News
Visual Studio Code Editor Gets New Extensions for Java Programming
- By David Ramel
- January 16, 2018
The Visual Studio Code team continues to add Java functionality to Microsoft's open source, cross-platform code editor via extensions, just launching a new batch for working with Maven, Tomcat and Checkstyle.
Previously, Microsoft introduced, open sourced and improved a popular Debugger for Java extension, downloaded more than 451,000 times. It also published an extension that added support for the JUnit unit testing framework.
The company's efforts to infuse Java goodness into VS Code might stem from the tremendous popularity of the Language Support for Java (preview) extension by Red Hat, with which the Java debugger works. Downloaded more than 2.1 million times, that extension provides Java support via the Eclipse JDT Language Server implementation of the Language Server Protocol.
The Language Server Protocol, actually originated by Microsoft, "is used between a tool (the client) and a language smartness provider (the server) to integrate features like auto complete, goto definition, find all references and alike into the tool."
Before last week's launch of the three new extensions, the VS Code team announced support for JUnit via the Java Test Runner extension. The lightweight test runner/debugger recognizes JUnit4 tests (support for JUnit 5 is something the team would like to explore, program manager Xiaokai He said), performs run and debug tests and lets developers view test status and run summaries.
The VS Code team also continued to improve the Java debugger, last week announcing the fifth update in the past three months.
Shortly afterward, He followed up by announcing three more Java-related extensions. They are:
"If you're trying to find a performant editor for your Java project, please try out those new extensions and let us know what you think!" He concluded. "We plan to keep updating and releasing new extensions to make VS Code a better editor for Java." In the meantime, there are many more Java-related extensions in the Visual Studio Code Marketplace, which you can view here.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer for Converge360.