least.

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Thank you for the advice. I have started with VSCode - so far I like it. So lets see. I have to say I am quite excited by coding. I seem to be taking to it like a duck to water. I have a 3 month plan to get a job in coding within 3 months!