After looking at a text editor and a code editor, you quickly discover the limits of what they have to offer. The biggest drawback is when it comes to compiling, testing, and running your application.
With an IDE, you get Integration. Everything you need to do with your application is done in one single editor.
Visual Studio is an IDE that gives you everything a code editor has along with the ability to compile, test, run, publish, and check-in your code to a storage area.
Intellisense
One of the biggest features in Visual Studio is Intellisense. It's a code-completion assistant to help you with listing members, variables, code snippets, keywords, and other info that relates to what you're typing.
Just like on your smartphone with auto-complete, Intellisense makes suggestions as you type.
The nicest part is that Intellisense is available for all languages used in Visual Studio. Here are a few:
C#
Visual Basic
JavaScript
TypeScript
XML
HTML
CSS
Intellisense helps you enter code faster. It also provides you the ability to write better code as you learn from the given code suggestions.
You can see Intellisense in action in the below video:
Debugging
Another important feature in an integrated IDE is a built-in debugger, which provides the ability to check for errors in code.
Watch the video below to see how the application, run in debug mode, handles an error. The application stops at the bug and offers helpful suggestions for finding a solution.
Let's recap!
A fully-fledged IDE is a single editor where you can write, compile, run, debug, and publish your application.
With Intellisense, you can write code faster and better thanks to its helpful hints.
With your IDE's built-in debugger, you can quickly find errors in your application.
