Javascript is the new ‘swiss-army knife’ of web development and fortunately, it comes with a versatile toolbox to get the job done: the open-source Visual Studio Code. VSCode, as it’s commonly known, is a cross-platform editor from Microsoft that runs in your browser.
It’s a free and lightweight IDE that features a sleek design and powerful Javascript support. In fact, nowadays more and more javascript developers use it as their primary development tool. What makes VSCode so popular? That’s what we will try to answer in this article. Let’s take a look at a number of useful extensions for javascript developers in 2021.
Prettier
Loving our content?
Join our newsletter and get access to exclusive free content.Join our newsletterhttps://11fa3052bc7b53b35ed09b584fe88552.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.htmlreport this ad
Resources
https://11fa3052bc7b53b35ed09b584fe88552.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.htmlreport this ad
The best VS Code extensions for JavaScript developers for 2021
A collection with the best VS Code extension for JavaScript developersLast updated on Dec 29, 2020 by Juan Cruz Martinez
For some years now, I’ve been using the Jetbrains suite of IDEs like PyCharm pro and WebStorm, and since those are on the expensive side, every time I recommend them, people suggest me to switch to VS Code, as it’s free and awesome. So after some discussions on Reddit in that regard, I promised I would try VS Code for a few weeks.
Some of the big selling points for the VS Code (besides the price, FREE) are customization options and the plugin ecosystem. Since I wanted to have a great experience during my tryout, I needed some plugins to level up my game, so again, on Reddit, I was suggested a ton of them, and I’d like to talk today about those plugins for VS Code that were truly awesome.
Now, I’m still going to be using PyCharm and WebStorm in my projects because it’s what I love, been using them for years, and they provide me a lot of value for the money. With that said, VS Code amazed me, it was super easy and fast to use, and it was a great experience overall.
ESLint
ESList is one of the most popular and beloved extensions among JS developers, without a doubt. The extension runs ESLint rules on your code and integrates the result within the editor. It allows you to detect and fix quickly rule invalidations. It’s a must-have for all JS developers as it helps improving productivity and quality of the code.
Prettier
Prettier is an opinionated code formatter that integrates with VS Code, Visual Studio, Atom, Vim, Sublime Text, and many more. This handy little extension makes your codes consistently formatted and properly indented and presents colored keywords for more readable code.
It reduces the formatting effort and thus increasing productivity. It helps produce high code readability.
An opinionated code formatter that can format your JavaScript code automatically. By having Prettier installed, you never have to worry about formatting; just let the computer take care of it!
It can be a little hard to get used to having your formatting handled for you as I’m sure a lot of devs have their own style that they like. Having Prettier on a team ensures that everyone follows the same style of coding.
Debugger for Chrome
Loving our content?
Join our newsletter and get access to exclusive free content.Join our newsletterhttps://11fa3052bc7b53b35ed09b584fe88552.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.htmlreport this ad
Resources
The best VS Code extensions for JavaScript developers for 2021
A collection with the best VS Code extension for JavaScript developersLast updated on Dec 29, 2020 by Juan Cruz Martinez
For some years now, I’ve been using the Jetbrains suite of IDEs like PyCharm pro and WebStorm, and since those are on the expensive side, every time I recommend them, people suggest me to switch to VS Code, as it’s free and awesome. So after some discussions on Reddit in that regard, I promised I would try VS Code for a few weeks.
Some of the big selling points for the VS Code (besides the price, FREE) are customization options and the plugin ecosystem. Since I wanted to have a great experience during my tryout, I needed some plugins to level up my game, so again, on Reddit, I was suggested a ton of them, and I’d like to talk today about those plugins for VS Code that were truly awesome.
Now, I’m still going to be using PyCharm and WebStorm in my projects because it’s what I love, been using them for years, and they provide me a lot of value for the money. With that said, VS Code amazed me, it was super easy and fast to use, and it was a great experience overall.
ESLint
ESList is one of the most popular and beloved extensions among JS developers, without a doubt. The extension runs ESLint rules on your code and integrates the result within the editor. It allows you to detect and fix quickly rule invalidations. It’s a must-have for all JS developers as it helps improving productivity and quality of the code.
Prettier
Prettier is an opinionated code formatter that integrates with VS Code, Visual Studio, Atom, Vim, Sublime Text, and many more. This handy little extension makes your codes consistently formatted and properly indented and presents colored keywords for more readable code.
It reduces the formatting effort and thus increasing productivity. It helps produce high code readability.
Quokka.js
Quokka.js provides rapid JavaScript prototyping in your VS Code editor. It is a live playground for JavaScript and TypeScript. It is often called the modern-day scratchpad for JS developers.
Have you ever wanted to try something quick and you end up on your browser’s console to run some JS? Or you start the node process on a terminal and try it there? This extension’s primary purpose is to run code fast and conveniently right there in your VS Code editor.
REST Client
REST Client is a VS Code extension that allows you to send an HTTP request and view the response directly in VS Code.
It is Postman for VS Code with the convenience of being integrated into the code editor. REST Client supports both REST and GraphQL APIs
Debugger for Chrome
Debugging JavaScript can be painful. Chrome and other browsers offer amazing tools that help you with the job. Still, they are often hard to work with or don’t provide a great experience overall, especially when working with frameworks and many libraries.
