I am using Visual Studio Code (on my Mac) to teach a remote college-level class in HTML and CSS. I have been reading that Visual Studio Code is only going to be available for Macs until August of 2023. In one thread, someone wrote that we should just use VS Code instead of Visual Studio Code. I can’t seem to find the difference. Since I use a Mac, and about half of my students do too, and the other half use Windows, I need a piece of (free) software that will work on both platforms. Can anyone tell me if I can continue to use Visual Studio Code, or if I need to figure out where to get VS Code?
I am successfully using Visual Studio Code right now. I looked up VS Code but the internet says it’s the same thing as Visual Studio Code. I am confused about the difference.
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Answers
"VSCode" is Visual Studio Code. VSCode is a common short-name the community has given it. Visual Studio Code is not going anywhere anytime soon as far as I am aware. You seem to be confusing Visual Studio Code for regular Visual Studio or more specifically, Visual Studio for Mac.
The "big" differences between Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio/Visual Studio for Mac are:
Visual Studio for Mac is slated to be retired in August of 2024. As suggested in that link, an alternative to it is Visual Studio Code.
"Visual Studio Code" and "VS Code" refer to the same software.
Contrary to what Timothy G. seems to imply in their answer, "VS Code" is not just some community-created, unofficial nickname. It’s a term used by the VS Code maintainers, by the software itself to refer to itself, and it shows up numerous times in the earliest release note document: https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v0_3_0. See also https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Amicrosoft%2Fvscode%20%22VS%20Code%22&type=code and https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Amicrosoft%2Fvscode-docs%20%22VS%20Code%22&type=code.
The claim you read somewhere else on the internet that VS Code will no longer be supported after August 2023 is bogus. The September 2023 release of VS Code already released and continues to support macOS. See also What are the system requirements for vscode? and How can I use VS Code on versions of macOS that are not supported by the latest version of VS Code?.
Actually, it seems that you misread. That claim was probably about Visual Studio for Mac, which is retiring on August 31st, 2024: https://aka.ms/vsmac-retire/. The overview section from that doc reads:
It’s a common for people to mix up VS Code and Visual Studio because the names are so similar (they’re also both Microsoft software). But they are- for the most part- completely different pieces of software (technically there’s some parts that overlap or are shared, but I won’t get into the nitty gritty here).
That retirement doc also has a section on alternatives to Visual Studio for Mac, which as its first suggestions, points to VS Code. They also suggest the option of using a local VM or a cloud-hosted VM.