Are you in search of a highly flexible text editor with superior IDE features, or do you want the most efficient text editor that gives you amazingly fast performance? If the answer is yes, then there are two multilanguage, and multi-OS programming text editors available in the market - Visual Studio Code and Sublime Text.
Both of these text editors can run smoothly on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS.
In this article, you will learn about some of the advantages both of these editors provide so that you can make an informed decision on which one to choose for your workflow.
Visual Studio Code or Sublime Text: Which is the better option?
Here, you will learn in some detail about the various advantages that these two text editors provide so that you can choose one that fulfills your requirement.
Visual Studio Code
Microsoft has initially released Visual Studio, which is currently one of the best web development IDEs available in the market. It supports some of the most popular languages, such as JavaScript, TypeScript, and Node.js.
The company wanted to motivate developers to create microservice apps on its Azure platform. Hence, Microsoft launched Visual Studio Code to target JavaScript developers that want to utilize full-fledged development for server-side scripting.
The Visual Studio Code is a free text editor of Microsoft that can run without any problem on Mac OS, Windows, and Linux.
Some of the crucial benefits of this text editor include the following.
Simple layout
It has a simple and easy-to-use layout that allows you to write or edit any code with no distraction.
It allows you to open multiple editors at the same time so that you can do side-by-side editing.
It has a mini-map (it is a code outline) that gives you a complete overview of your source code, which makes navigation easy.
More features
This powerful text editor allows you to edit codes in a range of languages such as CSS (it is the built-in language), Python, and C# with the help of the extensions.
Therefore, if there is any cross-language reference or fault, then you can detect it quite easily.
Intelli-Sense
This high-performance text editor can figure out any snippet of code that is not completed by the programmer.
Furthermore, the variable declarations and common variable syntaxes are made automatically.
This is very helpful because in case the user has forgotten to declare a variable that is used in the program, then the intelli-sense will automatically declare it.
Cross-platform support
The earlier editors used to support only Linux, Mac systems, or Windows individually.
However, Visual Studio Code is a true cross-platform editor that can work on all of these three platforms smoothly.
Extension and support
The Visual Studio Code generally offers support to all programming languages.
However, in case you want to use a particular programming language that is not supported by it, then you can download the extension to use it.
Furthermore, if you use an extension, then it does slow down the text editor since it runs as another process.
Repository
This text editor is connected with Git and it also allows you to connect it with any other repository.
It guarantees secure and timely storage of your code, which is important for saving or accessing it when needed.
Web support
This text editor comes with integrated support for web applications. This helps you to create feature-rich and high-performance web applications with the help of Visual Studio Code.
Hierarchy structure
In this text editor, the code files are placed in files and folders. The code files also have their files which are sometimes required to execute highly complex projects.
You can delete these files as per your requirements.
Terminal support
Sometimes the programmer needs to start right from the root of the directory for a particular action.
The integrated terminal/console allows the programmer support to not switch in between two different screens for the same.
Multi-projects
The Visual Studio Code text editor allows you to open multiple projects which have several files or folders at the same time even if these projects are not linked with each other.
Sublime Text
Sublime Text is one of the most popular commercial source code editors developed by Sublime HQ. The code editor supports various programming and markup languages.
You can download the code editor for free. However, for continued use, you have to pay a license fee of $80. It also runs on the three major platforms Linux, Windows, and Mac OS.
Some of the advantages of using Sublime Text include the following.
Amazing symbol analysis
It has an integrated symbol analysis feature. Symbol analysis is a term that is used for keyword search in your code.
It allows you to swiftly find methods and class names throughout your code.
Extremely fast
Compared to Visual Studio Code, this editor is very fast which helps you in writing courses in a quick time.
This editor opens very fast and it helps you to make searches in double-quick time.
As Sublime Text is a native app, which is written using C++, you will find its footprint to be very small.
Better Vim bindings
It allows you to use Vim key findings when you are writing the codes, which allows you to leverage some of the modern features of this text editor like the file tabs and sidebar files.
Furthermore, programmers find the Vim support offered by Sublime Text offers them greater accuracy compared to Visual Studio Code, which allows you to write the code faster.
Snippets
This feature is similar to the one that you find in Visual Studio Code. However, it offers additional support for building your own or installing others through the extensions.
Summary
There is no unanimity of opinion amongst the programmers regarding the best text editor available in the market and everybody has their own choice.
Even a single programmer may choose a different text editor depending upon the requirement of their latest project. As no one text editor offers the perfect solution for all development environments.
Therefore, it all boils down to your personal preferences, current requirement, and which text editor fulfills its optimality.