Debugger for Chrome is an extension developed by Microsoft that seamlessly helps you debug your code for every small change. Debugger for Chrome console is pretty powerful when it comes to discovering which lines and functions occur the error came from, up to seeing its data handling.
Although console.log() has its place, it’s not the best way to debug. Chrome has debugging tools built in, but did you know you can also debug directly in VS Code using this extension?
I personally prefer to debug using this extension. This means that I can stay inside of the editor that I’m used to, make changes on the fly, etc. You can do most of the things that you would expect when debugging.
- set breakpoints
- step through lines of code, function calls, etc.
- watch variables
- view your console output
JavaScript (ES6 Code Snippets)
Snippet extensions are one of the most popular categories of extensions, and this one follows suit. It includes snippets for modern ES6 JavaScript, which is what you should be writing (or learning if you haven’t already). Although this snippet is not specific to any framework, these snippets can be triggered from severl different file types.
- JavaScript (.js)
- TypeScript (.ts)
- JavaScript React (.jsx)
- TypeScript React (.tsx)better.devGet Started w/ JavaScript for free!
- Html (.html)
- Vue (.vue)
Here are a couple of my favorites that you should try out!
- imp – import a module
- imd – import a named export
- fre – generate for each loop through array
- anfn – generate anonymous function
- thenc – add then and catch declaration to a promise
There are many others, so go give them a try!
ESLint
ESList is one of the most popular and beloved extensions among JS developers, without a doubt. The extension runs ESLint rules on your code and integrates the result within the editor. It allows you to detect and fix quickly rule invalidations. It’s a must-have for all JS developers as it helps improving productivity and quality of the code.
Prettier
Prettier is an opinionated code formatter that integrates with VS Code, Visual Studio, Atom, Vim, Sublime Text, and many more. This handy little extension makes your codes consistently formatted and properly indented and presents colored keywords for more readable code.
It reduces the formatting effort and thus increasing productivity. It helps produce high code readability.
Quokka.js
Quokka.js provides rapid JavaScript prototyping in your VS Code editor. It is a live playground for JavaScript and TypeScript. It is often called the modern-day scratchpad for JS developers.
Have you ever wanted to try something quick and you end up on your browser’s console to run some JS? Or you start the node process on a terminal and try it there? This extension’s primary purpose is to run code fast and conveniently right there in your VS Code editor.
Have you ever wanted to test out a function or play around with some JavaScript code? Sometimes you can test right in the Chrome Dev Tools console, sometimes you’ll open up a CodePen. With Quokka.js, you can create a scratchpad right inside VS Code!
Test out your JavaScript quickly and easily with Quokka.js.
ESLint
ESList is one of the most popular and beloved extensions among JS developers, without a doubt. The extension runs ESLint rules on your code and integrates the result within the editor. It allows you to detect and fix quickly rule invalidations. It’s a must-have for all JS developers as it helps improving productivity and quality of the code.
With so many amazing tools out there, you should not be stressing over formatting your code. ESLint is one of many that can auto–format your code (on save if you choose). Additionally, the linting aspect can “yell” at you (for lack of a better word) to encourage or require to follow certain guidelines.
ESLint or TSLint (for TypeScript) are often configured with many starter projects, so you may not even have to configure it yourself. Just by creating a new project and opening it up in VS Code, you’ll have all the help you need to write consistent code!
Import Cost
If you’re worried about the size of the packages and modules that you import into your app, check out this extension! Next to your import statements you will see the size of the package you are importing. This is a great way to ensure the size of your app bundles is as small as possible!
Path Intellisense
When trying to reference a file in your workspace, it can be tough to remember exact file paths and names. I try to keep my menu bar in VS Code closed most of the time (to maximize code real estate), so I hate having to open the file explorer just to double check where a file is located. That’s where Path Intellisense comes in!
This extension will provide you intellisense when referencing file paths. All you have to is start typing a path inside of quotes and you’ll get intellisense for folder and file names.
View Node Package
Click on your require or import lines in your code and click straight to the GitHub repo.
Very helpful when you want to jump to GitHub to view some source code or look through docs/issues.
Better Comments
This extension is probably the least popular of the bunch, but I personally find it incredibly useful. So, you know when you have a piece of code you need to implement or finish later? Or you you want to mark a piece of code as deprecated? Or you have a question for another developer about a piece of code?
This extension will provide color coded comments to solve all of the above. Here’s a list of the available color codes.
- Alerts
- Queries
- TODOs
- Highlights
NPM Intellisense
Ever gone to import a package and forgot exactly what the name is? Well, no more! This extension will provide package intellisense when importing based on the NPM packages that you have installed.
Wallaby.js
Run your tests as you code! From the people that brought us Quokka.js, here’s a cool tool to speed up your development.
Conclusion
Whether you’re a novice or advanced user of Javascript, Visual Studio Code (abbreviated as VS Code), here’s a list of JavaScript extension you can add to your Visual Studio Code. This list is based on my own preferences and the ones that I found worthwhile when developing my web application.